The Time Before #3
Jesse’s mouth contorted into a pretzel. “We’re not cured.”
“We moved here, didn’t we?”
“A ham is cured.” The conversation didn’t go any further, so Jesse retreated to watch TV.
One night he actually sat next to his husband, remaining silent for as long as he could.
He spoke only when the silence became unbearable.
“I don’t hear anything.” Despite nights of teasing, on this occasion he actually meant to sound helpful, supportive—perhaps the app wasn’t working or Norman had the settings all wrong.
Of course, it came out sounding critical.
“The signals are not for you.”
I see, Jesse thought, even though he didn’t. “Is there another app you could try?”
“I paid for this one,” Norman said defiantly.
“I suppose you used our joint credit card.” It was the perfect racket, Jesse thought.
An app, an intangible thing made of code you couldn’t see, sending signals no one could hear.
Jesse wondered if the app even did anything, or if someone had just figured out how to charge dupes a subscription for a colorful widget to park on their home screen.
“Does the app inform you if it receives anything back?” Jesse assumed if one couldn’t hear the signal, they likewise might not hear the reply.
Norman looked at him, offended—he seemed to truly believe. Which, sure, on one hand, harmless enough. But the trouble with drinking the Kool-Aid, Jesse thought, is that you never know when it’s the last glass.
“I’m trying,” Jesse said. And honestly, he was.
Norman said that he was trying, too. Trying what, though, Jesse was not sure, and so he went back inside to watch another episode of Six Feet Under.
The opening scene, which featured a woman who hit her husband over the head with a frying pan, killing him because “he was boring,” proved especially satisfying.
Jesse approached Norman in his home office the following afternoon and whispered something filthy in his ear, something new he might genuinely enjoy in bed.
Norman, for his part, looked startled. Hoping for an opportunity to connect in a way they hadn’t in a while, Jesse reached around his husband and pulled up an Airbnb listing on Norman’s iPad for a UFO-themed house nearby.
It was copper in color and shaped like a saucer with strings of decorative lights, elevated off the ground with stairs that descended for landing.
“Look, isn’t this a trip? I thought maybe we could go for your birthday.
” He swiped through the photo gallery; the house had futuristic-looking furniture and was stocked with science fiction books and movies. It looked like a fun weekend getaway.
“Isn’t this only a few miles from here? Not much of a trip.”
Jesse’s eyes pleaded, Work with me here.
“It’s shaped like a flying saucer!” He was doing his best to share in his husband’s interests.
Isn’t that what good spouses do? But Norman barely glanced at the listing photos.
Since once again he’d failed to get Norman’s attention, he brought up something that would. “I was thinking we should get a dog.”
“You’re kidding,” Norman said, even though this was well-traveled ground, the only surprise Jesse’s chutzpah in raising it now.
“We could name him Saucer. Or Endeavor, like the space shuttle.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Sit, Endeavor! Roll over, Dev.”
“I’m begging you to stop.”
“I once knew a dog named Rocket. Although I think he was named after arugula.”
Norman dropped his head on his desk. His forehead left a little grease stain on the blueprints he was reviewing.
Jesse usually knew when a cause was lost, but on his way out, he paused in the doorway and carefully knocked on the frame.
He hesitated before speaking. “It’s just, what if I’m not always here? ”
Norman kept his eyes focused on his work. He then softened his tone. “Where are you going?”
“I applied to three residencies this winter to work on the book.” Jesse traveled a fair bit for work; in the past he taught whole semesters out of state, and if he were to leave again he would feel better leaving Norman with a dog for company.
Even with Jesse there, he was spending too much time alone.
But Norman’s argument against it was always the same: A dog required a fence and it was his belief that property should not have barriers.
They had six and a half acres and he saw no need to divide them.
And the land beyond theirs was undeveloped.
He liked walking out their back door and seeing nothing but open ground all the way to the mountains.
It was the same objection he had to swimming pools, another running disagreement between them.
“What if I’m not always here?” Norman asked gently; looking back, Jesse had to wonder if he’d known what was coming. But at the time, stinging from rejection, he had only a snappy comeback.
“Then I would get a dog.” And a fence. And maybe a swimming pool.
Before summer was over, Norman was gone.