Fabulous Pipple #2
That’s amazing. No no, you’re not boring me at all, this is fascinating. Tell me more…
Dane’s daughter Saskia murmurs out the corner of her mouth, “All right, Dad?”
“All right.” Dane smiles at her, full of pride. She’s gotten so beautiful. The kind of beauty forged in adversity.
“I could’ve used a pre-party to warm up my conversation,” Saskia says. “I need a can of D5W to get a word in with these fabulous pipple.”
“WD-40,” Dane says. “D5W is an IV drip solution.”
Saskia rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”
“Rhodes scholar, my ass.”
“Silence, please.”
Huff Jensen comes up behind Dane and puts arms around his shoulders. “All right?”
“All right,” Dane says, telling the truth.
The party continues to unfold, and Dane finds his own social tether: a travel agent named Nando. “Hernando,” he first introduces himself. “As in Jesus Hernando Christ.”
They don’t hang out exclusively all night but keep circling back toward each other to share intel and snacks. Nando’s love of food borders on a vocation, and he reconnoiters with a plate and a beatific smile. “Dane, you gotta try this. It’s tits.”
They laugh a lot between bites. Like a forgotten dream, Dane remembers what it’s like to be on. Slightly astounded to remember he can be a charming person.
“Man, your eyes are ridiculous,” Nando says, scraping up the last of some artichoke dip. “You just stand in bars with those baby blues and take numbers?”
Dane laughs. A little guiltily, because only one of his eyes is truly blue. The other is a contact lens.
A quiet but haughty voice in his head clears its throat and says, They are my eyes, thank you very much.
Dane smiles down at his plate, blinking his lids slowly. Thinking, Quiet, you. I’m being charming.
Suddenly Nando extends a hand toward Dane’s head. “May I?”
“What?”
“Touch your hair.”
“Oh. Sure?”
Nando runs his palm from Dane’s forehead to his crown, along the short, thick nap of closely cut hair. Then back again. “That’s tight.”
Goosebumps rash down Dane’s neck and arms. He hasn’t been frankly caressed like this in many moons. Tight dangles in the air like an invitation.
“Thanks,” he says.
Nando licks his lips. “You want to get out of here?”
“What, go to another party?”
“No, to my place.”
His eyes hold Dane’s gaze.
An infinite silence.
“Oh fuck,” Nando says slowly. “Did I read the wrong room?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No no no no...” Nando is laughing again, waving a hand. “Shit, man, I pride myself on my superb gaydar and it just wenteth before a spectacular fall.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
Nando turns down an invisible volume dial. “Zzzt. Not your fault. Now excuse me, I like to be mortified in private.”
“Wait,” Dane says. “Look—”
“It’s all right, you don’t have to make me feel better.”
“I just want to be honest. Your gaydar is fine. It’s the right room. The right house, rather. But I’m way out of the game. It’s been a while since…” He almost says since I was propositioned, but he bites that off and lets the sentence just die.
“I got it,” Nando says gently. “So, you want to get out of here?”
“No, but thank you for asking.”
“Anytime.” Smooth as fuck, Nando passes a business card, and bumps Dane’s side as he walks away.
Embarrassed and bewildered, Nando’s touch loitering on his head, Dane makes his way back to Saskia. She’s tethered herself to Maisie and while they’re talking animatedly, Dane can see Saskia is tired.
All at once, Dane is tired, too. As the New Year approaches and the energy in the house ratchets up, he finds himself near tears.
People start to gather around the television, flipping between Ryan Seacrest and Anderson Cooper.
Dane finds his jacket and heads upstairs, down the hall to the door leading to the attic stairs.
The attic is already lit up by a single lightbulb, but Dane thinks nothing of it as he climbs the ladder which goes up to the widow’s walk.
He pulls on his wool watch cap and steps out into the night, thinking he’ll let the New Year wash over him and have himself a good, private cry.
A waft of pot smoke hits him first. Then Dane sees a man is sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs, staring at the skies over Nyack.
Not just any man, but the fox with the ridiculous purple eyes and the slight British accent.
“Hi,” Dane says. “Sorry, didn’t know someone was already here.”
“No worries. I’m just seeking enlightenment.”
Dane tries to recall if he and the man were introduced at any point. They weren’t. The man’s name of course is Liko Greenman, but Dane won’t learn that tonight.
“I’m sorry, your name went out of my head,” Dane says, he hopes graciously.
Liko smiles. “It’ll come back. Sit down.”
Dane likes this maneuver, and sits. Liko passes the vape. Dane takes two hits and passes it back, bracing himself for awful icebreakers.
So what do you do?
You live around here?
How do you know Huff and Maisie?
You follow football? How about them…
Nothing. Just uncomplicated, companionable silence. Fingers occasionally touching as they pass the peace pipe.
The mission of the Danelaw was peace, Dane thinks.
“Any resolutions?” Liko asks.
“No,” Dane says, tongue thick in his mouth. “Well. Maybe.”
“Ah. You resolve to be more decisive.”
Dane laughs.
“Tell me,” Liko says. “What do you resolve?”
“To live.”
“Did that not become an option recently?”
“Kind of. My wife died.”
Liko’s head flicks toward him. “When?”
“A year in February. She died the day after her birthday.”
“Accident?”
“Stroke.”
“Instantaneous?”
“No. I mean, she didn’t regain consciousness but she hung on a while.”
“Until her birthday, you think?”
“Until after. I’m sure of it. It was such a Nomi thing to do.”
“Nomi,” Liko says. “Beautiful name. Short for something?”
“No. Just Nomi.”
“What made it a her thing to do?”
“She never knew her real birthday,” Dane said.
“She was abandoned as a newborn. She might’ve been born anywhere in the last week of January or the first week in February, nobody could say for sure.
Authorities put February first on her birth certificate.
One of a dozen things people in power wrote down and she just had to accept.
She had no ties to anything. No conviction in any of her vital stats.
Not her name. Not her birthday. If she was going to die, it would be on the day she chose.
So she hung on and died February second. Because fuck them.”
Dane waits for Liko to say I’m sorry. But he doesn’t. The night has been quiet but now an energy starts to build. People spilling out of houses and gathering along River Road. The New Year is approaching.
“Anyway,” Dane says slowly. “That’s what I tell myself.”
Liko nods. “And you resolve to live. Keep living.”
“Yeah.”
“You have kids?”
“A daughter. Saskia. She’s here. Downstairs, I mean.”
“What if she weren’t?”
This guy doesn’t pussyfoot around, Dane thinks.
“What if she weren’t at this party or what if she didn’t exist?” he says aloud.
“Didn’t exist.”
“Then I wouldn’t either.”
“You sure about that?”
Dane exhales. “It’s complicated.”
“Use short words.”
“I was in a…” Dane trails off laughing. “Man, I loathe the word throuple but for the life of me, I cannot come up with another word on the fly.”
“Throuple does sound like something I’d order back home,” Liko says, and his slight accent now thickens: “I’ll do the throuple and mash and pull us a pint, love?”
“Whatever you want to call it, I refer to Nomi as my wife but she wasn’t my legal spouse. She was married to another man, Ethan. I was their partner. That’s how it was on paper but in practice, we were all spouses. The three of us were…”
“Together,” Liko said.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Twenty-two years.”
A low whistle. “How much of that time were they legally married?”
“Twenty-one years.”
Liko’s eyebrows raise. “You were always together then.”
“Always.”
“Not an open marriage that invited you in as a third.”
“No, it was just us. Always us.”
“Why did Nomi and Ethan get married?”
“Because she had cancer and he had the health insurance.”
Liko lifts palms to the sky. “God bless America.”
“Right?”
“And then Nomi died. But not of cancer.”
“Yes.”
“Where is Ethan?”
“Gone.”
Liko looks at him hard. “Literally or poetically? Use short words.”
Dane smiles. “He left me.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. Twenty-two years and turns out, I really was just the third in the marriage.”
“What, did he ghost out on you? Or was there a proper breakup?”
“It ended. We said goodbye. Really soon after Nomi died, I sensed him drifting away. I fought like hell to hold on but after a while… Every day, it was like being widowed all over again.”
“Well, shit. I won’t say I’m sorry, because you’re probably sick of it. I’ll say I’m honestly astounded you’re still here.”
“Because, my daughter.”
“Still.”
“You married?” Dane asks.
“Divorced. She left me, so I feel you on that Groundhog Day onslaught. Every morning getting clobbered with the loss.”
“Does it get easier?”
“No. It just gets different.”
“You got kids?”
“A son. Kyle. He’s sixteen. God help me.” Liko passes the vape. “What time is it? How much longer we got to suffer this year?”
“Are you suffering?”
“Right now I am feeling no pain.”
Dane checks his watch. “About thirty seconds left.”
They both get up and lean elbows on the railing.
Fireworks are starting to go off over the Hudson.
Dane starts to ask his companion’s name, then decides he doesn’t want to know.
Not yet. This is, all at once, a beautifully paranormal moment.
Dreamy and surreal. Liko might not even be human.
He’s a divine messenger or otherworldly guide, come down from the stars to commune with Dane.
Ask personal questions and be astounded at their answers.
Be astounded by Dane, who is still here. And a charming person.
A roar of celebration two floors below heralds the arrival of 2016. The neighborhood erupts in cries, hoots, sound makers and more fireworks bloom in the sky.
“My daughter’s downstairs,” Dane says. “I should go find her.”
“Yes, you should.”
“Happy New Year.”
“To you as well.”
Dane turns to go but Liko puts a hand on his arm. Then he leans and kisses Dane’s cheek.
A beat, and then they hug. Liko’s a good hugger. Not a dissatisfying A-frame ladder but a full-frontal embrace with quads and stomachs and chests pressed tight.
Really tight.
“Hey,” Liko whispers.
“What?” Dane whispers, thinking he’s about to be properly kissed.
“I promise it gets different.”
“What’s your name?” Dane says, now wondering if the rail of this widow’s walk is strong enough to hold the weight of two men.
Liko breaks the hug and steps back. “Go find your daughter. And stay alive. One more year.” He points to the roof of the house beneath their feet. “Next year. Right here. Ten to midnight. We’ll meet again, I’ll ask nosy questions and we’ll resolve further.”
“Then exchange names?”
“Then exchange names.” Now Liko points at Dane’s face, stern but playful. “Don’t cheat and ask Huff and Maisie. You’ll ruin it.”
“All right.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I. Next year. If I can’t be here, I’ll leave a note.”
Dane goes back downstairs to the party, pausing once on a tread to touch his fingertips to his cheek. He passes a mirror and hopes he sees the faint trace of silver lip marks. The kiss of an angel marking him for life.
Only his face stares back. Thin. A little haggard. Lines deeper. Blue eyes shadowed.
No magic. Just a tired, double-screwed widower.
Up on the roof, Liko Greenman rubs a palm in slow circles on his thumping heart.
His lips thrum a little. He’d kissed the blue-eyed man impulsively, and with a pure motive of compassion.
But it had been the smoothest male cheek he’d ever kissed.
As he drew back, a thought flickered behind his teeth: That’s… odd.
The widow’s walk feels lonely and bereft under the stars of the New Year, and Liko suddenly wants to follow Dane.
He doesn’t. He’s always counseling his son to put twenty-four hours between his impulses and his actions.
Liko’s put a year between him and the blue-eyed, nameless man.
Maybe overkill, but you should always have something to look forward to.
And he is looking forward to it.
That guy, he thinks through a sparkling, dreamy haze. We will meet again. That guy will come back to meet me, and he will be someone in my life.
But fifteen months will pass until the two men meet again, and it will be Liko who comes to Dane. Bruised and smarting. Savaged and screwed. Not remembering they’ve met before.
In the skies above the Hudson River, the Universe—who herself has been widowed and screwed innumerable times—sighs in delight. She clutches her toes, clenches her butthole, and waits.