it became numbing. But it was too late; his eyes were now open. He had a great book idea, confirmed by a decent advance from a decent publisher, but there were good ideas and there were good ideas that are ultimately unworkable, and Noah was coming to the conclusion that his months of research would have no payoff.
He sat back on the couch, briefly closing his eyes and wishing everything would become clearer and easier. He wished…he wished he could understand.
Noah Abraham understood a lot of things—the AP Stylebook, the rules of most professional sports, the novels of Fitzgerald, the electoral college system, and on and on—but he did not understand the closet. He spoke a little Spanish, a little French, and even a little Russian, but he couldn’t speak the language of those people.
He tried to hide it and project empathy, but more than a few of Noah’s closeted subjects thought he was arrogant. That wasn’t just his supposition; they had told him that in no uncertain terms. To their faces, Noah conceded the point and apologized, but in his head he was never apologetic. First and foremost, his premise was, What is wrong with this person that, thirty-six years after Stonewall, he or she cannot come out? If closeted Washington could not deal with that premise, then it was their problem, not his.
Noah had done it, after all. He came out to his parents during his junior year of college, and had lived a full and openly gay life for the fourteen years since that day with no repercussions. Now, a few months short of his thirty-fifth birthday, he hoped to learn what led other people to bury their sexual identities for the real—or, more likely, imagined—sake of a job, family harmony, and social acceptance. He would write about his new insights and maybe change the world just a little bit for the better. He would help people embrace their sexuality and finally come to peace with themselves.
If only, he thought. If only…
If only these fucking people would say something! If only they’d let themselves be visible!
Racial minorities couldn’t hide their race. The handicapped couldn’t hide their handicaps. Religion, well…yes, you could hide your religion, but who bothered in 2005? As Noah saw it, it was only too many of his fellow homosexuals who were hiding. They were hiding, and they were mute.
Which made it his job to end the charade. Or so he saw it.
And The Project was to have been his tool to end the charade, but…
He walked to the kitchen, poured a glass of merlot, and again tried to wrap his head around his frustrations. It seemed like only moments had passed before he refilled the glass. And then he decided that maybe watching a movie on HBO would be less frustrating.
A few hours later, somewhere in the latter half of the movie, he felt no better. But at least he was a little bit drunk, which helped him fall asleep on the couch. Because those nights in bed, sober, torturing himself, were the worst.
Two hundred miles away, at the exact moment Noah was drifting off to sleep on his couch, Bart Gustafson strode into The Penthouse, a bar tucked onto a leafy side street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. From the safety of the doorway, he carefully assessed the crowd before advancing forward, squeezing between patrons who lined the narrow space along the bar until he reached the spiral staircase leading to an upper level. There, as a pianist sang to an indifferent audience, the crowd was notably thinner. He easily found an opening at the bar and ordered a drink.
“You’re new here,” said the youthful bartender, as he set the scotch and soda on the bar. Bart couldn’t identify his slight accent. “I’m Paolo.”
“Bart,” he said in response, adding a friendly nod. “I’ve been here before, but it’s been a while.”
Paolo smiled. “You’ve been here before and still you came back?”
Bart scanned the room and laughed. “I guess I’m a glutton for punishment.” It was a joke, whether the bartender knew it or not. The Penthouse was the epicenter of the older gay bar crowd in New York, which was a demographic Bart felt comfortable with. He knew there were eyes in the room sizing him up—young, good-looking…was he new in town, lost, or a hustler?—but he paid them no mind. He was out for a friendly drink in a city that often overwhelmed him, and so he went for the comfort of The Penthouse and its gentlemanly clientele.
Bart waited until the pianist finished his unique version of Son of a Preacher Man to an almost unnoticeable smattering of applause before turning back to Paolo, who still stood nearby. “It’s sort of quiet up here tonight.”
“Mondays,” Paolo said, as he emptied a departed patron’s glass into the sink behind the bar. “It’s busier downstairs, but every place uptown is dead on Monday night. If you’re looking for action, I could recommend maybe a club in Chelsea.”
Bart shook his head. “No, I’m fine. It just seemed quiet.”
Paolo turned slightly while he straightened a row of stemware behind the bar, but kept his new customer in his peripheral vision. This kid was half the age of most of the men in the bar, and he didn’t want to go to Chelsea? Well, if he thought he was going to make cash transactions in the bar, he had better think again.
The glasses straightened, the bartender walked back to where Bart sat on the other side of the bar. On an ordinary night he might not have bothered, but with seven patrons lining the polished wood bar—all of whom had full drinks in front of them—he had the time and, more importantly, he had the curiosity.
“So, what brings you out tonight?” he asked, when he had Bart’s attention.
“Oh, I just came in from Long Island for the week. Sort of a mini-vacation.”
“I see. A vacation from your boyfriend?”
“No, I’m single,” Bart said, and he wondered if the bartender was trying to pick him up, which in turn intruded on his comfort level. “I just needed to get away for a few days.”
“You live alone on Long Island?”
What was it with this guy? “No. I live with a couple of older guys.” He hoped that would warn the bartender away.
Paolo smiled conspiratorially. “So you’re like a houseboy?”
Bart sighed. “Uh…yeah, sure.”
Now things began to make sense to Paolo, as he ticked off Bart’s comments in his head. The kid’s a houseboy for two older gentlemen, and he knew what that usually meant. Now he’s in town for a few days and he wants to hang around with the older crowd. Probably looking for a little business on the side. And he’d almost certainly get it: he was very good looking and obviously well built, and he had that All-American Boy look working with his Ralph Lauren shirt and khakis. He would be considered totally fuckable if he wandered into one of the hotter bars in Chelsea or Hell’s Kitchen…in fact, he could have any man in The Penthouse. He probably could have even had Paolo, had they met more innocently on one of those rare nights he wasn’t working.
True, Paolo—who had seen his share of hustlers pass through The Penthouse doors—wasn’t getting those vibes off him, but Bart was definitely getting the message…all the more so with every little bit of extra attention the bartender was giving him. And those messages made him uncomfortable.
For his part, Bart was now convinced that the bartender was, in fact, trying to pick him up. Why else would he be virtually on top of him, when he had a number of other patrons to talk to? Why else would he care about his relationship status? Or who he lived with?
He was relieved when Paolo finally excused himself to tend to another customer. But, sure enough, as soon as that drink was served, he was back.
“Another one?” he asked, motioning to Bart’s almost-empty glass.
“No, thanks.” He rose from his stool, dropped a few singles on the bar, and left. He really hadn’t wanted to return to the couch on which he’d be spending the week so early in the night, but the bartender’s attention was proving to be too much.
When he was gone, a regular customer