Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

the subject to Brian. “He’s a good guy,” he added, feeling vaguely guilty again.
    “I like your friends,” said Thack. “Was that Charlie who called this morning?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Just … checking in?”
    “Yeah,” said Michael. “Wondering how the cabin was.” This was a bald-faced lie.
    “Has he been sick long?” asked Thack.
    “A year or so,” said Michael. “He came down with Pneumocystis last month.”
    Thack made a little whistling sound.
    “He’s O.K. now,” said Michael.
    “He seems to be. I mean, aside from the lesion.”
    “It usually gets better,” said Michael, “before it comes back. They call it the honeymoon period.”
    “Oh.”
    Michael gave him a rueful glance. “Isn’t that a terrible expression?”
    They passed a parched field, the carcass of a barn. The sea burned blue below them.
    “Do you know anyone with AIDS?” Michael asked.
    “A few.”
    “In Charleston?”
    “No. New York, mostly.”
    “You have them in Charleston.”
    “I know,” said Thack.
    “Sometimes I think we’re all gonna die.”
    Thack paused. “Have you thought about taking the test?”
    “I’ve taken it,” said Michael.
    Thack looked at him.
    Michael managed a rueful smile. “I was not amused.”
    Thack hesitated. “It doesn’t really mean anything, you know.”
    “Promise?” said Michael.
    Thack returned his smile, then faced the blinding blue of the Pacific. “I haven’t taken it,” he said. Michael nodded.
    “Are you sorry you took it?” Thack asked. “No,” said Michael. “I hate surprises.”
    They spent an hour or so roaming through the old Russian settlement at Fort Ross, then found a niche at the foot of a cliff where they leaned against each other and watched the waves. “Sometimes,” said Michael, “I feel like Hermione Gingold.”
    Thack chuckled.
    “You know … in A Little Night Music. What was the name of that song?”
    “ ‘Liaisons,’ ” said Thack.
    “Exactly.” He gave Thack a teasing nudge. “Fags are so handy.”
    Thack smiled at him. “Why do you feel like Hermione Gingold?”
    “Oh … everything seems like such a long time ago.”
    “Like what?”
    “Just … the good ol’ days. There used to be this beach up at Wohler Creek. Still is, I guess. It was a nude beach, only it was divided up into straight, gay and hippie. The hippies were a sort of buffer zone between the straight part and the gay part.”
    “That makes sense,” said Thack.
    “Somebody told me once that it belonged to Fred MacMurray.”
    “What? The beach?”
    “Well, the land, I guess. People just showed up there by the hundreds, and he was nice about it. He just owned it, apparently. He was never there.”
    “Oh.”
    “The gay part was amazing. Dozens of naked guys, all stretched out on the beach, and everybody had a raft. You could lie on the beach and look out across the water, and it was nothing but a sea of beautiful butts.” He smiled. “They called it the San Francisco Navy.”
    Thack laughed.
    Michael looked out to sea. “That was nineteen eighty-one … the last time I went.”
    “Four years,” said Thack.
    “It seems like forty,” said Michael. He turned and looked at Thack. “Does it bother you that I’m positive?”
    Thack returned his gaze, then gave him a gentle, leisurely kiss on the mouth.
    “Is that an answer?” said Michael.
    “Well … it’s the best I can do right now.”
    Thack pulled him closer and kissed him again. Beneath the burnished ribs of his old corduroy shirt, his back felt like warm marble. His lips were incredibly soft, tasting faintly of apple juice.
    “That’s more like it,” said Thack.
    “Uh-huh,” said Michael.
    Thack smoothed the hair over Michael’s ears. “You know what?”
    “What?”
    “Our sleeping arrangement is fucked.”
    Michael smiled. “I know. I’m sorry.”
    “Stop being sorry,” said Thack, kissing him again.
    Shortly after four, they followed the wiggly road back to Cazadero. When they parked in front of the cabin, Michael spotted Brian in a lawn chair by the creek and gave him a wave. “Yo,” Brian hollered.
    “See you inside,” Michael told Thack. “I’m gonna go talk to him.”
    He walked down to the creekbank in the slanting afternoon light. Brian looked healthier, more relaxed, with color in his face. “How was it?” he asked.
    “Great,” said Michael.
    “Good. I’m glad.”
    “That drive is incredible.”
    “Maybe I’ll take it,” said Brian. “You guys need the