Men Touching
Henry Alley
He drifted from downtown block to downtown block, in the fray of Monday afternoon Seattle. He felt he was in crisis. In the store windows and displays, men on books and magazines and video covers climbed out of greenery or jungles or bedrooms, with long stripes of muscle down their backs. It was the same magnetism, he knew, that pulled him, haunted him whenever he saw something heartbreakingly beautiful, the splendor of a touch he had once thought to be God’s, the heart and soul of man fashioned within a form so handsome it bulldozed the sight: Adam, in slow rise, awakening from the dust, and supporting himself on two magnificent arms, the extended back indenting. In his mind, his hands went out and felt the contours tenderly. It had been exactly the same when, as a child, no more than four, he had found a purple tulip growing like a miracle beneath a laurel, and, overcome with happiness in that front yard of Olympic peninsula sun, had gone running for his mother, who, smiling at his delight, had retrieved it for him and put it in a crystal vase.
Another man passed in a purple polo shirt, the contours of his body so very clear. The pressure was in the soles of his feet, and Robb felt he could not outlast the next three hours. The physical therapist—and then the doctor—were down there at the end of the afternoon; they would help him, but not at this moment.
Remember, he told himself, this is the day of the Body, when you can’t fight it any longer; you can only give yourself to those who know more than you do.
So he must find a way of waiting it out. He would go to the Y. For the pain was moving again, typically, rising to the base of his spine, an injury from the war, although he could never be absolutely sure—had he been in a war, really? A workout at the gym would ease things, though; there would be stretching and lifting and running and deep tubs of hot water to take the edge off—loosen him, hopefully, and still, maybe, the clanging of his heart.
That morning, he had not been in Seattle but in Port Townsend on the Peninsula to spend the day with his daughter. But when he had reached the bed and breakfast, now owned by his ex-wife, he had found it locked. There had been no daughter to meet him. Restive, humiliated, he had looked about for a someone, anybody, even a customer, who would have a key. But there was none. The 8:30 breakfast was over, and all who had needed to had checked out. It was the lull hour of 10:30. He looked through the window of the front door, and saw, on the ceiling, the four muraled Seasons, frescoed maidens of the nineteenth century, holding their garlands up, looking down. Together they seemed conspirators keeping his daughter from him.
Below, Robb rang and rang, and he knew that if he waited much longer, he might lash out and punch through the glass.
And so the afternoon found him back, by ferry again, in Seattle, roaming the streets first and now taking his clothes off at the Y.
Over by the steam room, there was a man sitting, looking lonely, a towel draped over his knees. He was distinguished, for the years seemed to have etched in his muscles rather than aged them, and the moment he had gotten up with Robb’s glance, his back seemed roped with thick vines. The man was older. Older! Perhaps the seasoning of the years had brought kindness to his face; perhaps that man knew, too, what it was like to be cut off from all your resources.
But a moment later, the man was gone, and Robb found himself alone in the weight room. On the bench press, another man was yelling out, horsing two hundred pounds towards his partner. On a leg-lift table, a figure Robb imagined to be an executive, tried to draw up fifty pounds with his boyish calves, and, looking as though he could draw five at best, sighed out in pain. Robb, doing his stretches before the mirror, looked at himself—a bearded sullen man with well-developed shoulders in a maroon tank top. Dark but Nordic-looking, morose, a part-time biologist and gardener, browned by the sun with copper highlights. He was a man who had enormous potential—that was for sure—which had been growing since the 1970s, when he and the rest of the country had emerged from the Vietnam War. Since then he had gotten good degrees, a Ph.D. in biology, with a promise of becoming a brilliant teacher. But every time he just about reached his goal, a little minefield would go off, tripped by a wire he had carefully strung himself. He never failed at that. He was a Vet. It was 1986—what was he going to do about it?
So that: just before his separation and divorce from a woman who had been married before, he had been commuting between two jobs, one in Port Townsend, his home town, and the other in Seattle, his second home—working, basically, as a gardener for his wife (with the grounds of the State Park thrown in) on the Peninsula, and as an adjunct professor at Jutland College in the city. For all its forty years, his life had never quite come together. Initially hired on by the place which had awarded him his degree, he had found the University of Washington to be a near Eden. But his untenured work had only resulted in what the committees determined “disappointing sidetracks”—a book on the anatomy of weightlifting and a handful of articles vaguely exploring the question of sexual orientation. Among seagulls. Obviously not enough to win tenure and promotion, and so Robb had been promptly jettisoned out of the city, back to his Port Townsend, where he had met and married Laura, who had then slowly but surely taken over his family home, Rose House, and made it into a bed and breakfast.
He had been reduced to routine work. Had felt privileged to find another side job as groundskeeper at the state park, while his wife’s business was trying to find its wings. Not ten minutes from home, he drove the John Deere mower all over the bluffs of the Park, a shaggy, shaded, hatted spectacle no doubt, more formidable and embittered than the sound of the engine. People would ask him, “What do you do now?” and he would answer, acidly, “Work other people’s gardens.”
He had done the family grounds at Rose House, now presided over by his wife, and the business prospered and took off. She was written up in every tourist and bed and breakfast magazine in the country. A famous cereal offered three nights’ lodging at her place as a box-top prize, and put a picture of it on the back. But feeling crowded out of his own life, he had fled Port Townsend one morning and pounded the pavement in Seattle—one day after another, until the job at Jutland College had surfaced. As compromise, he and Laura agreed three days a week would be his own—to work, sleep, and room in Seattle, away from his home—Rose House, where he had grown up.
He now stretched out and started working the bench press. The strange thing was, he thought, how good sex had always been at Rose. So fantastically good! That was the legend of the place. Ann Rose had had the mansion built by her husband because their marriage had been failing: the ornate, stick structure rising, under her hand, filled with rose-colored corridors, nave windows, and the dancing maidens at the top of the spiral staircase, had been meant to make love better.
In the weight room, now, Robb tried to get clear on that as he pushed off and lifted the bar—170 pounds, his own weight. How many delighted consummations had they had, with the light coming through the vined windows? Again and again he had made love to her; again and again she had mounted him, so many times he thought he would be too dizzy for safety coming down, when it was over, the banistered stairs of Honduras mahogany. The place worked so well in its mystery. Ann Rose had been absolutely right. Their historical marriage had healed, been a success—as had the ultimate marriage of his own mother and father, who had lived there—and if it hadn’t been for this matter of a little room for himself, maybe they would still have been together, too.
He turned to the butterfly machine, adjusting the leather support belt he had fastened around his waist. There was this matter, he went on, of a little privacy. He could remember, on tour days, every tourist—on foot, in the car—going by the place, peeking in the windows, ringing the door when the schedule plainly said not to, even coming by and rapping the glass of the guest cottage, where he often fled (occupancy permitting) as a last resort. Nothing in that house was sacred, sacrosanct from their eyes and endless curiosity except what he and Laura did so beautifully behind closed doors. But it was not enough. He became surly and rude to the customers, started telling some of them to fuck off, and that became the end of it. Laura had had to side with them. Things changed and permutated in the divorce proceedings, so that she ended up with full possession of the mansion. Part of the reason was that Robb had not ended up speaking well for himself in court. The family name and monument had been taken from him. His sister, alien to him for many years anyway, would hardly speak to him now. The family name and monument were gone. And he—retreated permanently to the third floor he rented in Seattle, except when he visited Port Townsend to see his daughter.
Nearly half-way done with his routine now, he stood before the mirror again, doing the biceps curl and wondering, Is this really me? Do I exist in my own skin? And putting the free weight down for a moment, he felt of his own flesh—it was there all right, but it didn’t quite connect to what he might call the bone, the hard tissue of his being. It was always attempting to secede from the union.
Racking the weight and still feeling a bit dizzy, he almost collided with the man who had been sitting, woebegone, beside the steam room. He didn’t look woebegone now. He was suited up and ready to run.
“Going out?” Robb asked out of the blue, surprised.
The man smiled. “Yes, once I’ve done a little here.” Then one eyebrow up. “And I swim, too—”
“I’ll be out there running—.” Robb, not knowing what to say next, watched the man take up work at the lat pull, bringing the long bar down, exposing long stretches of muscle—several inches with each rep—through the back and chest. On “up,” the man looked thin and tightly wrapped in his veins; on “down,” he looked burly—enough to pull the whole stack down, easily, if he wanted to.
For a moment, Robb lost all sense of the room, his blood so much on the rise. Through the window, the huge autumnal lake spread, with the summery, light-clad figures running beside it. That was it—he was done, ready to go out, be at one with the burnished leaves, his tan almost the same color, but he had hardly taken off his tank top, when the man had come up again and was touching his arm—”Have a good run. Maybe I’ll see you out there.”
Robb smiled and nodded too but—he had to turn, for he was stung with the touch. How long had it been?
A few minutes later, out in the September air, light with the salt from the sea, he was aware of his chest rising, the light bit of sweat beginning to form, as his back first froze with the temperature drop, then eased slowly as he moved into his usual rhythm. The sun threw splinters of light on the water, and they cropped up again, in the form of the other runners, beautiful men and women passing along at different speeds, with different expressions, some running with him, some running opposite. One man going past in compression tights looked like a god newly risen from the water, his chest and shoulders seemingly cast in bronze, and fashioned into a complex network of sinew. Another tanned runner (in white) breezed by saying hello, his blonde hair radiant as a sunflower in early bloom—and in fact, he seemed to turn like one, steering his chest toward the light as if he couldn’t get enough.
From the city came sirens and screams, and sometimes Robb used to think that a city was like a child—you could tell when its screams were serious and when they were just for attention. Right now, he ignored them and let the city go on, for he was too caught up in this burnished square of hours, harvested from late September, so breathtaking he even forgot the pain he thought intolerable before coming here, and then—his heart leapt—there was the Man from the Weight Room, without his tank top, too, incredibly light on his feet, for all his brawn, not far from him now, seemingly intent on overtaking him. The fifty-year-old Olympian suddenly increased speed and tore by him with a wave—”Looking good,” the man said, and was a half mile ahead before he knew it.
The flames in the lake dimmed some. He rounded a turn and the wind hit him head on, tightening his back. Pain, again. If he was to get out of this, he must swim and do the hot tub before leaving.
Resigned, he finished out the arc, and went back into the building. Showered long, put on a tight bikini and got into the pool, beneath the solar dome. The water received him; he opened his fingers the way he had just been taught, and pulled himself through, feeling all the magnificent strength from his weight workout. Other men had mentioned that. The great residual pull. Strength, Herculean sometimes, through the water. Like that god he had seen in the black lycra tights, his butt almost busting. Triton, coming up for air on land.
And within moments of completing his first lap, he was aware of someone in the lane beside him, adding strength to the water. The fleetness of the swimmer said it must be the friend, but Robb was afraid of finding it too good to be true. The free style went hand over hand, arm over arm, but he could not be sure—then up, for a breath of air, and, yes, Robb saw the distinguished gray hair, and now, as his friend did the breast stroke, powerful as a frog, he could see him smiling ear to ear. Robb waited at the end of the pool, seemingly to catch his breath, knowing he must leave in a few moments if he was to straighten out his back in the hot tub and still make his appointments. But this man, he knew, would be better than any doctor or physical therapist, if only he could only make contact! But, no, the man was intent on his laps. And what, after all, Robb wondered, had been his own intentions? A little assignation in the steam room, with the hope that no one would step in? Quick sex out in the bushes? No, Robb told the critic. Not that at all! Then what is it, the voice came back, what is it you want from this total stranger? You know as well as I you can’t come here past nine on a Saturday night without taking your life in hands, there are so many men who want what you think you don’t. What makes you different from half the lonely men in Seattle which are half the men anyway? And Robb, having no answer, pulled himself from the pool, and, defeated, got into the hot tub in the next room.
Nearly scalded, he could feel his minimus muscle begin to give for the first time that day. And, looking across into the practice pool, now that the pain had subsided once again, he saw the specially-abled people doing recreational therapy in the water, with one young girl (was she young?), her breasts ballooning to enormous size, being held on to by a child on either side. Up and down in the water they went, her face mute and ecstatic with the contact.
Robb turned to pull himself out of the water one more time, when he found the man standing directly above him. He was holding his hand out. “Seems like we enjoy the same things. My name’s Buddy.”
“Buddy?” Robb said, smiling. “I’ve always wanted to know a man named Buddy. My name’s Robb.”
They shook hands as the man leapt into the tub. Robb held on for a few extra moments. Or was it Buddy who did? I must act now, Robb thought, I have to leave in the next two minutes, and I simply cannot lose this man. He’s all I’ve got.
But Buddy made it easy. “I’ve been noticing you for a while. The similar patterns we have. Maybe we could work out together sometime?”
“Yes, I’d like that.”
“My hours are uneven,” Buddy went on. “But you can call me. I live out in Harcourt Lake. My last name’s Wilson, and I’m in the book.”
“So am I. But I’m here in town. Last name’s Jorgenson.” Robb sat there in the water, not wanting to leave. Of all the times to have to. “I simply must go,” he went on, feeling ridiculous holding out his hand again. “But I appreciate the suggestion. I’ll look forward to it.” And despite himself: “As a matter of fact, I’ve been pretty lonely lately. And I guess I’ve always wanted a ‘buddy.’”
“I understand,” the man said. “My wife’s been gone a while, and this life of a bachelor is awful.”
Was this the signal, the sign that there could be—more than just a workout ahead? In the past, Robb, because of his handsomeness, had been cruised, propositioned, sized up one side and down the other—come on to by every human being conceivable, men and women alike but mostly men. But never, never, had he met someone like this aged and muscular Hercules, lounging here under this solar dome, his powerful chest firm against the water, one curved arm resting along the top of the tub, as he smiled and offered him the overwhelming chance to get to know him.
“Well, then,” Robb said, “I’ll call you soon.”
“I’ll count on it,” Buddy answered.
___________
Henry Alley is a Professor Emeritus of Literature in the Honors College at the University of Oregon. He has four novels, Through Glass (Iris Press, 1979), The Lattice (Ariadne Press, 1986), Umbrella of Glass (Breitenbush Books, 1988), Precincts of Light (Inkwater Press, 2010), as well as a collection of stories, The Dahlia Field (Chelsea Station Editions, 2017). For nearly half a century, such journals as Seattle Review, Outerbridge, Virginia Quarterly Review, Chelsea Station and Virginia Woolf Quarterly have published his short fiction. His stories have been the recipient of awards from Gertrude Press as well as Ooligan Press. More recently, in 2017 he was included in Best Gay Stories and was awarded a Mill House Residency by Writing by Writers. His essays have appeared in The Journal of Narrative Technique, Studies in the Novel, Twentieth Century Literature, Kenyon Review, and Papers on Language and Literature. In 1997, The University of Delaware Press published his book-length study, The Quest for Anonymity: The Novels of George Eliot. He lives in Eugene, Oregon, with the writer and teacher Austin Gray. Of his new collection, The Dahlia Field, Kirkus Review wrote, “With sensitivity and deadpan humor, Alley’s luminous stories explore a wealth of characters and social types thrown into fertile combinations. His prose is limpid and straightforward, laced with droll psychology . . . and sometimes opening into an evocative, elegiac poetry . . . . The results are funny, poignant, and engrossing. . . . A fine collection that explores and celebrates the ebb and flow of gay life.”— (starred review)
Men Touching is available from Chelsea Station Editions.