Less wore a ring, one Robert gave him on their fifth anniversary, and, while it was long before the days of gay marriage, they both knew it meant a kind of marriage: it was a thin gold Cartier Robert had found in a Paris flea market. And so young Arthur Less wore it always. While Robert wrote, locked in his room with the view of Eureka Valley, Less often went grocery shopping. This day he was in the mushrooms. He had pulled out a plastic bag and had just begun choosing mushrooms when he felt something spring from his finger. He knew instantly what it was.
In those days, Arthur Less was far from faithful. It was the way of things among the men they knew, and it was something he and Robert never spoke of. If on his errands he met a handsome man with a free apartment, Less might be willing to dally for half an hour before he came home. And once he took a real lover. Someone who wanted to talk, who came just short of asking for promises. At first it was a wonderful, casual connection not very far from his home, something easy to grab on an afternoon or when Robert was on a trip. There was a white bed beside a window. There was a parakeet that warbled. There was wonderful sex, and no talk afterward of I forgot to tell you Janet called, or Did you put the parking permit on the car? or Remember, I’m going to LA tomorrow. Just sex and a smile: Isn’t it wonderful to get what you want and pay no price? Someone very unlike Robert, someone cheerful and bright, with affection, and, maybe, not terribly smart. It took a long time for it to be sad. There were fights and phone calls and long walks with little said. And it ended; Less ended it. He knew he had hurt someone terribly, unforgivably. That happened not long before he lost his ring in the mushroom bin.
“Oh shit,” he said.
“Are you okay?” a bearded man asked, farther down the row of vegetables. Tall, glasses, holding a baby bok choy.
“Oh shit, I just lost my wedding ring.”
“Oh shit,” the man said, looking over at the bin. Maybe sixty cremini mushrooms—but, of course, it could have gone anywhere! It could be in the buttons! In the shiitakes! It could have flown into the chili peppers! How could you paw through chili peppers? The bearded man came over. “Okay, buddy. Let’s just do this,” he said, as if they were setting a broken arm. “One by one.”
Slowly, methodically, they put each mushroom into Less’s bag.
“I lost mine once,” the man offered as he held the bag. “My wife was furious. I lost it twice, actually.”
“She’s going to be pissed,” Arthur said. Why had he made Robert into a woman? Why was he so willing to go along? “I can’t lose it. She got it in a Paris flea market.”
Another man chimed in: “Use beeswax. To keep it tight until you get it fitted.” The kind of guy who wore his bicycle helmet while shopping.
The bearded man asked, “Where do you get it fitted?”
“Jeweler,” the bike guy said. “Anywhere.”
“Oh, thanks,” Arthur said. “If I find it.”
At the grim prospect of loss, the bike guy started to pick through the mushrooms along with them. A male voice from behind him: “Lose your ring?”
“Yep,” said the bearded guy.
“When you find it, use chewing gum till you get it fixed.”
“I said beeswax.”
“Beeswax is good.”
Was this how men felt? Straight men? Alone so often, but if they faltered—if they lost a wedding ring!—then the whole band of brothers would descend to fix the problem? Life was not hard; you shouldered it bravely, knowing all the time that if you sent the signal, help would arrive. How wonderful to be part of such a club. Half a dozen men gathered around, engaged in the task. To save his marriage and his pride. So they did have hearts, after all. They were not cold, cruel dominators; they were not high school bullies to be avoided in the halls. They were good; they were kind; they came to the rescue. And today Less was one of them.
They reached the bottom of the bin. Nothing.
“Ooh, sorry, buddy,” the bike guy said, and grimaced. The bearded man: “Tell her you lost it swimming.” One by one they shook his hand and shook their heads and left.
Less wanted to cry.
What a ridiculous person he was. What a terrible writer, to get caught up in a metaphor like this. As if it would reveal anything to Robert, signify anything about their love. It was just a ring lost in a bin. But he could not help himself; he was too attracted to the bad poetry of it all, of his one good thing, his life with Robert, undone by his carelessness. There was no way to explain it that would not sound like betrayal. Everything would show in his voice. And Robert, the poet, would look up from his chair and see it. That their time had come to an end.
Less leaned against the Vidalia onions and sighed. He took the bag, now empty of mushrooms, to crumple it up and toss it in the trash bin. A glint of gold.
And there it was. In the bag all along. Oh, wonderful life.
He laughed, he showed it to the shop owner. He bought all five pounds of mushrooms the men had handled and went home and made a soup with pork ribs and mustard greens and all the mushrooms and told Robert everything that had happened, from the ring, to the men, to the discovery, the great comedy of it all.
And in the telling, laughing at himself, he watched as Robert looked up from his chair and saw everything.
That’s what it was like to live with genius.
The subway ride back to the hotel is made half as charming by being filled with twice as many people, and the heat of the afternoon has made Less self-conscious that he smells of fish and peanuts. They pass the Farmacias Similares on the way to the hotel, and the Head tells them he will catch up with them in a minute. They continue to the Monkey House (missing its mynahs), and, though Less bows a quick good-bye, Arturo will not let him go. He insists that the American must taste mescal, that it might change his writing, or perhaps his life. There are some other writers waiting. Less keeps saying he has a headache, but nearby construction noise drowns him out and Arturo cannot understand. The Head returns, beaming in the late-afternoon light, a white bag in his hand. So Arthur Less goes along. Mescal turns out to be a drink that tastes as if someone has put their cigarette out in it. You drink it, he is informed, with an orange slice that has been coated in toasted worms. “You are kidding me,” Less says, but they are not kidding him. Again: no one is kidding. They have six rounds. Less asks Arturo about his event at the festival, now a mere two days away. Arturo, his dour mood unchanged even after a bath of mescal, says, “Yes. I am sorry to say tomorrow the festival is also entirely in Spanish; shall I take you to Teotihuacán?” Less has no idea what this is, agrees, and asks again about his own event. Will he be onstage alone, or in conversation?
“I hope there will be conversation,” Arturo states. “You will be there with your friend.”
Less asks if his fellow panelist is a professor or a fellow writer.
“No, no, friend,” Arturo insists. “You are speaking with Marian Brownburn.”
“Marian? His wife? She’s here?!”