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Chapter 3

God’s Mistake

“What courses do I teach?” Martin answered Peter after breakfast the following Friday morning. “This fall two sections of elementary harmony and a sophomore survey of Romantic composers. Four of my harmony students have real talent. Three are incompetent. The other ten are average.” Martin grimaced. “Best student I ever had died of AIDS. Bright guy. Great future. His death was a real shock. Got me to thinking about working with AIDS patients.”

“Guess I’m indebted to him,” Peter said.

“He drove me nuts.” Martin gathered laundry. “He wanted to use the harmonic progressions of Stravinsky and Charles Ives. Not in my class. In my class, you learn to write like Bach.”

Peter chuckled. “When I was studying at the Academy of Dance in New York, I was the same way. I couldn’t understand why we had to learn the classical approach first. I stuck with it. Got to love it. I dreamt that someday I’d dance at the Kennedy Center. They didn’t ask me to join the company. Not even the corps de ballet. I was crushed. So I tried out for every dance part on Broadway, off Broadway, and way off Broadway. Got a total of three chorus spots the whole time I was there. So I modeled for a while, but I couldn’t make enough money to keep myself in cigarettes.”

“You’re handsome enough.”

“Not rugged enough. Most of what I got was for gay magazines and shops. Then I worked as a translator for the New York branch of Nürnberger Spielsachen until they fired me for coming on to the stock boy. In ’82, I came to Washington. A guy I was seeing lived here. I stayed with him while I hunted for temporary work until I could get a dance role somewhere. I landed at the Riche, and the money was good, so I settled down to have a good time.”

“Sit at the desk while I change the bed.”

“A little pot, a little coke, lots of booze.” Peter flapped his hand on his outstretched arm. “I dressed in the latest and felt like I was it, honey, I mean, it! Had a different trick every night, several on weekends. Went to parties where we got into pot and coke and three-on-one and four-on-one scenes.” Peter raised an eyebrow. “You know what I’m talking about? Sort of a ménage à beaucoup.”

Martin tucked the blanket at the foot of the bed. “I get the general idea. But you did, um, tricks? You got paid?”

“That’s breeder’s speak. In the gay world, a trick is just a guy you have sex with.”

“Oh.”

Peter chuckled to himself. Poor Martin. He’d never understand the gay life. “Never mind, Martin. It’s all beyond you. Anyway, it was getting passé. I got back into German poetry. You know Gerhardt Müller? I translated some of his unpublished stuff and the German Literature Review printed it. And I discovered Mahler and Strauss. Do you know the Mahler Ninth? I started working at the barre again.”

Martin’s hands stopped smoothing the bed.

“B-a-r-r-e,” Peter said. “Where you do ballet calisthenics. Started writing poetry again. Hadn’t done that since college. One day I felt punk. Next thing you know I had night sweats and fever. I was terrified that I had AIDS, but there was no HTLV-III antibody test then, so I couldn’t even find out if I’d been infected. Then I came down with pneumocystis carinii. You know the rest.”

“You said something one time about a lover.”

“Didn’t amount to anything. I’ve never really lived with anybody.”

“You can get in bed now.”

Peter obeyed.

Martin pulled the covers over him. “Have you ever been in love?”

“Had a crush or two. Never really fell for anybody.”

“You never loved anybody?”

Peter laughed. “Love’s an illusion.”

Martin said nothing.

“You’ve got a class to teach,” Peter said.

Martin glanced at his watch. “Yep. Be back about six.” He rolled down his sleeves, straightened his tie, and was gone.

The apartment was smaller after Martin left. Peter did his mandatory daily exercises—walking, squatting, bending—for fifteen minutes and dropped into bed, winded. As his breathing returned to its phlegmy normal, he braced himself for the boring day ahead. He was too tired to read, and nothing was on television this early. So he studied the ceiling until he had memorized every pock, then turned on his stomach. He decided to nap if he could.

Had he ever loved anybody? Sally had come closest. But she didn’t count. She was a woman. Nanki-Poo, his Siamese cat? She—it turned out to be a she after he’d named her—had been devoted to him throughout his childhood. She died in his arms when he was in high school. Peter had loved Nanki-Poo. Anyone else?

The phone rang. Peter jumped. It hadn’t rung in days. He lifted the receiver. The rasp told him who it was.

“Hi, Mom,” he said, trying to sound pleased.

“Hello, darlin’. Hadn’t heard from you for so long I’d begun to wonder if you’d run off and joined the circus or something.” Cough. “I told your father you were probably working hard. And he said, ‘Alicia, if we don’t hear from Peter, it’s because Peter is too busy having a good time to get in touch with us’—or something like that.”

Peter rolled his eyes. Sure. Probably more like, “That lazy no-good doesn’t have time for us anymore. He’s too busy wasting his life.”

“How are things in Baltimore?” Peter said.

“Same. Your Aunt Helen and Uncle Bud might be coming east for Christmas. They’d been wanting us to come out there, but your father can’t ever get the time to take off.”

“How is he?”

“Uncle Bud?”

“Dad.”

“Fine, Peter. Why do you ask?”

“Wanted to know, that’s all. Still working hard?”

“He’ll never change. Tried to get him to go to Hochschild’s with me to pick out drapery material, but he said he had to get ready for his hearing on Thursday, so I ended up going by myself, as usual. We’re redoing the living room, did I tell you? I’m sick to death of that mauve sofa and chairs, and we can certainly afford better.” She broke into a wheezy laugh. “So anyway, I picked out this lovely peach blossom pattern . . .”

Peter closed his eyes and listened. Would his speaking voice be in ruins, too, at her age if he went on smoking? Then he remembered. He’d never live to her age.

All at once, oddly, surprised at himself, he felt sorry for her. His father was as disappointed in her as he was in Peter. He hadn’t shared a bedroom with her since Peter was a child. Had he ever been unfaithful? Peter was sure his mother never had. She’d done her best to piece together some kind of life for herself. She’d tried hard, with mixed and sometimes hilarious results, to overcome her southern country speech. Always dressed in the latest, though not always in the best taste, she knew what was in vogue in hair colors, moisturizers, eye liners, and skin toner. Carpets and draperies and upholstery took up her spare moments when she wasn’t doing her “important work.” Altar Guild at Saint Andrew’s. Membership chairwoman of the Garden Club. Women’s Civic League of Baltimore. Docent at the Poe House. Peter shrugged. She had her defenses. When things got too bad, she got very sweet and bleary and smelled faintly of gin and strongly of cologne.

His father’s defense was his practice. Even when he was home, he stayed in his study, a room strictly forbidden to all, even the cleaning lady. He’d done better than his wife—his accent was pure Baltimore except when he lapsed on purpose. Traditional glum father. Peter couldn’t remember what his father looked like when he smiled.

Peter scrunched his eyes. Maybe he could remember. He saw a young, bright face, midnight blue eyes, a five o’clock shadow, and a smile—large and broad, showing white, perfectly shaped teeth—like Peter’s. A light slick of sweat on the unlined forehead, cheeks still flushed from a romp. Yes, it was his father in a different time. After a tickle fest. And then there was decorating the Christmas tree, maybe more than once. He saw his father switching off all the lights in the living room except for the little twinkly tree bulbs. He bent over until his face was close to Peter’s, and he said, “Are you ready for the star, bruiser?” Peter clasped his hands and nodded quickly. His father put a silver star in Peter’s hands. “Ready to fly like a plane?” Peter nodded again. “Turn around.” His father slipped his huge hairy hands under Peter’s armpits and lifted him, as if he weighed nothing, high in the air and set him on his shoulders. Peter recalled the scary feeling of his stomach pressed hard against the back of his father’s head, his hands clinging to his father’s massive forehead. The big hands slid down to Peter’s waist and held him. “Go ahead,” his father’s voice said. Peter leaned toward the top of the tree. “Closer, Daddy.” His father shuffled against the tree. Peter stretched until he could get the base of the ornament over the tip of the tree. He straightened the star. “Go around.” Peter’s father stepped first to one side of the tree, then the other. “Straight now?” said the voice from below. Since Peter was sure his father could see him, even when he wasn’t looking at him, he nodded. His father scooted his arms back to Peter’s armpits, flew him to the floor, and set him on his feet. Father and son stood hand-in-hand gazing up at the star in the soft light. “Looks good,” Peter’s father said. He stooped until his face was next to Peter’s. “Nice goin’, son. You done good.”

Did that really happen? Peter wasn’t sure. Why had his father changed into a wrinkled, misanthropic Mencken? That’s the way he was in later Christmases when he came home and found Peter’s mother drunk, burning dinner, breaking things. One of those Christmases, Peter found a half-empty bottle of gin behind the garbage pail under the sink. “So that’s where Betty put it,” his mother said, hands on hips. “Really. The help nowadays.” They’d fired Betty. Peter fought off an impulse to cover his ears, as he had in those days when he lay in bed while his parents yelled at each other downstairs.

Much later, long after polite silence had iced over the quarrels, came the Christmas Peter would never forget, the Christmas Robbie died. Peter’s cousin, two years older than him, Bud and Helen’s only son, tall, lean, dark, sexy, funny. And wild. Stunning track athlete, football hero, the darling of his high school class, with a physique that made Peter’s heart clench. Robbie had all the girls he ever wanted, while Peter, sickened at himself, wanted no girls at all. Robbie was the first man to make Peter hurt in that special way, knowing that he could never be Robbie, yet never possess him, either. At the beginning of Peter’s senior year, Robbie rebelled, ran off, joined the Marines. He risked his life, not once but many times, the reports said. The last time, he’d volunteered to be pointman, to lead his squad on patrol through the jungles of Ca Mau. He was a hero again. There’d be a medal. Posthumously.

Peter was at the high school Christmas Ball the night the news came. In the dimly lit gym, all decorated with clear plastic three-dimensional stars and real pine trees and red tissue paper bells, he sat alone against the wall watching the dancers. The principal and two teachers found him, told him his father telephoned the school. He was to go right home. For reasons Peter didn’t understand, his father had been enraged. Peter could still see him, pacing in the living room.

“Why are you so angry?” Peter asked, close to tears. “I didn’t do anything!”

His father stopped, scowled at him, and said with steely softness, “You didn’t do anything. And you ask why I’m angry?”

Peter had been rigid with terror without knowing why.

The following summer he sneaked into his father’s study. Over the desk, he found a framed plaque, with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt:

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

He’s ashamed of me. I’m a poor spirit. He liked Robbie better. Everybody loved Robbie. Robbie, who never felt the special hurt. Who got himself killed. Robbie dared mighty things.

“Well?” the gritty voice on the telephone said.

“What?”

“Peter, you sound extremely odd.”

“Sorry, Mom. Ask me again.”

“What I said was, will Tuesday evening be okay for us to drop by?”

Peter clutched. “Tuesday?”

“About seven.”

Jesus. “I’d love to have you, Mom, but I’ll be working. You know I work nights.”

“You told us that the Riche is never open on Tuesdays.”

Peter stalled. “Tuesdays?”

“Didn’t you hear anything? Let me re-it-er-ate. Your father has to be in Washington Tuesday afternoon, and I’m planning to come along and shop for drapery fabrics at Sloan’s. So we thought we’d drop by and see you after dinner, but if you’re working, we’ll come by the restaurant.”

Panic flickered in Peter’s belly. “Right, I’m not working. Of course. Tuesday. I was confused.” He laughed. “Anyway,” he said, feeling his way, “anyway, I haven’t been to work for . . . three days, and I got mixed up.”

“Vacation?”

“Sick.”

“Sick?” Alarm rose in her voice.

“Don’t worry,” he said with a fast laugh, “I’m much better now. It was pretty serious, actually.”

“What was it?”

“Pneumonia.”

“Pneu . . . Why didn’t you call me?”

“Mom, I knew I’d be over it in a jiffy.”

“Peter,” she said, “how could you be so thoughtless?”

“Hey, it was no big deal.”

“You said it was serious.”

He swallowed hard. “It wasn’t fatal or anything.”

“Promise me,” she said, “promise me that if you ever get seriously ill again you’ll call me. I’d better drive right down there.”

“Mom, please. Look, the doctor says I should rest and not have a lot of company and excitement and all.”

“Were you in the hospital?”

“No,” he said, thinking fast, “no, I stayed here.”

“Who’s taking care of you?”

“I’m taking care of myself.”

“Peter, you don’t have the sense God gave a chigger.”

“Mom,” he said, “I’m fine now. I need rest.”

“All right. I’ll put off seeing you until Tuesday.”

“Might be better if you waited until I was mended.”

“Not a chance. I’m your mother, remember? And when a person’s baby’s sick, a person wants to go and see for herself how he’s doin’. That’s all they is to that. So you plan on us coming down Tuesday evening. Plan on it, now.”

“Won’t be up to entertaining much.”

“’Course not. Wouldn’t expect it. Nor would your father. And Peter, don’t you go and pick a fight with him, now, you hear?”

“I never pick a fight. He always makes these outlandish, biased statements. I finally have to say something.”

“He says the self-same thing about you, Peter.”

Peter bit his tongue.

“It’ll be wonderful to see you, darlin’,” she said. “You take care, now.”

“I will.” He paused. “I love you, Mom.”

“Why, Peter,” she said, “thank you. I love you, too.”

“And give Dad my love, will you?”

Silence.

“And he sends his,” she said.

Sure he does.



Martin arrived before six and flashed his usual happy smile. “How are you tonight, mate?”

“Mate? Is that a proposition?”

Martin grimaced. “Navy talk. Don’t read innuendos into my funny way of talking.”

“Why not, sexy?” Peter threw back the covers. “Want to come join me?”

“Peter, that’s not funny.”

Peter laughed. “Not only a breeder but a prude. Guess that’s the price I pay for not insisting on one of my own kind. Lighten up. I’m only kidding.”

Martin rubbed his lips together as though thinking what to say. “You’re acting like such a prick, you must feel better.”

“That’s the Martin I know and love. Yeah, I feel good. I’m on a roll.”

Martin’s face relaxed. “That’s great.” He headed into the kitchen. “I’ll whump up a hearty meal. If you promise to stay in the next room during the testosterone storms.”

Peter got out of bed, put on his robe, and followed. “No promises. Chacun à son goût. I’ll be ready for another outing soon.” He pulled up a chair.

Martin was filling the coffee pot with water. “Where do you want to go this time? The zoo? Great Falls? The Mall? Kennedy Center?”

Peter lowered his shoulders. “God, I’d love to go to the Kennedy Center.” He tilted back his head and laughed. “We used to go there on New Year’s Eve and waltz in the Grand Foyer. We got some serious frowns. One year Kirk went in drag—big white hoop skirt and lace and pearls and this foot-high white powdered wig, all curls and swags and silver bows. They threw us out. I used to have a party after midnight every New Year’s. Champagne, balloons, serpentine, confetti, noise makers, hats. People used to talk about a ‘Peter Christopher New Year’s.’ It was better than Halloween.”

“Huh?”

“Halloween and New Year’s are the big gay holidays, Martin.”

“What about Christmas, Thanksgiving—”

“Très bourgeoises. Annual breeder coffee klatches. Bo-o-o-oring.”

“I see.”

“Liar.”

Martin put bacon in the skillet and lit a burner. “Anyway, you think you’re strong enough to go to the Kennedy Center?”

“Maybe someday.” Peter let his eyes slide shut. He saw the soaring marble planes and brass chandeliers and stairs carpeted in burgundy pile and tiers of shining white stone balconies. Uncluttered, massive, pure, masculine. “Do they let people be buried there?”

Martin sliced tomatoes. “Morbid humor doesn’t become you.”

“I mean it. Someday I have to decide where to be buried.”

“I don’t think they bury people there.”

Peter cocked his head. “Actually, what I have in mind is Cunniption’s. It’s a bar.”

Martin put down the knife.

“It’s okay,” Peter said. “It’s a gay bar.”

“And you want to be buried there?”

“That’s where I want to go for my next outing.”

Martin drew himself up to his full height. “And you want me to take you. To Cunnee—”

“Cunniption’s. It’s on P Street between Dupont Circle and the bridge. Kind of hard to park there, though.”

“We’re going to need to talk about your bar hopping tendencies. Feeling good enough to bathe yourself?”

Peter nodded.

“Go take your shower,” Martin said, “then we’ll talk while we eat. I’m going to get the soup going and take a load of laundry down.”

“And I need a haircut, too.”

At dinner, Peter finished his BLT and mushroom soup—he didn’t even mention that he hated mushroom soup—and asked for dessert.

Martin looked at him sidelong. “Trying to impress me?”

“Trying not to lose any more weight. Maybe I could even gain a pound or two.”

“Great. I’ll dish you out some ice cream.”

“With chocolate sauce and whipped cream, please.”

Martin started for the kitchen, then stopped. “Why do I feel like I’m being set up?”

“My parents are coming to visit Tuesday night. Butter pecan.”

Martin jumped. “What?”

“Butter pecan. Not chocolate swirl. Chocolate swirl is not good with chocolate sauce.”

“Your parents are coming?”

“Martin, get the ice cream, then I’ll tell you the whole thing.”

Martin scooped. He carried the bowl—butter pecan, chocolate sauce, whipped cream over the whole thing—back to the dining room table and put it down in front of Peter.

“And coffee.”

“Peter—”

Martin growled, poured coffee, and plunked down opposite Peter.

Peter told him about his mother’s call. “That reminds me. Dad drinks Scotch, and Mom drinks gin. We’ll have to buy booze.”

“‘We?’”

“Hope you’ll be here, Martin.”

“If you want me. Guess it’s going to be rough. They haven’t seen you since you started losing weight? Oh, boy.” Martin clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Thought about how you’re going to tell them? Want to practice with me or anything?”

“I’m not going to tell them.”

Martin blinked. “I mean about AIDS. And being gay.”

“I’m not going to tell them, Martin.”

“Peter, what are you talking about? One look at you and they’ll know.”

“Know what? I told my mom I had pneumonia, and that it was bad, and so she’s expecting me to be puny.”

Martin put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Peter, my friend, you’re worse than puny.”

“I don’t care, Martin. I don’t want them to know. I couldn’t stop them from coming, but I’ll fool them somehow.”

“Why?” Martin said. “Why don’t you just tell them?”

“Because they’d never forgive me.”

“Forgive you? Peter—”

“They wouldn’t, Martin. I know. Will you help me?”

“God. I don’t know. This is serious.”

“Please. I can’t do it by myself.”

Martin took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, okay. Jesus.”

Peter sighed and sat back. He was drained. He nodded at his untouched ice cream and fluttered his eyes at Martin. “I can’t finish my ice cream. Be an angel and save it for me?”



Over the weekend, Martin watched as Peter searched though his clothes for the best combination to conceal his thinness. He tried on outfit after outfit. He ate as much as he could stand. Tuesday morning, he gave Martin money to buy liquor on the way back from morning classes. Martin returned in the middle of the day with the gin, Scotch, mixes, and a bundle of yellow and white carnations. Then he was off to teach his two o’clock and hold office hours.

At five-twenty, Martin was back, breathless. Inside the door he stopped dead. The bed was made, set up as a sort of sofa with bolsters. The flowers stood like a frozen sunburst at the center of the table in the alcove surrounded by liquor decanters, glasses, an ice bucket, tongs, and three symmetrical stacks of small blue-and-yellow paper napkins—as if for a full-fledged cocktail party. Peter was in the yellow wing chair fully dressed in a white turtleneck, a loose fitting wine-colored cardigan buttoned at the navel, and royal blue slacks. His hair was combed back. His face was fuller than Martin had ever seen it. Peter almost looked fat. Martin switched on the desk light and gaped at him.

“Turn the light off,” Peter snapped.

“What have you done to yourself?”

“What do you think? Will they be able to tell?”

“You look healthier than I’ve ever seen you. Fess up.”

“Stuffing,” Peter whispered. “See?” He lifted his shirt and showed Martin the wadding inside. “And make-up. I told you I studied at the Academy. One of the things a dancer knows is make-up. I spent most of the afternoon on it. Does it show?”

“No. I can’t believe it.”

“Now, two things are very important. The first is that nobody turn on too many lights. And second, I don’t want them to get any closer to me than they absolutely have to.”

“Won’t your mother want to hug you?”

“I thought of that. I’m going to tell her I’m still infectious.”

“God, you’re amazing.”

“Think it’ll work?”

Throughout dinner and dishes, Peter reviewed every detail of the plot. While Martin dry-mopped the kitchen floor, Peter filled the ice bucket, turned off the lights except the lamp on the desk, the floor lamp behind the wing chair, and the overhead bulb in the kitchen. He put the soundtrack from Breakfast at Tiffany’s on the stereo, lowered the volume, and went to the bathroom. By six-forty-five, he was lolling in the wing chair, cigarette drooping from his outstretched fingers, his face a mask of insouciant laze.

“Martin, put your coat and tie on.”

Martin tied his tie in front of the mirror in the hall. “Aren’t you tired?”

“Exhausted.” Peter grinned. “Get me a drink. And get yourself one, so they’ll think we’ve been lounging around sloshing a few.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“See the decanter with the metal tag on it that says ‘Scotch’?”

Martin’s stomach shifted. Of all drinks, why did it have to be Scotch?

“It’s not Scotch,” Peter said. “It’s tea. Serve me that. The real Scotch is in the other bottle.”

Martin poured the tea over ice cubes.

“That’s another trick I learned in New York,” Peter said. “Cold tea looks exactly like booze. On stage—”

A knock. Peter put his index finger to his lips and checked the room once more. Another knock. Peter lounged back, lit a fresh cigarette, and crossed his legs. He tipped his head toward the door. Martin opened it.

In the hall stood a ruddy frowning man in a navy pinstripe three-piece suit and a stocky woman in a black crepe pantsuit, three-inch heels, and shoulder length, black, Dolly Parton hair. The man was Martin’s age and size, but he was in better shape and had far less hair and no beard. He stood erect, like a man used to depending on his body, a woodsman or athlete. His eyes caught Martin’s attention. Sadness congealed into hostility as he watched Martin’s face.

The woman seemed too young to be Peter’s mother. No gray in her rigid hair, no lines visible in her carefully made-up face. She wore a crystal pendant with matching earrings, dangling transparent spheres, that swung as she moved her head to peer past Martin into the darkened apartment. When she put her hands to her mouth, Martin saw that they were veined and wrinkled. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said in a drawl. She stepped back, wrinkled her brow, and squinted at the number on the door. “We were trying to find 736.”

“This is it,” Martin said. “Mr. and Mrs. Christopher?” He opened the door wide and stepped back.

The woman gave him an exaggerated smile, all teeth between stretched, glossed lips, and moved uncertainly into the apartment, the man at her elbow. They peeped into the half-light.

“Peter,” the woman cried.

“Hold it, Mom.” Peter thrust the palm of his hand toward her. “I’m still infectious. Better not come too close. Mom, Dad, Martin James.”

“Alicia and Roger,” she said. “How do you do, Mr. James?”

“It’s Doctor James, mother,” Peter said.

Alicia appraised Martin. “You’re Peter’s doctor?”

“No, no. A friend.”

“Goodness,” Alicia said. “Peter’s moving up in the world.”

“Not really,” Martin laughed. “I’m not a physician. College professor. Call me Martin.”

Alicia frowned as though she sensed something awry.

“Sit down, everyone,” Peter said with sudden graciousness. “I hope you’ll excuse me for staying put, but I’m ’bout wore out.” He laughed and put out his cigarette. “The doctor told me to take it easy, but Martin and I did a couple of sets of tennis. One probably would have been enough.”

Martin gawked at him. He gave Martin a fatuous smile.

“You’re out playing tennis and you’re still infectious?” Alicia said.

Martin tightened his jaw and pulled up chairs from the desk and dining alcove.

“Ain’t that the damnedest thing?” Peter said. “Actually, except for being a little weak, I’m completely over being sick, but I can’t go back to work yet. Board of Health would have a fit.”

“I thought you told me you had pneumonia.” Alicia fumbled in her purse, pulled out a filigreed cigarette case and a jeweled lighter. “And since when is pneumonia infectious?”

“Some kinds are. What I have is. Viral pneumonia. Ask Martin.”

Martin could have slugged him. “Certainly. Yes. Viral, you know, it’s really bad stuff. You don’t see me going near him.” Martin joined in the polite laughter.

“What’re you drinking?” Peter sparkled. He leaned forward, his arms folded on his knees. “Martin, would you mind doing the honors? Don’t want to spread my germs.”

Martin felt more and more like a player in a late afternoon rerun. “What’ll it be?”

“Gin and tonic,” Alicia said, “and double the gin. Been a long day, and I’m drier than a dromedary during drought.”