Confronted by Faggot
Autumn: a Sunday around four o’clock in the afternoon. I’m at Barney’s, buying cuff links. I had walked into the store at two-thirty, after a cold, tense brunch with Christie’s corpse, rushed up to the front counter, told a salesclerk, “I need a whip. Really.” In addition to the cuff links, I’ve bought an ostrich travel case with double-zippered openings and vinyl lining, an antique silver, crocodile and glass pill jar, an antique toothbrush container, a badger-bristle toothbrush and a faux-tortoiseshell nailbrush. Dinner last night? At Splash. Not much to remember: a watery Bellini, soggy arugula salad, a sullen waitress. Afterwards I watched a repeat of an old Patty Winters Show that I found on what I originally thought was a videotape of the torture and subsequent murder of two escort girls from last spring (the topic was Tips on How Your Pet Can Become a Movie Star). Right now I’m in the middle of purchasing a belt—not for myself—as well as three ninety-dollar ties, ten handkerchiefs, a four-hundred-dollar robe and two pairs of Ralph Lauren pajamas, and I’m having it all mailed to my apartment except for the handkerchiefs, which I’m having monogrammed then sent to P & P. I’ve already made somewhat of a scene in the ladies’ shoe department and, embarrassingly, was chased out by a distressed salesperson. At first it’s only a sense of vague uneasiness and I’m unsure of its cause, but then it feels, though I can’t be positive, as if I’m being followed, as if someone has been tracking me throughout Barney’s.
Luis Carruthers is, I suppose, incognito. He’s wearing some kind of jaguar-print silk evening jacket, deerskin gloves, a felt hat, aviator sunglasses, and he’s hiding behind a column, pretending to inspect a row of ties, and, gracelessly, he gives me a sidelong glance. Leaning down, I sign something, a bill I think, and fleetingly Luis’s presence forces me to consider that maybe a life connected to this city, to Manhattan, to my job, is not a good idea, and suddenly I imagine Luis at some horrible party, drinking a nice dry rosé, fags clustered around a baby grand, show tunes, now he’s holding a flower, now he has a feather boa draped around his neck, now the pianist bangs out something from Les Miz, darling.
“Patrick? Is that you?” I hear a tentative voice inquire.
Like a smash cut from a horror movie—a jump zoom—Luis Carruthers appears, suddenly, without warning, from behind his column, slinking and jumping at the same time, if that’s possible. I smile at the salesgirl, then awkwardly move away from him and over to a display case of suspenders, in dire need of a Xanax, a Valium, a Halcion, a Frozfruit, anything.
I don’t, can’t, look at him, but I sense he’s moved closer to me. His voice confirms it.
“Patrick? … Hello?”
Closing my eyes, I move a hand up to my face and mutter, under my breath, “Don’t make me say it, Luis.”
“Patrick?” he says, feigning innocence. “What do you mean?”
A hideous pause, then, “Patrick … Why aren’t you looking at me?”
“I’m ignoring you, Luis.” I breathe in, calming myself by checking the price tag on an Armani button-up sweater. “Can’t you tell? I’m ignoring you.”
“Patrick, can’t we just talk?” he asks, almost whining. “Patrick—look at me.”
After another sharp intake of breath, sighing, I admit, “There is nothing, noth-ing to talk—”
“We can’t go on like this,” he impatiently cuts me off. “I can’t go on like this.”
I mutter. I start walking away from him. He follows, insistent.
“Anyway,” he says, once we’ve reached the other side of the store, where I pretend to look through a row of silk ties but everything’s blurry, “you’ll be glad to know that I’m transferring … out of state.”
Something rises off me and I’m able to ask, but still without looking at him, “Where?”
“Oh, a different branch,” he says, sounding remarkably relaxed, probably due to the fact that I actually inquired about the move. “In Arizona.”
“Ter-rific,” I murmur.
“Don’t you want to know why?” he asks.
“No, not really.”
“Because of you,” he says.
“Don’t say that,” I plead.
“Because of you,” he says again.
“You are sick,” I tell him.
“If I’m sick it’s because of you,” he says too casually, checking his nails. “Because of you I am sick and I will not get better.”
“You have distorted this obsession of yours way out of proportion. Way, way out of proportion,” I say, then move over to another aisle.
“But I know you have the same feelings I do,” Luis says, trailing me. “And I know that just because …” He lowers his voice and shrugs. “Just because you won’t admit … certain feelings you have doesn’t mean you don’t have them.”
“What are you trying to say?” I hiss.
“That I know you feel the same way I do.” Dramatically, he whips off his sunglasses, as if to prove a point.
“You have reached … an inaccurate conclusion,” I choke. “You are … obviously unsound.”
“Why?” he asks. “Is it so wrong to love you, Patrick?”
“Oh … my … god.”
“To want you? To want to be with you?” he asks. “Is that so wrong?”
I can feel him staring helplessly into me, that he’s near total emotional collapse. After he finishes, except for a long silence I have no answer. Finally I counter this by hissing, “What is this continuing inability you have to evaluate this situation rationally?” I pause. “Huh?”
I lift my head up from the sweaters, the ties, whatever, and glance at Luis. In that instant he smiles, relieved that I’m acknowledging his presence, but the smile soon becomes fractured and in the dark inner recesses of his fag mind he realizes something and starts crying. When I calmly walk over to a column so I can hide behind it, he follows and roughly grabs my shoulder, spinning me around so I’m facing him: Luis blotting out reality.
At the same time I ask Luis to “Go away” he sobs, “Oh god, Patrick, why don’t you like me?” and then, unfortunately, he falls to the floor at my feet.
“Get up,” I mutter, standing there. “Get up.”
“Why can’t we be together?” he sobs, pounding his fist on the floor.
“Because I … don’t”—I look around the store quickly to make sure no one is listening; he reaches for my knee, I brush his hand away—“find you … sexually attractive,” I whisper loudly, staring down at him. “I can’t believe I actually said that,” I mumble to myself, to no one, and then shake my head, trying to clear it, things reaching a level of confusion that I’m incapable of registering. I tell Luis, “Leave me alone, please,” and I start to walk away.
Unable to grasp this request, Luis grabs at the hem of my Armani silk-cloth trench coat and, still lying on the floor, cries out, “Please, Patrick, please don’t leave me.”
“Listen to me,” I tell him, kneeling down, trying to haul Luis up off the floor. But this causes him to shout out something garbled, which turns into a wail that rises and reaches a crescendo that catches the attention of a Barney’s security guard standing by the store’s front entrance, who starts making his way over.
“Look what you’ve done,” I whisper desperately. “Get up. Get up.”
“Is everything okay?” The security guard, a big black guy, is looking down at us.
“Yes, thank you,” I say, glaring at Luis. “Everything’s fine.”
“No-o-o-o,” Luis wails, racked with sobs.
“Yes,” I reiterate, looking up at the guard.
“You sure?” the guard asks.
Smiling professionally, I tell him, “Please just give us a minute. We need some privacy.” I turn back to Luis. “Now come on, Luis. Get up. You’re slobbering.” I look back up at the security guard and mouth, holding up a hand, while nodding, “Just a minute, please.”
The security guard nods unsurely and moves hesitantly back to his post.
Still kneeling, I grab Luis by his heaving shoulders and calmly tell him, my voice lowered, as threatening as possible, as if speaking to a child about to be punished, “Listen to me, Luis. If you do not stop crying, you f*cking pathetic faggot, I am going to slit your f*cking throat. Are you listening to me?” I slap him lightly on the face a couple of times. “I can’t be more emphatic.”
“Oh just kill me,” he wails, his eyes closed, nodding his head back and forth, retreating further into incoherence; then he blubbers, “If I can’t have you, I don’t want to live. I want to die.”
My sanity is in danger of fading, right here in Barney’s, and I grab Luis by the collar, scrunching it up in my fist, and pulling his face very close to mine, I whisper, under my breath, “Listen to me, Luis. Are you listening to me? I usually don’t warn people, Luis. So-be-thankful-I-am-warning-you.”
His rationality shot to hell, making guttural noises, his head bent down shamefully, he offers a response that’s barely audible. I grab his hair—it’s stiff with mousse; I recognize the scent as Cactus, a new brand—and yanking his head up, snarling, I spit out, “Listen, you want to die? I’ll do it, Luis. I’ve done it before and I will f*cking gut you, rip your f*cking stomach open and cram your intestines down your f*cking faggot throat until you choke on them.”
He’s not listening. Still on my haunches, I just stare at him in disbelief.
“Please, Patrick, please. Listen to me, I’ve figured it all out. I’m quitting P & P, you can too, and, and, and we’ll relocate to Arizona, and then—”
“Shut up, Luis.” I shake him. “Oh my god, just shut up.”
I quickly stand, brushing myself off, and when I think his outburst has subsided and I’m able to walk away, Luis grabs at my right ankle and tries to hang on as I’m leaving Barney’s and I end up dragging him along for six feet before I have to kick him in the face, while smiling helplessly at a couple who are browsing near the sock department. Luis looks up at me, imploring, the beginnings of a small gash forming on his left cheek. The couple move away.
“I love you,” he miserably wails. “I love you.”
“I’m convinced, Luis,” I shout at him. “You’ve convinced me. Now get up.”
Luckily, a salesperson, alarmed by the scene Luis has made, intervenes and helps him up.
A few minutes later, after he’s sufficiently calmed down, the two of us are standing just inside Barney’s main entrance. He has a handkerchief in one hand, his eyes are shut tightly, a bruise slowly forms, swelling beneath his left eye. He seems composed.
“Just, you know, have the guts to face, uh, reality,” I tell him.
Anguished, he stares out the revolving doors at the warm falling rain and then, with a mournful sigh, turns to me. I’m looking at the rows, the endless rows, of ties, then at the ceiling.