Gone were the days when Peter woke to the creak of broken bedsprings. The sound of shuffling feet in the black dawn, a leg barking against a door frame, a quiet oath. Then the hiss and gurgle of the coffee machine. The rustle of hospital scrubs pulled from a hook. Finally a cup clinking against the table and sometimes, if the New Orleans morning was especially cold or rainy, the dribble of a quarter-finger of brandy into that same cup.
Lionel didn’t leave extra coffee. Or write an affectionate note on the chalkboard. Peter didn’t have to work until ten, when the mall opened. The hell with him.
Also deep in a tangled and confused past were weekends when one never saw the other. Days and nights spent on St. Ann’s Street, the thumping bars with open doors, running into each other only by chance as one large group or another staggered under iron balconies, sometimes a man carried along with his arms over shoulders.
Groaning dawns. Cigarettes stubbed out, re-lit. The kitchen with its naked bulb and chain over a much-scarred table. A bottle of bourbon. A dirty glass and butcher knife within easy reach. A key fumbling in the lock.
“Where were you?”
Peter’s face was bloated, blond whiskers showing on his chin. “Out.” He shuffled past. His shirt, the light blue one with tiny sequins Lionel gave him for Christmas was torn, filthy.
“Tell me where you were.”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
“What difference does it make?”
Life does not always present options. “I could kill you.”
“No, you couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Rent.”
He stripped off the shirt and threw it in the trash. Pants on, a shoe dropping on the floor, he fell into bed.
No pictures remained of those furnished rooms. Certainly a photographer from Architectural Digest didn’t come by and spend two days shooting both interior and exterior, as one did at their Palm Springs home. A framed cover hung at the entrance.
They bought the place mostly to decorate. A sprawling mid-century modern, they found the house in the Old Las Palmas neighborhood, just blocks from Liberace’s recently-restored mansion. Lionel, in fact, sold the new owner several Persian rugs. He and Peter continued to live in their condo, where they could walk to their store. The condo occupied the entire top floor of a downtown building,
One day Lionel came home after supervising the shipment of nearly two million dollars of rugs, bound for Europe. He wore a white dress shirt and chino shorts. Taking off his watch, he told Peter they had to buy something. Something big. Something unnecessary.
“Why?”
“Because we have the money.”
“That’s not why you buy things.”
“It’s not? What other reason is there?”
Peter had no answer.
They put guests up in the house, and that’s where John Schatz stayed.
***
“What do you think of that young woman of his?” Peter asked. They sat in their rooftop garden. Tiled in purple and orange, with a small pool, it was entirely given over to potted fan palms and lime trees. Water trickled from a vase held by a stone nymph.
Lionel paused while the maid set plates of fruit and a large bowl of yogurt. “Thank you, Monica.” After she left he cut a banana and replied, thoughtfully, “She’s very beautiful.”
“Yes, But what do you think of their plan?”
“I like it.”
Peter put down his cup. “It’s crazy.”
“That’s why I like it.”
Schatz proposed buying rugs directly from Iran. This wasn’t really possible, given trade sanctions. But no actual cash would change hands. They would exchange American rugs for Persian. The Iranian merchants were anxious to deal, there was a very good market among sheiks and oil tycoons for modern, even abstract designs, Schatz said. (Schatz could tell an excellent story.) It was a far-reaching, audacious plan. They would effectively corner the Oriental rug market.
“The whole scheme is nuts,” Peter said. “And possibly illegal,”
His partner was undeterred. “Let’s at least have the lawyers examine it.”
“Lionel, I can’t believe you want to entertain this idea. What’s gotten into you?”
***
Lionel sat with John Schatz by the pool in Las Palmas. Peter had gone to buy vegetables for dinner. He would make his famous fettuccini. “You’ve gained something, I’ll concede that,” Schatz said. “Even Liberace never came out. And he was the gayest man in America.”
“That’s true,” Lionel said, a little offended by this line of inquiry.
“Life changed.”
“For the better.”
“Obviously. But didn’t you lose something?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Excitement. Intrigue.”
“John, if you think fear of being fired was exciting, you’re wrong. They would have, too. That hospital was very religious.”
“I mean privately. The hidden friendships. The secrets. Remember your story, before you moved to New Orleans, about that old hangout in Baltimore? The Panga? What was it called when you guys went there?”
“Steve’s.”
“Steve’s. That’s right. And what did everyone wear? Muscle shirts?”
“No. We wore plaid.”
“Anyone walking in would never guess it was a gay bar.”
“For the most part.”
“But certain people knew.”
“Of course.”
“And the cops didn’t.”
“Depends.” Lionel smiled. “A few were in there.”
“And what did they wear?”
He paused. “Plaid.”
Lionel and Peter returned to Baltimore once, five years earlier, for the funeral of an old friend. Then stopped at Mike’s Bar. It had been bought and remodeled. The Panga featured rave music, go-go cages, and Judy Garland impersonators. The men had one club soda each. Then quickly left. Was it more fun than the old days, John Schatz asked? Lionel stared at the side of Mount San Jacinto, shading off with the dropping sun.
“No.”
***
They had a long dinner with Schatz and his young, rather exotic partner, sitting in the dining room overlooking the pool. Schatz had wanted to stay in a luxury hotel. His friends wouldn’t hear of it. He was their kind of man, amusing, artistic, independent, unconventional, rich or apparently so.
Of course he had his problems. They knew he lost his stores. Divorce did that. After dinner they drank pure Kona coffee, sent from a client’s ranch in Hawaii. Schatz told a long story involving private jets, foreign dignitaries, piazzas, deals in the millions. It seemed real. If not, one rather admired the imposture.
“I’ll look into it,” Peter said, driving back to the condo. “There may be something to his plan. There may not.” The sky was black above the open moonroof. Downtown lights twinkled ahead. “I’ll admit, it is exciting.”
“It is.” Lionel couldn’t hide his enthusiasm. “It’s a gamble. But I haven’t had this much fun since Mardi Gras, in ’98,” he said.
“I don’t remember.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com