The Night Listener : A Novel

it changed.
    It was thrilling to discover the muscles in my back, to see my chest begin to expand, to feel that deep exquisite soreness the day after.
    And my thrice-weekly endorphin rush was an antidepressant like none I’d ever known. As Jess grew ever more distant and restless, my workouts became a routine bordering on a habit. (It was as if some part of me already knew I was about to require a much deeper reserve of self-esteem.) I was so pleased with my progress that I bought a pair of 501s—the first I’d braved in over a decade—though I snipped off that faux-leather label on the waist. Thirty-six was respectable, I told myself, but hardly worth advertising.
    I was wearing my delabelled Levi’s today, in fact. And wondering for the first time in ages if my basket was presented to its best advantage. Or did guys in their thirties even give a damn about fifty-four-year-old baskets? I certainly hadn’t, as I recalled. Once, for instance, when I was doing PR for a local hotel, the owner, a burly, white-haired guy in his fifties, asked me jovially if I had ever seen his cock. Before I could answer, he had reached into his desk and produced a plaster cast of the member in question, fully engorged. It was the proverbial baby’s arm, ropy-veined and magnificent, and I was instantly drawn to it—but not, alas, to its proud owner. Looking back, I wonder why I didn’t just drop to my knees and narrow my focus a little. But all I could manage then was a clumsy compliment, as if the nice gentle-man, a much braver soul than I, had just shown me a snapshot of his grandchild.
    I had been in the coffeehouse for at least ten minutes before I realized Jess was there. He was at a table near the window with a group of leathermen, most of them shiny-skulled and stacked like chorus girls. There was no clean escape without awkwardness, so I waited until I was sure he wasn’t gripping the knee of anyone in particular, then made my way over. He was seated with his back to me, but he seemed to sense my approach and turned around. Or maybe someone had nudged him under the table.
    “Hi,” he said quietly, as if we were alone.
    “I’m not stalking you,” I joked, realizing he’d wonder a little, since Pasqua had never been a haunt of mine. I’d come here for the reasons he’d probably first come: the camaraderie and mild sexual energy, the chance to be alone in a crowd without alcohol.
    He introduced me to his friends—as his partner, amazingly—then invited me to join them.
    “Thanks,” I said. “I gotta get back. I’m hopelessly behind on this episode.”
    Jess gave me a private smile, recognizing a glamorous lie told for the benefit of the others. “I’ll walk you out,” he said.
    When we were on the sidewalk, he added: “I wanted to tell you that I called Pete.”
    I hadn’t expected this. “Oh, yeah?”
    “How bad off is he, anyway?”
    “What do you mean?” I was fretting already, though Donna had promised she would call me if he got any worse. It had been at least three days since our last conversation.
    “He sounds awful,” said Jess. “Congested.” I told him that was business as usual.
    “He’s a spunky little fucker, isn’t he?”
    “What did you talk about?”
    “Oh…Matthew Shepard, mostly.”
    “Who?”
    “That kid in Wyoming.”
    “What kid in Wyoming?”
    “You haven’t seen a newspaper, have you? Look over there.” He pointed to the corner of Eighteenth and Castro, where a makeshift shrine was already materializing on the sidewalk: burned-out rain-bow candles and limp bouquets, a grainy blowup of a sweet-faced young man. “A couple of cowboys picked him up in a bar. Tied him to a fence and pistol-whipped him to a pulp. In front of their fucking girlfriends.” I winced. “He was gay, you mean?”
    “What do you think? It was Wyoming.” Jess’s face was flushed with outrage, but there were tears in his eyes. This was what I loved him for: the pent-up passion of that big, gentle, wounded heart.
    “Is he dead?” I asked.
    “Might as well be, apparently.”
    “Jesus.”
    “I didn’t bring it up, by the way. He did.”
    “Who?”
    “Pete. He was crying about it. About how mean the world can be.”
    “He knows enough about that ,” I said.
    Jess wiped his eyes. “He said to tell you he’s enjoying the magazine. Whatever that means.”
    I smiled. “Good. He got it.”
    “Got what?”
    I explained about the Playboy , knowing Jess would understand.
    Another reason