The Curious Affairs Of Atherton Bartelby

Dear All Honolulu Taxi Drivers Who, When Asked By A Blond Patron To Take Him To The Top Of Maunalani Heights, Immediately Take Wilhelmina Rise All The Way Up, As Opposed To Taking The Curvy Road Up The Mountain Because Referenced Patron Is A Blond And Therefore Also Perhaps A Tourist Out Of Whom You May Gank More Money By Taking The Curvy Road And Considerably Increasing The Fare, Thinking Said Patron Won’t Be Any Wiser, And Forcing Him To Say Testily, “Hey. I’m Not A Tourist, Yo. Ok? Take Fucking Wilhelmina,”

I FUCKING LOVE YOU!

With Much Love And Adoration And Respect,
Atherton Bartelby

As I sit and read your words anew
I realize I can’t fucking write haiku

You told me to search in your Green Notebook for The New Release Tuesday DVD Releases late Monday evening. I already knew in which notebook your notes were housed (you told me that it was on your bedroom floor; I already knew that it was on your nightstand), and I asked you if you were sure that it was all right if I looked through it. “That’s your Haiku Notebook,” I reminded you. “Yes,” you said. “It’s all right if you look through it. Just email me the new releases in the back.”

And I knew I would come across your haiku, eventually, all of those words that made me cry in The Green Room, marveling that someone else had described his feelings and experiences with other men in almost exactly the same way that I have. (Did. Do.)

But I never expected to come across a letter to your father.

Which read precisely how mine to my own read when I wrote it, many years ago.

As I sit here, at your desk, typing on your keyboard, with one of your dogs draped across my lap, and the other one draped across my foot, I wonder: do you know how much I love you?

“Darling, Sweetie, Darling!” I smiled stupidly from ear to ear as I heard his happy singsong voice and lit a cigarette as the trade breezes blew outside my office building this afternoon. I had just reached the midpoint of a soul-destroying motherfucker of a Monday, and his voice made me happy.

“Sweetie, Sweetie, Sweetie!” I returned, in the same singsong tone. “Oh, fuck, hold on a second. *aside* Hi, [redacted].”

“Hey, Atherton. Is that your husband you’re talking to? Ask him if he’s enjoying Boston.”

“What the fuck?! Who is that?!” Bartholomew asked, annoyed at the interruption in our just-started conversation.

“It’s your boss,” I said into the phone, smiling at said creature in front of me, who was dangerously close to stopping to grab my phone. “He wants to know how my husband is enjoying Boston.”

“You tell that fucking closet case to mind his own God-damned business or I will turn his entire internet browser history file full of gay porn sites over to his fucking wife.”

I smiled sweetly and said to his boss, “He says to tell you that he’s having such a fabulous time in Boston that he’s not coming home. Ever. He’ll mail you his security access card.” I made a motion with my hand as if to shoo him further on his way. Thankfully, he quickly obliged.

“Fucking faggot,” I laughed into the phone. “Now where were we, Sweetie?”

“Atherton,” he said, suddenly stern.

“What?! Oh my God, what’s wrong?!”

“It is so fucking weird that you said what you did to him just now because I have something to tell you and I’m really afraid you’re going to get angry at me.”

“What?! Oh my God, you’re scaring me! Tell me now!”

“I’m seriously considering moving back to Boston before our birthdays next year.”

“What.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious.”

“Um…”

“Yes? Are you angry at me?”

“…is it very creepy that I want to move there with you?”

“What?! Are you serious?!”

“Yes.”

“Oh my God! I was hoping you would say that!”

“Really?!” I asked, butterflies in my stomach.

“Yes! Oh my God, how could I live without you in the same town?!”

I laughed. “Well I’m glad we both feel that way!”

He began talking a proverbial mile a minute. “It’s just that I’ve had such an amazing time reconnecting with my family and my friends here that I don’t want to leave. And my sister and her new husband are buying a house here and planning on having a baby and I just don’t want to miss out on that. Plus the cost of living is so much more manageable here, Atherton. We paid a full dollar less per gallon of gas this morning than it costs in Honolulu. And there are no less than four really nice apartment complexes in my mother’s neighborhood that are all way less than we pay in rent and allow as many pets as you like.”

“Well,” I conceded, “you make a very convincing argument. And it’s not as if I haven’t recently thought of leaving Honolulu. Until you started introducing me to it.”

“I know,” he said. “And I had a several-hour-long conversation with my mother last night about you and me and our lives and our jobs and she totally agrees with me that both of our talents are being wasted where we’re currently employed; both mine and especially yours.”

“Well, that’s an understatement,” I said, rolling my eyes and dragging deeply on my cigarette, feeling giddy as hell that this conversation was even occurring. “Oh, that reminds me, [redacted] resigned, you know.”

“What.”

“The president of your operating company,” I said, needlessly, “he resigned last week.”

“That fucking bastard!” Bartholomew screamed. “He was the fucking primary reason we went through that RIF last week and now he fucking bails?! Atherton, you mark my words, he knows something is up. I am on the analyst side and I see more than you do, and I know there won’t be a firm by this time next year, no matter what this little new reorganization of your own unit is making you feel. Our company is on the way out. This is even more of a good reason for us to find jobs that challenge and utilize us and make us happy.”

“I know, Bartholomew,” I said, sighing. “I know.”

“I mean, what?” he said. “I moved to Honolulu for my boyfriend at the time, and nothing has worked out the way I’ve wanted it to. You moved there for Gavin, and nothing has worked out the way you’ve wanted it to. Why don’t we just take the jump and…be happy? We’re 33, Atherton. What have we got to lose?”

I pondered that for a few seconds. “Well if we did it together it would certainly be a lot easier.”

“Mmmmhmmm,” he hummed. “I think we should hole up at home over the weekend and strategize,” he said confidently. “Map this out. Plan it. Seriously.”

“Um,” I said, hesitating.

“Yes?”

“There’s something else we need to discuss if we’re going to do this together, you know,” I said.

“I know, Sweetie, I know,” he said. “We can discuss that this weekend, too.”

“Good.”

I stepped on my spent cigarette. Hoped it was my last.

“Are you with me?” he asked.

“Yes, Sir,” I chuckled. “You Da Man.”

“Atherton.”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember when I texted you last Tuesday that I was going to miss my space and The Boys like crazy?”

“Of course.”

“Well. I miss you like that, too.”

“I miss you like that, too, Bartholomew.”

“Good. Fuuuuuck! My friend just arrived and we have to go pick up my sister for cocktails because she leaves on her honeymoon tomorrow.”

“Ok Darling well go and have a good time and call me later.”

“I will,” he said. “I’ll call you from the lounge so you can ‘meet’ my sister. She so wants to gossip with you about me, I’m sure of it.”

“Fabulous. I’m all mouth,” I said, and laughed.

“I know you are, Darling, and bite that tongue,” he said, deeply and lasciviously. “‘Bye, Sweetie.”

“‘Bye, Darling.”

And that’s the whole story.

I refuse to deny to myself or anyone else that this scares me: that I will potentially make the same mistake I’ve made in the past. But Bartholomew has the same fear, and is less willing to make that same mistake than am I.

But nothing is set in stone yet, of course. The only things that are set in stone at this point of the game are: 1) lengthy conversations with him this weekend about my thoughts on this potential joint endeavor, as well as how I feel about what we have between us, and what, precisely, it is; 2) lengthy conversations with Remington, who knows my heart best, as well as a potential re-connection to therapy (although I cringe from even that, at this point); and 3) doing some extensive checking-in with myself, to make sure that this is what I want, and not what someone else wants for me.

If nothing else, my experiences throughout 2006 have taught me that I do not need to buy into that arrangement ever again.

So we shall see.

At the very least, it’s a hell of a story.

And a potential opportunity to reconnect to one of my other favorite cities in the world.

If nothing else, the decision would be worth it just for that.

I heard the pubescent voice ask me in a local Japanese accent, too close beside me at the otherwise deserted bus stop. Exhausted by my hike with The Boys, run around the mountaintop, and hour-long telephone conversation being Bartholomew’s Plus-One at his sister’s wedding reception via trans-Pacific cellular conversation last evening, I had passed out unusually early and therefore awakened unusually early with two cravings: java, and cigarettes. Since Bartholomew neither smokes nor drinks coffee, I had to motor it down the hill on the first bus of the morning, with enough cash in hand to buy The Boys their favorite teriyaki-flavored meat sticks, as well.

“Yes?” I replied warily, since I recognized him as one of the group of scary skateboarding boys who are daily bussing it up the mountain in order to skateboard down it. Fifteen-ish, thin, local Japanese, long-ish black locks, I couldn’t imagine he would be less of a homophobe than his buddies usually are, at around 5:00 p.m. daily when Bartholomew and I are coming home.

“May I please bum a cigarette from you, Sir?”

He was wearing too-large, too-dark Oakleys, and I was taken aback by his polite and formal use of the term, “Sir.”

“You are totally not 18,” I said, smiling my crooked wry smile. “Are you sure an HPD cruiser isn’t going to pull around the corner and bust me for contributing to the delinquency of a minor right after I give you one?”

He laughed. “No, Sir. I’m sure.”

I passed him a Marlboro Light. His nail beds reminded me of those of a past lover.

“Do you need a light?” I inquired, extending my orange Bic to him.

“No, Sir. I got. Thank you!”

We smoked in silence. An older Japanese man walked by with a cane, sat down on another bench, stared at us.

Near the end of my cigarette, I began thinking of my vow to quit, and how good I’ve been at least cutting way down over the past two weeks, and that perhaps if I did something over-the-top and dramatic, like Marsha Mason’s famous tossing the rest of the last pack over her Central Park West balcony on New Year’s Eve, I’d finally succeed.

“Excuse me, Sir?” I heard again.

“Yes?” I replied, smiling, killing my butt under my Steve Madden heel.

“Would it be too much to ask for another one, Sir?” he smiled.

“You know what?” I said, chuckling. “Have the whole pack.”

“Are you serious, Sir?” he said, eyebrows raised.

“Yes,” I assured him, shaking the just-opened pack at him. “I’ve been meaning to quit for several weeks, now, so just take them.”

“Thank you, Sir!” he said. And again, “Thank you!”

“No problem, man,” I said.

“Sir?” he asked, again kind of creeping me out by his use of that word.

“Yes?” I replied, looking over at him.

“Do you live up the hill?” he asked.

“No,” I replied. “Just house-sitting for a friend of mine this week.”

“Oh.”

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“May I give you my cell number?”

“What? Why?” I asked, genuinely confused.

“Because maybe we could,” he said, lowering his Oakleys so that I could see that he had looked down at my crotch, “hang out,” he continued, looking back up at me and licking his lips, “sometime.”

WTF?!

I handed my phone to him and he entered his digits while smiling sexily up at me from beneath the hair that was covering his eyes.

“I have to meet my friends at the cafe around the corner,” he said, handing my phone back to me. “But…call me…anytime…Sir.”

And he threw his skateboard down on the sidewalk, hopped on, looked back to wink at me over the top of his Oakleys, and was off.

I sat for a few minutes in stunned silence. My mouth was probably hanging open. I considered calling him right then to give him my older gay man to far younger gay boy lecture about being so young and putting yourself out there to potentially be used / abused by nasty older gay men.

But I didn’t because, with a wry smile, I realized that he reminded me of myself when I was less than half my current age. “If he’s that balls-out nervy now,” I thought, “he’ll survive without advice from me.”

I won’t be calling his number. But God damn was it a nice ego boost.

At 6:30 on a Sunday morning.

In beautiful Kaimuki, Honolulu.

Pop quiz: does the fact that I now covet a newer iMac than my own simply because it boasts a built-in camera and “Photo Booth” software that applies those cheesy Photoshop effects without doing them yourself make me a lazy, shallow, vacuous cam whore?

Yeah.

I thought so.

Self-Portrait | Warholing Up The Grunge Look | Honolulu Hawai`i