K is so insanely fucked up, he sometimes thinks it's amazing he can make it through a day. Someone once told him, in a bitchy fit, "You do know that within five minutes of meeting you that everyone sees you're screwed up, right? You know that, right? It's the first thing anyone notices: you -- trying to pass for a guy who's got his shit together but is really a screwed up mess inside."And that had been one of the nicer things his ex had told him during their five years together. . .
Standing outside the Enzian Theater, wishing he had a cigarette, K ponders this. He digs into the baggy pockets of those stupid jeans N made him wear and pulls out his cell, flips it open, and hits the speed dial key assigned to S.
He gets S' voice-mail and leaves a rushed message:
"Hey, it's me. I'm at that film festival thing you wouldn't go to. Guess what? You were right. It's really gay. Of course, that's probably why they call it a gay film festival."
His voice sort of cracks so he coughs to mask it.
"I guess you're at work. Yeah, I'm sure you are. Anyway -- just calling because -- well, I don't have to BS you. I'm not calling because I'm in the same hood or anything. Just ran into L sort of and, I guess it just dawned on me that I'm -- Whatever. Doesn't matter. I don't even know why I'm calling. God, I'm so fucked up. I'm fucked up, aren't I?" He laughs at himself. "I am. And I'm leaving a stupid message on your voice mail so . . . I'm gonna hang up now. You can ignore this message. It's not making any sense. I gotta get back inside. I -- I'll call you later. Hope you had a good day at work. . .Bye."
He flips his phone closed, wipes a fist across his eyes, and, smile on and jaw clenched, goes back inside the Enzian.
* * *
K sits through the rest of Available Men and then the film he was most interested in seeing from today's screenings, Camp Out, a documentary about ten Christian teens attending a gay Christian summer camp. Of course K, addicted to a few reality shows and their elimination contests, finds this type of documenttary a bit difficult at first. Given that, in the documentary, there are ten teens attending a summer camp, he instantly reverts to his reality TV conditioning and wonders who the first teen to be voted out of the camp will be.
But when he reminds himself this is a documentary and not Big Brother or Paradise Hotel, he is able to sit back and enjoy the film.
Or rather, he's able to sit back and enjoy the film in between some rather inconveniently timed moments of self-realization whose impact upon him are masked by coughs and covered up by him acting irritated that something is in his eye.
* * *
"You sound," S says to K in a return voice-mail message, "Like you need to come on over to my place and. . . ya know. . .snuggle with me for a bit. I'll be home around five-ish. Just working a detail right now. Call me when you get out of your faggy film festival." And then, with the firmness that says, "Do it because I know you otherwise won't," S adds, "And that's an order."
And so K does call S back and, following a little schmoozing following the day's films, K is in his car, calling S back and, shortly thereafter, tearing down 17-92, through Maitland, past Winter Park Village, through the Vi-Mi and into Thornton Park.
When S opens the front door, he is still in uniform, though very disarrayed. The belt and gun are sitting on the kitchen counter, and S's shirt is untucked and open to the waist. S pulls K to him with a laugh and an affectionate, "Come 'ere," and, within a few moments, they both crash onto a couch, both wrapped up into the other.
S knows K is getting sick again. If he's learned anything over the past -- damn, has it really been THAT long? -- eighteen years . . . he's learned the signs of K falling, vulnerable, to the malady he carries within him.
And both know that, in that way that they do for each other, S will care for K until K gets well again, just as when S is ill, K will care for him.
And neither understands why they can't ever seem to work their shit out so they can just be the couple all their mutual friends say they essentially are.
But, right now, S doesn't think about any of that. As the afternoon ebbs into night, as dinner is made, finished, and forgotten, he sees K growing vulnerable again, almost as if the light that gives way to shadows stretching across the lawn and over the windows, then up trhe walls, over the roof, and, finally over Orlando, marks the onset of K's latest round of illness.
K will be fine. He always is.
But S tells him to stay with him until he gets better. And so K does what K rarely does: exactly what S tells him to.
