So Long, Chester Wheeler(48)

“But maybe the reason I never felt that way about any other guy is because I made a conscious decision not to.”

“No, it doesn’t work that way. You can decide not to act on your feelings, but whatever you decided, the feelings would have been there. It does explain why you were so sure it’s a choice, though. And I kind of appreciate knowing that.”

I waited. But he didn’t seem to have more to say. It felt as though the conversation might be over.

I stood to go.

“I’m going to go knock on her door and see if she’ll talk to me.”

“Here’s what I still don’t get,” he said.

“What don’t you get?”

“Why you didn’t rag on me about it. You had a perfect chance to make fun of me and tell me I’m just like everything I criticized in you. And you let it go by.”

“Yeah. I let it go by.”

“But I did it to you.”

“But I’m not like you,” I said. “I’ve been trying to tell you that all along. Not everyone is mean and hateful. I’m not like that. And I hope I never am.”

I moved for the door. Swung it open into the preheated oven that was Phoenix that day.

“Wait,” Chester said.

“I’m losing patience with that.”

“With what?”

“Being told to wait every time I try to get somewhere.”

“I need to say something else before you go.”

“What? We’re letting all the cold out.”

“I appreciate what you said just now, in a way. But I don’t believe it. I think you just said it to seem like the bigger person. I think it was a lie.”

“You think which part of everything was a lie? Except, even before you tell me, I can tell you it wasn’t a lie. Because I don’t lie to you.”

“You lied to me about the bumper stickers.”

“Wait. When did you see the bumper stickers?”

“Last time we stopped for gas. In my side-view mirror I could see their reflection in the convenience store window.”

“Oh,” I said. Which, as I think I mentioned, I’d been saying a lot. “Well. I didn’t lie about them. Exactly. I said I didn’t scrape them off. Which is true. These are just sitting on top of them. Okay, fine. I lied about the bumper stickers. But not about anything really important. What do you think I just lied about?”

“The part where you said what Sue told you doesn’t make me gay. I think you think it does.”

“You think wrong,” I said, wilting in the heat. At that moment I figured if I never felt that kind of heat again it would be too soon. Maybe California had been a bad idea. “The reason I don’t think so . . . you’re going to find this hard to understand. I don’t think so, because I don’t see everything in black and white. Attraction is not a zero-sum game.”

“I hate it when you talk in riddles.”

“It’s not all or nothing at all. That’s what I’m saying. There can be shades of gray in a person’s sexuality.”

“You’re right,” he said, and just for a split second I thought I’d gotten through to him. “I find that hard to understand.”

I shook my head and stepped out and closed the door behind me.

He didn’t tell me to wait.

I marched up the concrete walkway in the baking sun. It was something I was getting markedly tired of doing.

Sue was cleaning up the breakfast dishes. I saw her through the window. But, after laying eyes on me, she only turned her face away again.

I marched up to the door and knocked.

“What do you want, Lewis?” she called out.

“Are you speaking to me?”

“No.”

“You just said, ‘What do you want, Lewis?’ And ‘No.’ That’s a start. Maybe we can expand on that.”

I saw her disappear from the sink. A minute later she opened the door. But only a crack.

“Remember when I said I give everybody one pass?”

“I do, actually. But what was my transgression, really? All I did was to be shocked.”

“You were being judgy.”

“But it was just my gut reaction. What was I supposed to do?”

“You could have kept your mouth shut.”

“In hindsight, yes. I can see how that might have been a good plan.”

She smiled just the tiniest bit. I could tell she was trying not to. It happened in spite of herself.

“All right,” she said. “Fine. Come in.”



“It was not my finest moment,” she said.

Then we just left that sitting on the kitchen table for a minute while I decided if there were any words on the planet it might be safe to say.

“If he wants closure,” she added, “he really should be having it out with Mike. Not me.”

“I’m not sure why you say that.”

“I’m not sure, either. I mean, I am. I know what I mean. I’m just not sure if I can put it into words. It’s like . . . he thought so highly of Mike that he almost couldn’t blame me for falling in love with him. It was just natural and believable to him that everybody would love Mike and nobody would love him. But he blamed Mike for not turning me away. For going ahead and taking me when I offered myself.”