The Summer We Fell Apart Read online

  George walked up and dropped his bag to the floor before he slid onto the stool next to Sam. Sam looked at him and grinned like he saw George every day. By the time George settled himself and ordered a coffee, Sam had closed the newspaper and was waiting.

  “Well, where is it?” he asked, looking down at the ground and yanking on the pocket of George’s jacket.

  George pulled back, confused. “What?”

  “The video game?” Sam said, smiling wide.

  George felt his heart start beating with relief. The adrenaline rush he’d felt when Sam had tugged on his jacket had almost seriously debilitated him. “Oh, that…it’s in the back of my closet.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows and George explained about his mother and her Christmas gift. He was surprised, again, at how much more he wanted to tell Sam. He divulged that his father had recently died, and that he had three siblings with identical gifts, and then he stopped himself.

  “So…” George said as he received his coffee and pulled it closer to him. “Let me say again I’m sorry you didn’t hear it from me—about Asa and the tutor.”

  Sam shrugged. “I had a feeling Asa was waiting for the perfect moment to tell me. He’s been pretty confrontational these days.”

  George nodded as he lifted his coffee to his lips. He winced from the combination of bitter grounds and intense heat as it traveled down his esophagus when he swallowed. Sam told George about the frequent arguments he and Asa were having ever since the show ended. It was as if the boy had held it in for so long that he was now going to punish Sam every single day.

  “Does he want to go home? I mean he probably left friends behind?” George ventured. “This is a tough age for peer change.”

  Sam frowned. “We weren’t in Michigan long. I was visiting artist at the Arts Center in Kalamazoo for a term.” He shrugged and looked slightly embarrassed as he elaborated. “Grants, visiting artist, whatever it takes to pay the rent.” George saw vulnerability there—not unlike those creatures his sister sewed, warts and all, that begged for someone to take them home and love them.

  George tried to play it cool as he continued to dig for clues. He wanted Sam to tell him everything. “Before that?”

  Sam looked at George. His motivation was obviously transparent but that didn’t appear to bother Sam, who continued to talk. “I was born in Delhi but raised in the UK. London, the East End. That’s where Asa was born as well.”

  “That explains your interesting accent.”

  “Interesting?”

  George blushed and said boldly, “Musical. When you speak you sound like you’re singing.”

  Sam laughed but looked flattered. “I assure you I am tone deaf.”

  George drank some more coffee to keep something even more idiotic from coming out of his mouth. But it didn’t stop him from asking, “Is that where Asa’s mother is? London?”

  Sam exhaled slowly and played with the corner of the newspaper. “I don’t know where she is exactly. We—I…” He stopped and looked up at George before he continued, “When I came out I wasn’t that useful as a husband anymore, you know?”

  George winced with understanding but felt some relief. “But Asa?”

  “She pretty much hated anything that reminded her that she had married and slept with a queer. Even Asa.” He took another deep breath and exhaled. “Thankfully, he was too young to know at the time…although I’m sure some of this anger that’s been directed at me is because she recently sent him a letter.” He paused. “So to answer your question—she is somewhere in the UK.”

  “Does she want to see him?”

  “Eleven years and she’s back.” For a moment Sam looked defeated. Up this close George could see thin lines at the corners of his eyes as if someone had sketched them in. There were dark circles as well and his hair was unwashed. He wondered how old Sam was—forty maybe?

  Then Sam shook his head and smiled again, and his entire face changed. “I’m not going to project the worst. Asa is curious, for sure. I understand that. But I know he loves me.” As Sam lifted his coffee cup to his mouth, George noticed that his hand shook ever so slightly.

  George found himself hoping against logic that love was enough when frequently it never was. He thought people put too much faith in the power of love. If only life were that absolute. So far in his twenty-nine years, George had found the idea of love, and that included familial as well as passionate, an enigma. The closest he had been to love was what his sister, Amy, had with Owen, and even that made him scared that she would be disappointed.

  Sam brushed against him with his shoulder to get his attention. “I’ve told my son’s guidance counselor too much, I fear.”

  “No—no, you haven’t,” George whispered fervently. Then, to dispel a moment that he was afraid was too intimate, he cleared his throat and spoke loudly. “Whatever I can do to help Asa at school, I need to know.”

  Sam regarded him with that amused smile again—like he knew all of George’s secrets. “I know you’ll help him, but it’s really only Asa who can help himself here.”

  George smiled weakly. “So I guess I’ll tell the tutor to forget it?”

  He nodded as his eyes searched George’s face. “You said you haven’t read Asa’s paper yet?”

  “No.”

  “He tells me there is a distinct parallel between Holden Caulfield and Siddhartha. Both were young, alienated, perhaps depressed?” He paused and looked at George for a reaction; George nodded for him to continue. “Each went on a journey. Either way they each had to search for enlightenment, yes?”

  “Yes.” George exhaled and continued cautiously. “I can’t argue with that.” He was excited—that a student had actually drawn a continuum from one work of fiction to the next, had understood, at least, what George had been striving for in choosing these works. It was thrilling. But he was also embarrassed. What if Sam thought the connection he’d attempted to draw was sophomoric?

  “What about you, George Haas?” Sam continued to probe, “You don’t look like you have these sorts of problems in your life, do you?”

  George shifted on the stool. His back was starting to hurt and Sam was looking at him intensely. He felt his bowels cramp and he was afraid he’d have to excuse himself to go to the toilet. What would Sam infer from that? That he was trying to hook up with him? Right here? For God’s sake! That would be wrong on so many levels. First and foremost, his job would be at stake. He gritted his teeth from the intestinal twist and said, “Believe me, I’ve searched enough—experienced plenty, I mean I have no children but I’ve had enough drama. I’ve just gotten out of a relationship that was…” George hesitated, looking for a word to describe exactly what it was he had with Jules when he realized that he had perhaps given Sam more information than he had been looking for. Feebly, he added, “I’m not looking for anything right now.” Now why did he say that? Was that what Sam was asking him? Probably not. It was just George projecting his feelings again.

  “Ah, no one is ever looking.” Sam smiled slowly.

  George couldn’t tell if he was teasing or not. It was his weakness, a holdover from years of his father’s taunts. Either way, it was time for him to leave. He stood and reached into his pocket for his wallet. Sam stopped him by placing a five on the counter in front of them. George smiled and adjusted his jacket and picked up his bag.

  As George slung his bag across his shoulder and fixed the strap, Sam leaned over until his mouth was level with George’s ear. He could feel Sam’s breath as Sam said in a low voice, “Thanks for coming to see the show.”

  “But I didn’t…” George started to protest, as his gut twisted and he realized that Sam had seen him through the glass on Christmas Eve. That was when the pain in his stomach turned into something reminiscent of the reaction he’d had to Sam the first time they’d met.

  When he looked at Sam, George knew his face must be a startling shade of claret—he could feel it. And that was when George did something so unexpected that he
knew later on, when he reconsidered, he would have done it again no matter what. He lifted a hand to Sam’s cheek and brushed his fingertips along his jawbone. Just as George moved to press his lips against Sam’s, Sam closed his eyes.

  That total act of surrender made George hesitate. Sensing this, Sam’s eyelids fluttered open.

  “It’s okay, close your eyes,” George said softly, urgently, as he placed his lips against Sam’s.

  five

  YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID HELLO

  The first time George slept over at Sam’s, he stumbled into the kitchen in the early morning to make himself some coffee. It was a risky endeavor, maybe foolish, but he absolutely needed something to wake him up before class. Since he was half-asleep and he had absolutely no idea where anything was, he swayed back and forth, opening cabinets, until he determined that there wasn’t any coffee to be found. The coffeemaker on the counter with the ring of grounds stuck to the lid was obviously a ruse. He was tempted to reuse what was left in the basket, but the gray fuzz around the rim made him shudder and reconsider.

  The only thing his search uncovered was an old box of something called Yogi Cleansing Tea. That was not going to be enough to get him going, especially since he and Sam had fallen asleep only three hours ago. The alarm on his watch had woken George with a start. He was aware that he had to be somewhere but foggy on the specifics. Sam’s arm had been flung across George’s chest possessively while he slept, yet George didn’t take a moment to enjoy it. His heart was racing. He couldn’t be late for work and he needed to get out of the apartment before Asa woke up and discovered him there. Gently, George lifted Sam’s arm and rolled off the futon and onto the floor without waking him. When he sat up, he realized that as he got out of bed, he had taken most of the covers with him, leaving Sam exposed. He grabbed a handful of blankets as he stood up and arranged them carefully over Sam, tucking them in at the lower corners before kicking himself that he didn’t have time to linger over Sam’s naked back.

  His entire body protested being upright and out of the warmth of Sam’s bed, but he forced himself from the room for coffee. He had the idea that he would dress while the coffee brewed and leave Sam a note that he’d call later. But then, while he was in the kitchen contemplating the leftover, possibly moldy grounds, he heard the digitally altered screech of his mother’s maniacal screams coming from behind the tapestry to his left, which served as a divider for Asa’s room. Asa was awake and playing video games.

  George ran back into the bedroom for his clothes as silently as he could, cursing the creaking old floorboards along the way. Sam was in the exact position that George had left him moments before, sound asleep. George jammed his arms into his shirt, forgot his socks, and slung his bag over his shoulder. He was out the front door and down onto the street before he realized he hadn’t left a note or planted one last kiss on Sam’s cheek.

  George spent his morning classes in a stupor. He didn’t know what was worse: leaving Sam without saying good-bye or hiding from fourteen-year-old Asa. By the time fifth period rolled around and Asa strolled into his English class, George had a serious case of stress-induced sweats. Between the bad coffee from the teachers’ lounge that he had guzzled nonstop through the last four classes and the fear of being outed by Asa as having spent the night in his father’s bed, his heart roared in his ears as it galloped erratically inside his chest. It would be George’s luck if he had a heart attack right now in front of his students. He wondered, briefly, if Asa, whose previous student/teacher relationship with George had been (prior to George spending the night in his father’s arms) middling to above average, would call 911 or just let George die.

  God, he had to eat something soon or stop drinking coffee.

  George coasted through their discussion of Gatsby. He knew most of the boys, with the notable exception of Asa, came from a background of wealth and privilege. Jay Gatsby’s yearning to join the ranks of the wealthy along Long Island’s North Shore at all costs, was lost on them. These kids yearned for nothing. Had no idea what it was like to be outside looking in. Under normal circumstances, he would have pointed this out, this reversal of fortune. Today he just wanted to get through the class and go to lunch. So he allowed the discussion to veer off to celebrity: how to become one. For these kids, Gatsby’s plaintive yearning was somehow analogous to their desire to be rap stars or cast members of The Real World.

  Asa, uncharacteristically, contributed nothing. He, too, looked heavy-lidded from lack of sleep and George wondered how much the boy had heard. Had they been loud? Sam had assured George that Asa was already asleep when they had entered the apartment in the dark. Sam had muffled George’s protests with hard kisses and had led him into the bedroom without turning on any lights. George had been slightly buzzed from the bottle of wine they’d shared at dinner and he allowed himself to be taken by the hand. Since that first kiss initiated by George in the restaurant, they’d had half a dozen dates where they had not so much as brushed fingertips. By last evening, he had been swimming in desire, his cock so hard he thought it would burst through his zipper. George squirmed in his chair as he recalled the persistence of Sam’s tongue and the small shudder of his shoulders as he came prematurely while George held him tightly between his palms. That uncontrolled release had endeared him to George all the more. So he wasn’t thinking logically, wasn’t really registering that his student was on the other side of the apartment asleep in his bed while Sam knelt down on the floor and took George in his mouth. He wasn’t thinking about anything but how good it was and how long it had been since he had felt anything for anyone like he felt for Sam.

  At lunch George checked his cell and wasn’t surprised to find three voicemails from Sam. The dulcet melodic tone of his voice in George’s ear was enough to wake his sleeping dick coiled fetally inside his pants. He stood up quickly and rushed out of the lounge and down the front hall until he was outside. Without his coat, the arctic February air was enough to shock his penis back to slumber. He was no better than the hormones with heads housed in the school building behind him. He seriously needed to get a grip.

  Dialing Sam, he paced back and forth, mindful of the dwindling minutes of his break and glad his next period was tutoring. Tutoring would keep him focused on the task at hand and he wouldn’t be able to wander and descend into this no-man’s-land of paranoia and fear.

  The last message Sam had left for George said he would be unavailable until after five; so George left him a voicemail loaded with apology and what he hoped sounded like lust instead of desperation before he went back inside the building. He spent the afternoon crashing, coming down off the caffeine high like a novice skier on a black diamond trail, and by the time the final bell rang, he was slumped in the chair behind his desk, wrung out and comatose. He was obviously not cut out for a night of sex, subterfuge, and the subsequent aftermath. His sister Amy jokingly called him the straightest gay man she knew. After last night, he would have to agree.

  He ducked out of the faculty meeting with a vague excuse of illness (who wasn’t harboring a vicious germ or two this time of year?) and took the back staircase two at a time. He kept his head down and exited the building on Amsterdam Avenue at 68th Street. He was so intent on keeping his focus—get out of the school, to the subway, and safe behind the door of his apartment—that he ran straight into Asa on the corner of 67th and Amsterdam, knocking him off the curb and into the path of a speeding cab.

  George yanked the boy safely back onto the sidewalk by his jacket. Asa quickly disengaged and shook himself off. “You should have at least said hello,” Asa spat angrily in his face before turning and jogging up 67th Street back toward the park in an attempt to get away from George as quickly as possible.

  “Asa!” George shouted after him but did not make a move to follow. He knew it was no use. He guessed that Asa had said all he was going to for now. Of course, it left George wondering if he meant that he could have said hello right then or this morning when he had snuck out of his
father’s bed. Even though he wished for the former, he had a sinking feeling that it was most definitely the latter.

  At home, George fell onto his bed fully clothed and woke only when his cell phone inside his coat pocket vibrated against his side. He opened his eyes as he fumbled for the phone. It was dark except for the clock across the room on the VCR, which read 9:02 p.m. Shit. The vibrating stopped by the time he extricated the phone and flipped it open. He didn’t recognize the number, and he was crushed to see that Sam had neither called nor left a voicemail. Had he really fucked things up that bad?

  He took a deep breath and ran his tongue over his teeth. They felt gummy and his mouth tasted horrible. He shuffled into the alcove that housed his airline-style kitchen: mini-sink, mini-fridge, mini-microwave, and a two-burner stove top. He reached for a glass and ran the tap for water. He guzzled three glasses in a row and burped loudly. His gut was empty. Lazily, he pulled up his shirt and scratched his belly as he considered what to do about food when his phone vibrated along the edge of the table where he’d set it down.

  He felt weak in the knees when he saw the display. “Hey, hey hello?” George said eagerly into the phone. “Sam?”

  “George!” Sam boomed through static.

  “Where are you?” George asked. “I can barely hear you.”

  “Long Island. Train. I’ll explain when I see you. Can I come over?”

  George smiled. They were the words he had been waiting to hear all day.

  George and Sam were naked, lying on their backs shoulder to shoulder on the narrow mattress that was George’s bed, eating slices of cold pizza. They were in each other’s arms the minute Sam came through the door, removing clothes, sucking, licking, and grunting as they came together quickly, falling down onto the mattress with barely a word exchanged.

  The only thing that Sam had insisted upon was light, and he had stopped long enough to turn on the reading lamp next to the bed. He wanted to see George, and so, afterward, as they struggled for breath, they seemed captured inside a golden bubble. Outside of the bed, the corners of George’s studio apartment seemed dark and forbidding. He turned on his side toward Sam, trapping him beneath his leg, and Sam breathed into his ear, catching his bare lobe between his teeth. His tongue felt for the hole where an earring would have been, but there was none. George had never marked any part of his body, never cared to, plus he was more than a little frightened of needles. Just add that to the pile of neuroses that George had collected over the years.