Day Seventeen #2
“Easy, tiger,” Jesse said when Norman stabbed nearly all his green beans with his fork.
His appetite had been ravenous since his return.
Norman kissed Jesse again, since that was also the state of his libido, before shoving the forkful in his mouth.
“Oh my god, these are incredible. Taste one.” He stabbed the last few beans on his plate for Jesse to try, but Jesse waved him away.
“I have my own plate.”
“Norman,” Socks observed, “you act like you haven’t been fed in months!”
Norman simply shrugged—there was a good chance he hadn’t—then inspected one of the bottles of French pinot noir on the table. “What does Non-Trad do?” he whispered to Jesse. The label could not have been cheap.
“You know, I have no earthly idea.” Jesse confessed that since this was his first time teaching at a community college, he wasn’t used to his students having careers.
Norman caught Jesse’s eye and held his gaze. “I feel very fortunate to be here with you.” Their tablemates fussed over Norman, saying what a good partner he was, but his sincerity seemed to just make Jesse squirm.
“Don’t encourage him,” Jesse said, flagging down the waiter to order a Tito’s. Then, apparently reading the social cues, he patted his husband appreciatively on the shoulder, a little too hard for Norman’s liking.
“So, Norman,” Headphones asked. “Are you funny?” Then off Jesse’s appalled reaction, added, “What? It’s a legitimate question. A funny person can be married to an unfunny one.”
Norman jumped in. “We prefer ‘serious’ to ‘unfunny.’ ”
Headphones unrolled his napkin to retrieve his silverware. “Whatever you want to call it.”
Noticing Jesse’s discomfort, Norman threw himself on the grenade. “First of all, I’m sure that Stilts, or whatever you guys call him, would be the first to tell you that humor is subjective.”
“Stilts!” Mountain Dew laughed. And then she made some noise like aaaaaaaah, and Norman worried her drink might come out of her nose. “Because of his long legs.” It was low-hanging fruit that had been there the whole time and yet none of them had seized it.
“Not helping,” Jesse whispered.
“But am I funny? The answer you’re looking for is: Lately? No. Ever? Also no, I’m afraid.”
“That’s not true,” Jesse protested, although it partially was. “Norman’s selling himself short. Besides, every comedian needs an appreciative audience.” The waiter returned with Jesse’s vodka.
“I know what you need with that,” Mountain Dew said, and she scampered away after one of her hidden bottles. Immediately, a young man took her seat.
“There he is,” the young man said, placing his hand on Jesse’s shoulder in a way that was a little too familiar. Jesse looked panic-stricken and reached for his drink.
“Orson,” he said, the vodka catching in his throat.
“Hey, Mr. B.” Headphones waved and Orson smiled. Norman quickly deduced he must somehow be involved with the school.
“How’s everyone over here? I had Nathan in Applied Sciences, but since I don’t know a soul at my table I get the feeling I was a last-minute invite.”
Jesse loosened his tie. “If he invited all his professors, I suddenly feel less special.”
Norman stared. So this was the mysterious Orson. He was handsome. Younger than Norman had pictured, which was somewhat alarming; the top buttons of his shirt were undone and the body hair was as advertised.
“We were just debating with Jesse’s husband, Norman, whether a mixed-humor marriage can work,” Snickers said, bringing their new tablemate up to speed.
“Husband?” Orson repeated, clearly caught off guard. What Jesse had told him about their situation, Norman had no idea. Jesse didn’t make eye contact with either of them, instead focusing on the ice in his glass.
“Well, to be perfectly honest, Norman is my ex-husband,” Jesse finally said to a shocked Snickers. “So don’t extrapolate too much from us.”
Norman looked at Jesse, horrified. Then to the table he stated, “Because of a clerical error.” He then extended a hand to this Orson, who shook it.
“We’ll see,” Jesse said, refusing to defuse the situation. Then, at Norman’s horrified look, he added, “We have a few issues to work out.”
“In the bedroom?” Headphones asked, not that it was any of his goddamn business.
“Ice balls?” Mountain Dew asked as she returned with her prize.
Norman threw his napkin down on the table and pushed his chair back. “Just to clarify, I do not have ice balls.” Headphones was the only one who laughed.
Mountain Dew waved her hands. She tipped a wine bucket forward as it was chilling a bottle of white.
Indeed, it was filled with ice pellets. “I was offering Jesse ice from this bucket.” Mountain Dew took her newly folded napkin and draped it over her arm, then presented one of the bottles of soda as if it were the finest of wines. Jesse leaned in to “inspect” the label.
“Ah, that was an excellent year for Dews.” They were both delighted by the bit, and she poured the soda into Jesse’s vodka; he gave it a good stir with his finger and tossed it back in one gulp. The table cheered.
Norman had had enough of Jesse mugging for these kids, particularly Orson. “Don’t be fooled by his childish behavior. He’s squarely Gen X.”
The Tito’s, coupled with whatever’s in Mountain Dew—Liquid Plumr, Windex, antifreeze, who knows—seemed to hit Jesse like a line of cocaine, and he slammed his glass on the table. “I may have been assigned Gen X at birth, but I identify as Gen Z.”
Headphones whooped. “Yeah you do, Mr. Doctor!”
“There’s no music playing,” Norman informed Headphones, who jumped up and scrambled to his battle station. “I need some air,” Norman added, and he turned to leave, even though it was an open-air patio.
Norman only got a few feet before Headphones’s voice echoed through a microphone.
“This one’s for you, Non-Trad. Something for your generation.
But not Mr. Doctor, because he identifies as GEN ZEEEEEEE!
” Norman began to storm out. And then the first piano notes of Richard Marx’s “Right Here Waiting” unspooled through the speakers.
Oceans apart, day after day, and I slowly go insane.
Norman froze. It was the same Richard Marx song that played in the random health food store parking lot in Scottsdale after the birth of the daughter they would never bring home.
He turned back to the table and recognized the absolute panic spreading across Jesse’s face; it was the same panic splashed across his.
Norman reached for Jesse’s hand. “A word?” Jesse nodded, stood, but didn’t take his hand.
“You okay?” Norman asked when out of earshot of their table. He glanced at Headphones, who flashed them a smile and whooped his hands like he was encouraging them to dance.
“The song?” Jesse swallowed, even though his mouth was dry. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m fine.” It was clear he was lying. “This is uncomfortable for you,” Jesse muttered. “I should have brought Lally.”
Jesse pulled them aside so that the chef could dish out dessert, some sort of sorbet the color of green tea.
“Why, so you could be alone with Orson?”
Jesse seemed almost impressed. “I’ve never known you to be this possessive.”
“What is he, twenty-seven?” Norman asked.
Jesse widened his eyes. “Jealous?”
The thing is, Norman was.
“Tables have turned. I’m the older man now. To be honest with you, I kind of like it.”
Norman couldn’t believe his ears. “You’re twice his age. You’re not older so much as archaic.”
“He doesn’t seem to mind.”
“And you just had to call me your ex-husband. Twist that knife.”
Jesse seemed to think that was not fair. “It’s what you are, isn’t it?”
Norman couldn’t believe his ears. He was so much more than that. “And what is he? Your boyfriend?”
“He’s not anything. Calm down. We’ve only been on a few dates.” Jesse looked around, perhaps nervous that people were starting to eavesdrop.
In the history of marital arguments, telling someone to calm down has only ever provoked the opposite effect.
But Norman getting more worked up was not going to get them anywhere.
He had no choice but to pivot. “I remember you underneath me, when I was in the light. You were standing underneath me. Waving a rolling pin. Could that be possible? And I recognize now you were fighting for us. And it may seem like I was giving up. But in my own way I was fighting for us, too.”
Norman expected an objection, but Jesse seemed too stunned to speak. Maybe he was remembering the rolling pin, too.
“Do you remember anything else?”
“I remember that night. I was reading and had dozed off, I guess—I think you were already asleep.” Norman glanced at Headphones. How long is this song? “I don’t remember what woke me first, that awful racket and the blinding flashes of light, or just, you know.”
Jesse shook his head. He didn’t know.
“My general unhappiness with the world.”
“You didn’t think to wake me?”
“No,” he replied, very matter-of-fact. He didn’t recall thinking to, or on any of the previous nights his restlessness startled him awake, but he could see how that would have been the rational response to something that goes bump in the night.
“The best way I can describe it is I felt this pull. Out of bed. Out of the house. Like I was in some sort of trance. I didn’t think to wake you, because I wasn’t thinking at all. ”
“It didn’t feel like a pull to me,” Jesse interrupted. “If anything, it felt like a push.”
“I thought the light held the answers. I know it seemed like I chose to leave. But I only chose to know the truth. And the rest?” Norman shrugged helplessly.
“And what are the answers?” Jesse asked with an obnoxious defiance. “Where have you been this whole time?”
Norman’s jaw dropped helplessly; he didn’t have them—answers. At least not in that moment. At least not yet. The answer was that he wanted to be with Jesse. He just didn’t know if Jesse still wanted to be with him. And he was too afraid to ask.
“That’s what I thought.”
Richard Marx ended his plaintive wailing.
I’ll be right here waiting for you. What did he know?
Thank god Headphones had the good sense to follow it with something up-tempo.
Bruno Mars, volume up. A woman screamed as she recognized “Uptown Funk” and leaped to her feet, almost knocking over a server balancing three bowls of sorbet.
When they returned to their table, Orson was gone.
And he couldn’t tell if Jesse was sad or relieved by his absence.
After the dessert course had been cleared, some of the tables were pushed back to make more room for dancing, and Headphones announced he had a surprise for the bride and groom: a silent disco.
Enormous over-ear headsets were handed out to each guest, much like the pair that earned Headphones his name.
They were meant to provide a unique party experience that happened to work in perfect tandem with Palm Springs’s strict noise ordinances.
The high-quality audio picked up even the lowest bass line, meaning the party could go on well into the night without disrupting any of the restaurant’s neighbors.
The headsets lit up in three different colors—red, green, and blue—corresponding with three different channels.
Everyone started out on the green channel, and then you could switch, and find others on the dance party with the same headset color and really throw down.
Jesse and Norman, still in the midst of their fight, exchanged skeptical glances, Jesse even looking at his watch to see if they should leave.
But Norman was game, determined to end the evening on a high note, and so they slipped their headsets on and were each instantly transported to their own, safe world.
And then everyone began to dance.
The music quality was so pristine and beat through the headphones with such a percussive engine, it was impossible not to move to it with the absolute confidence Norman and Jesse usually lacked.
Norman, self-conscious about his age and not knowing the latest trends; Jesse, too big for most wedding dance floors, his limbs too gangly to easily control.
Jesse often kept his arms close to his body, always afraid he could accidentally strike someone, while Norman would bounce in place.
But the headsets had a range of fifty or so yards, and so everyone could spread out, having individual experiences that were also somehow collective.
In short it was absolute magic. Norman danced with Snickers and Socks.
Mountain Dew waved Jesse over, and he danced with her; she was, of course, on the green channel.
Eventually Norman sweated through his shirt and had to beg off for a glass of water.
Norman slipped his headphones around his neck as he rehydrated and was instantly struck by the absolute insanity that was unspooling before him.
Like with his relationship, the second he was not a part of it, he was absolutely on the outside of it, and what was a party only seconds before was now just criminally insane people stomping and shuffling to no music at all.
Everyone wanted to know where he’d been, but they had it all wrong.
They were the extraterrestrials, complete with light-up ears, all moving and swaying and bending and grunting, some of them singing badly to songs that no one else could hear.
Tonight they celebrated, they expressed love, they moved their bodies in time with music.
But on other nights they were hurtful, even cruel to themselves and to others, hating their bodies, voting against their own self-interests, and lifting false prophets.
Several would go home tonight and take drugs to soothe the unbearable pain of being human.
Others might in the future die in floods or earthquakes because the planet was sick and turning against them and no one was doing anything to stop it.
My god, Norman thought. We are all of us aliens.
He pounded a second glass of water, all of us also more than half this mystical blend of hydrogen and oxygen, and carefully slipped his headphones back on. Because he did not want to be a visitor in this strange and curious life. It no longer exhausted him like it once had.
He wanted desperately what attracted him to the light in the first place. He wanted to be part of a larger world.