The Night Listener : A Novel

dating . I thought we were having a life together, and he was out dating .”
    “You didn’t see this coming?”
    “Well, he’d already asked if we could open up the relationship, but it hurt too much every time I thought about it. I asked him to give me time, which he did for a while. Hell, I guess he did. I never asked and he never told; we just turned into strangers. He started playing queer punk rock music really loud, which he knew I hated.
    And once he asked me to fasten his chaps when he was going out for the evening. I had never even seen those fucking chaps before.
    And another time I accidentally opened one of his letters…”
    “Accidentally?”
    “Yes. It looked like a flyer or something, and it was this leather club holding its big annual brunch. They were confirming his choice of an entrée. That’s how I knew it wasn’t just some random thing: he’d picked the chicken over the beef.”
    “Did you ask him about it?”
    “Oh, yeah. He tried to laugh it off. He said one of his friends probably signed him up, until I pointed out the entrée thing.” I paused for a dyspeptic laugh. “I know how that sounds, believe me.
    Betrayed by brunch.”
    “No…go on.”
    “That’s all there is. I still can’t believe it. I was more sure of him than anything I’d ever believed in. My parents…my work…Christmas.”
    “Christmas?”
    “Yeah. Jess hated it, so we pretty much scrapped it. I could see his point, actually: why should one time of year be officially more happy than another? Christmas was just a contrivance next to what we had. Jesus, what am I babbling about?”
    “Hey, I’m with you. Roberta Blows, remember?”
    “Let’s stop talking about me, okay?”
    “Why? You have a right to your feelings.” That phrase was significant, I realized. Pete had been through months of psychotherapy—some of it with Donna, presumably—and the language of the couch had obviously colored his own. It touched me to hear him doling out some of the wisdom he’d already received.
    I had never been to a shrink, but I was beginning to understand the value of a generous listener. And what harm could there be, really, in playing the patient for him?
    “The thing is,” I said, “Jess was my only certainty. I hate the thought of losing that.”
    “What sort of certainty?”
    “Oh…just something you feel sometimes. Like at night when you’re driving somewhere, and it’s dark and the lights of the highway are streaming past, and you’re not even talking, and one of you reaches out and holds the other one’s leg for a while. It’s the truest moment in the world, Pete. And all it says is: There you are, and here I am, and we’re here together. You get it in airplanes, too, when the lights are out and you’re the last people awake. Or even in the middle of a bad party when your eyes meet across the room. It’s the only miracle we get, I think.”
    “Did you ever have that before Jess?”
    “Not long enough to believe in it. It takes time and a lot of work.” Pete hesitated. “Do you still love him?”
    “Oh, yeah. I can’t imagine not.”
    “Then you must be more certain than ever.”
    “Yeah, but…”
    “So go with it, man. Hang on to it.”
    “It has to work both ways.”
    “Says who? Glinda the Good?”
    “What?”
    “She had it totally wrong, you know. That was really crummy advice she gave the Tin Man. The heart is measured by how much you love, not by how much you are loved by others. Fuckin’ Hitler was loved by others.”
    “Yeah, but…”
    “And you’re one lucky motherfucker if you already love somebody that much. So just keep loving him. Love him across the city, if you have to. It doesn’t leave room for the fear and anger and the rest of that shit. When my mom adopted me, she loved me for months before I could love her back. And I wasn’t even human until I learned how to do that. It really is inside, man. The whole thing. It’s just something you do yourself, not something you get. Nobody’s love ever saved anybody else.” I was at a loss for words.
    “Anyway,” Pete added, “you know that.”
    “I do, huh?”
    “It’s in your stories, man.”
    I heard a low crooning sound in the background. “What’s that?”
    “Just Janus. He heard me talking and came in. He wants to know what the fuck I’m doing.”
    “And your mother’s gonna be asking soon.”
    “Nah, man. It’s cool.”
    I could actually feel the indigo calm of 511 Henzke Street, the