Less(3)

Meanwhile, imagine Carlos, enthroned in a peacock chair and holding court. Beside him, twenty-five years old, in black jeans, T-shirt, and round tortoiseshell glasses, with dark curly hair: his son.

My son, I recall Carlos telling everyone when the boy first appeared, then barely in his teens. But he was not his son—he was an orphaned nephew, shipped off to his next of kin in San Francisco. How do I describe him? Big eyed, with brown sun-streaked hair and a truculent demeanor in those days, he refused to eat vegetables or to call Carlos anything but Carlos. His name was Federico (Mexican mother), but everybody called him Freddy.

At the party, Freddy stared out the window, where the fog erased downtown. These days he ate vegetables but still called his legal father Carlos. In his suit he was painfully thin, with a concave chest, and, while lacking youth’s verve, Freddy had all of youth’s passions; one could sit back with a bag of popcorn and watch the romances and comedies of his mind projected onto his face, and the lenses of his tortoiseshell glasses swirled with his thoughts like the iridescent membranes of soap bubbles.

Freddy turned at the sound of his name; it was a woman in a white silk suit and amber beads, with a cool Diana Ross demeanor: “Freddy, honey, I heard you were back in school.” What was he studying to be? she asked gently. Proud smile: “A high school English teacher.”

This caused her face to flower. “God, that’s nice to hear! I never see young people going into teaching.”

“To be honest, I think it’s mostly that I don’t like people my age.”

She picked the olive from her martini. “That’ll be hard on your love life.”

“I suppose. But I don’t really have a love life,” Freddy said, taking a long gulp from his champagne, finishing it.

“We just have to find you the right man. You know my son, Tom—”

From beside them: “He’s actually a poet!” Carlos, appearing with a listing glass of white wine.

The woman (courtesy requires introductions: Caroline Dennis, in software; Freddy would come to know her very well) yipped.

Freddy eyed her carefully and gave a shy smile. “I’m a terrible poet. Carlos is just remembering that’s what I wanted to be when I was a kid.”

“Which was last year,” Carlos said, smiling.

Freddy stood silently; his dark curls quivered with whatever shook his mind.

Mrs. Dennis gave a sequined laugh. She said she loved poetry. She had always been into Bukowski “and that bag.”

“You like Bukowski?” Freddy asked.

“Oh no,” said Carlos.

“I’m sorry, Caroline. But I think he’s even worse than I am.”

Mrs. Dennis’s chest flushed, Carlos drew her attention to a painting done by an old pal of the Russian River School, and Freddy, unable to swallow even the vegetables of small talk, stalked to the bar for another champagne.

Arthur Less at the front door, one of those low walls with a white door, concealing the house that drops down the hill behind it, and what will people say? Oh, you look well. I heard about you and Robert. Who is keeping the house?

How could he know that nine years lay beyond that door?

“Hello, Arthur! What is that you’re wearing?”

“Carlos.”

Twenty years later and still, that day, in that room: old rivals at battle.

Beside him: a young man with curly hair and glasses, standing at attention.

“Arthur, you remember my son, Freddy…”



It was so easy. Freddy found Carlos’s house intolerable and so often, after a long Friday teaching and hitting a happy hour with a few of his college friends, would show up at Less’s, tipsy and eager to crawl into bed for the weekend. The next day would be Less nursing a hungover Freddy with coffee and old movies until Less kicked him out on Monday morning. This happened once a month or so when they first began but grew into a habit, until Less found himself disappointed when one Friday evening, the doorbell never rang. How strange to wake up in his warm white sheets, the sunlight through the trumpet vine, and sense something missing. He told Freddy, the next time he saw him, that he should not drink so much. Or recite such terrible poetry. And here was a key to his house. Freddy said nothing but pocketed the key and used it whenever he liked (and never returned it).

An outsider would say: That’s all fine, but the trick is not to fall in love. They would have both laughed at that. Freddy Pelu and Arthur Less? Freddy was as uninterested in romance as a young person should be; he had his books, and his teaching, and his friends, and his life as a single man. Old, easy Arthur asked nothing. Freddy also suspected that it drove his father nuts that he was sleeping with Carlos’s old nemesis, and Freddy was still young enough to take pleasure in torturing his foster parent. It never occurred to him that Carlos might be relieved to have the boy off his hands. As for Less, Freddy was not even his type. Arthur Less had always fallen for older men; they were the real danger. Some kid who couldn’t even name the Beatles? A diversion; a pastime; a hobby.



Less of course had other, more serious lovers in the years he saw Freddy. There was the history professor at UC–Davis who would drive two hours to take Less to the theater. Bald, red bearded, sparkling eyes and wit; it was a pleasure, for a while, to be a grown-up with another grown-up, to share a phase of life—early forties—and laugh about their fear of fifty. At the theater, Less looked over and saw Howard’s profile lit by the stage and thought: Here is a good companion, here is a good choice. Could he have loved Howard? Very possibly. But the sex was awkward, too specific (“Pinch that, okay, now touch there; no, higher; no, higher; no, HIGHER!”) and felt like an audition for a chorus line. Howard was nice, however, and he could cook; he brought ingredients over and made sauerkraut soup so spicy, it made Less a little high. He held Less’s hand a lot and smiled at him. So Less waited it out for six months, to see if the sex would change, but it didn’t, and he never said anything about it, so I suppose he knew it wasn’t love, after all.