Chapter 10: Eddie's Wedding

James Edward Oglethorpe

Savannah

Photo: Jack Miller



Chapter 10: Eddie's Wedding

Well past midnight Eddie ran through the parks centered along Bull Street. He wanted to scream. He did scream. Or did he? He wasn't sure. His brain screamed. Forsyth Park was his immediate goal.

"I'm celebrating," he said to himself through gasps for breath. "Cum Laude!" he yelled. Eddie had graduated from Armstrong College the day before. "Now, I can be a fucking real estate agent," Eddie shouted as he continued to run, until suddenly, General Oglethorpe blocked his way. Savannah 's founder grasped his sword and swung it at Eddie’s neck.

"You can't kill me. I'm going to join the Oglethorpe club." Eddie said to the general whose statue was chasing him down Bull Street . "This time I'll never come down," Eddie thought. "I'll lose my mind and Sharon will have to marry someone else. I'll go to New York with Susan."

Even on acid, Eddie knew this wasn't true. Tomorrow, sober, he would return to Moon River.
"My life is screwed," Eddie told himself as he saw Forsyth park ahead of him. Oglethorpe had vanished into Count Pulaski. The night was utterly quiet now. He slowed to a walk, entering the darkness before the fountain. The spotlights had gone off the fountain at midnight, but the spray of water drew Eddie in. He stared, trying to see the storks and the satyrs, Lady Liberty, or whoever she was, the water girl glimmered above him in light reflected from the gas lights along the walks. "I should strip and get in the fountain." Eddie unbuttoned his shirt, but then became afraid.

"I'm like some puppet," Eddie spoke to the fountain, "with many puppet masters, all pulling the strings in different directions. Who shall control Eddie's life now: David? Mother? Sharon ? Susan? My grandmother? All yanking and tearing me apart." Eddie laughed and cried at his self-pity. Lions, tigers and bears were encircling and staring at him, waiting for him in Forsyth's shadows, behind the vast, dark live oak trees. "Come on, then. Eat me alive." Eddie yelled.

The next day, as he sat alone in the side garden of Moon River, Eddie could not recall how he spent the night. The beasts had gobbled him up. When he awoke to a hot, bright morning, he was in Colonial Cemetery . He lifted his face from the grass and there was Button's grave. He had to think before recalling where the Karmen Ghia was: near Pinkie's. He bought a coffee to go at the Seven-Eleven on Drayton Street. He should have called Sharon , but didn't. He drove home.

Home. "I live with two fags on an island," Eddie thought out loud. The garden teemed with bees, bumble bees hovering over the flowers, and mocking birds in the pines. Eddie had it to himself, Landry at Armstrong and David working at Ola Wyeth. Eddie hugged his solitude in sheer joy. One more month of freedom, of bourbon, pot, acid, no responsibility, Eddie mused. Then the wedding. Then the job. Then the baby.

David will go to New Orleans and Landry to Mexico . Susan will be safe in New York . Charlotte will be in Atlanta . I alone will remain here in Savannah with my mother and wife. Eddie closed his eyes and let the hot sun draw multicolored patterns beneath his eyelids. Something furry rubbed his leg. Fergus.

At dinner Eddie listened as David and Don talked of Ginsberg's departure and a thank you note from San Francisco , from City Lights Bookstore. David went on about Jules moving there and his plan to visit the bay area himself. "Jules says San Francisco is his Grail Castle ." David said.

Eddie caught the flicker of annoyance on Landry's face. He wanted to say, " You don't like Jules; you think he's a phony, don't you? Me, too." Of course, Eddie remained silent. Quiet. Pensive.

"Are you OK?" David asked.

"Yea, sure. Just tired." Eddie answered.

"hard day?" Landry quipped.

Eddie smiled his best shit-eating grin as he bit the last bite of limp spaghetti Landry had heated up for dinner. He left the squash and zucchini untouched. The food scattered on his plate had unappetizing colors.

"Sharon and I are going to see 2001," Eddie said. He knew he had to speak.

"It's gotten great reviews," David replied.

"Kubrick's vision of the future-- Won't that be enlightening?" Landry said. "The next millennium will be wonderful, I'm sure." He grinned knowingly.

Eddie didn't wait for the coffee. He waved goodbye to David who was carefully measuring out the right amount for the coffee maker. He didn't want to be late, but not early either since that could involve a long discussion with Mr. Brennan, a talk about Eddie's future work, where he and Sharon would live, worrisome details. Fortunately, when he arrived at the Ardsley Park house, a mere four blocks from Battey House, Sharon was ready and waiting.

"Are we still on for 2001?" Eddie asked

"Whatever you like," Sharon replied. She was fine submitting to Eddie's choice. I feel maternal already, she thought. She wondered what life would be like-- hers and Eddie's-- and the baby's --almost  thirty years hence in 2001. It was not easy imagining a son or daughter older than herself.

The line at the Weiss Theater was long, but moved quickly. Sharon and Eddie took their seats a few rows back from Savannah 's widest screen. Strauss' "Zarathustra," opening the film, reminded Eddie of David's comments about Nietzsche. The evolution the film suggested made him smile, especially as the advanced ape pounded a bone, realizing in a flash its value as a killing weapon.

Then, as the bone, tossed by the killing ape into the air, became a spaceship the theater audience gasped.

Sharon resented the film. She squirmed, got up, went to the ladies' room, and wished Eddie would want to leave. But she submitted. His intense face showed her how absorbed he was in the film. Then, after the long, demented dismantling of Hal, came the mystical scenes with the fetus.

"I'm having flashbacks," Eddie whispered to himself. The image of the fetus filled the screen and his brain. This is my monolith, the thing that will change me forever. He looked at Sharon . She had terror on her face… or was it wonder? He didn't know. He took her hand and squeezed. The film ended.

"Let's go out to Moon River ," Eddie suggested.

Sharon hesitated. "Won't David and Dr. Landry be there?"

"I'm sure they won't; they always go out."

"O.K. But we can't stay all night. My father has been horrible lately. Until next month we need to keep the parents happy."

"Fine, I'll take you home now." Eddie said.

"Don't be so mean," Sharon pleaded.

"I'm not." Eddie drove the long drive to Burnside Island mostly in silence. Both were haunted by images from the film. As they neared the house, he asked, "Do you think there was some point to the film, some meaning?"

"No. I think it was just a negative view of space travel and how man is warlike and destructive."

"I disagree," Eddie said. "I think it was all about rebirth and discovery, the cycles of life and evolution. It was about the unknown and life's mysteries."

"But it was about violence and loneliness. It was like a bad acid trip." Sharon had no idea what an acid trip was like.

Eddie was glad Sharon had her own strong opinion. She's sharp, he thought. Maybe she was right about the film being negative, even nihilistic. "So I guess we are all just like those apes in the beginning," he said. He knew this wasn't  the agreement she wanted.

At Moon River , as he had thought, Eddie and Sharon had the house to themselves. Eddie led the way to the sun porch then turned to hold Sharon in his arms. He wanted to fuck. His penis was the new monolith.

"We should go up to your room." Sharon protested as Eddie undressed her. "What if they return?"

"They won't. Besides we'd hear the car coming in plenty of time."

They embraced naked on the sofa. They were hungry for the sex. Eddie pushed deep into her, pushing as hard as he could. His cock was the bone the ape had tossed in the air, and he wielded it with pleasure and assurance. Sharon felt that he wanted to hurt her, to kill her and the baby with his thrusts. She gave in to it, yielded to the stabs of ecstatic pain. She let herself scream as they both approached orgasm. For once it wasn't going to take her all night to come. She did it before him, as she saw behind her closed eyes Kubrick's fetus floating in space, like herself, floating and turned inside-out. She felt Eddie's cum spurting into her.

Eddie was kissing her. French kissing. First too hard, then more gently. How grateful he was. They lay there on the sofa in the dark forever, hugging, sweating. They felt each other's hearts beating heavily and both thought of that third heart inside.

"You do love me, don't you?" Sharon asked.

"More than ever." Eddie replied. He meant it.

_________

A month later, the wedding party assembled in St. John's church was a small one.  Eddie looked over the group as the service was about to begin. "This is my day, Sharon's and my day." He thought. "This ought to be the happiest moment of my life."

Eddie smiled. What a collection of people. Sharon's parents were somber. Eddie's mother was chatting away with his two sisters. Surely this was as much her day as his. Eddie's brother in law, looking dapper, had been the choice of the family for best man. "Whose wedding is this?' Eddie had yelled. "I can choose my own best man." Here he was, walking quickly up the aisle, beard trimmed, worn out sports coat. Where had he been anyway.

As Eddie looked at his friend's stocky body walking confidently up the aisle, he smiled again at the memory of last night. What would all these judgmental people say or do if they knew David and he had gotten drunk and jerked off together? Just a few hours ago. Quick and easy. Then David had kissed him, kissed his wet genitals, and slept beside him. Eddie had liked it, no denying it. He liked holding his friend close and knowing how much David loved him. Fuck 'em all.

"Are you nervous?" David asked, reaching the sanctuary.

"No. Should I be?" Eddie noticed how nervous David was. Strange.

Then Sharon entered the church. She stopped at the aisle, as Eddie gazed at her. She was radiant. her white dress made a blond angel of her. "My pregnant bride," Eddie thought. He grinned. He adored her. "I don't deserve such beauty and innocence. Poor Sharon, to have fallen for such a lush as myself."

The service was traditional and brief. Sharon marched up the aisle to Mendelssohn. She stood beside proud Eddie and her fat father squeezed in next to her to give her away. When Reverend Byrd asked  if anyone knew any reason these two should not be joined in matrimony, the pause was pregnant. Eddie wondered if everyone suspected some reason. Thank God there was no confessional in the Episcopal Church. Eddie imagined the Catholic priest saying, "Well, come on! One of you speak up about this man's sins before we go any further."

David looked straight ahead, afraid to look Eddie in the eye. He knew plenty of reasons, last night being one of the least of them. He almost sighed as the moment passed. David handed Eddie the much fingered gold ring. The music struck up and all headed over to the Meldrin-Green mansion, St. John's Parish house, for the reception.

"It was such a lovely wedding," Jane said to Betty Bagby. "Don't they make a charming couple?"

"Got me," Betty replied. "I just got here." Betty was among those invited only to the reception. Jane and Connor were as well, but hadn't read their invitations closely and had gone to the wedding service as well. Jane and Connor had sat toward the back of the church, holding hands, wondering why so few were there.

"When are you and Connor Lawrence going up the aisle?" Betty asked mischievously. She loved teasing Jane who took everything so seriously.

Jane patted her gray hair, giving Betty her crooked, pained smile. She would not play games. "Oh, excuse me, I have to say hello to someone." Off she went.

Betty laughed.

"Congratulations, Eddie," Andreas greeted the groom. "Your wife is beautiful."

Eddie took his hand. "Indeed she is."

"I hope to marry Eva next year; We are planning to spend our honeymoon in New Orleans and visit with David there."

Eddie imagined taking Sharon to New Orleans. "We are simply going over to Hilton Head for a few days alone together." He wondered how much this robust old friend of David knew of their relationship. " I start work at my new job next week and we need to settle into our new apartment." Why, Eddie wondered, did he have to explain himself.

"Sounds great." The ever positive Andreas said, aware that Eddie was anything but thrilled at the prospect of work and married life. David had told him of the eminent arrival of the baby.

"We are so excited about our new home on Jones Street,"  Sharon said to Esther. She looked down to her, then up to Carlos, towering over the two women. " Have you two decided on a house where you are going to live?"

"We are going to live on 52d Street a while with Esther's mother. Eventually, we shall buy our own home," Carlos explained.

"Eddie and I hope to buy our own home in a year; but renting works for now." Sharon's optimism made Esther smile.

"Are you still seeing Brian?"  Andreas asked David.

"Off and on. He's just too wild-- even for me," David said. "Besides, I'm too busy planning the move to the Big Easy. It's less than a month now 'til Don and I drive down there."

"Where is Dr. Landry?" Andreas looked around the room.

"In Tulsa, visiting his mother.She's flying down to Mexico later to meet him there and travel to Oaxaca before he begins teaching."

"He is amazing." Andreas exclaimed, truly impressed. "I can't imagine moving to Mexico and teaching classes in a foreign college. He speaks fluent Spanish?"

"Not really. The school is mostly Americans. He's teaching English Literature and drama."


"Oh." said Andreas, not really comprehending the idea of an English speaking college in Mexico, and changing the subject," Whatever happened to the girl Eddie used to like so much-- Susan?"

"She's moving to New York. She's very excited and glad to be leaving Savannah. It's always been too small for her." David did not want to explain to Andreas that Susan preferred women to men. "And Charlotte is moving to Atlanta to perform with the Academy Theater and sing in a jazz club there."

"You have the most interesting friends. I can't believe all the things they do. Are you going to miss her? Y'all were pretty close weren't you?"

Andreas could not understand being straight and gay at the same time. Not that it mattered to him. His love for Eva was so single-minded that the thought of wanting someone or something else was inconceivable. Nonetheless, he admired his friend's versatility.


"Yes, very close." David mused. "If I were a normal male heterosexual, she would have been perfect for me." David wasn't really sure  this was true.

 -----

Skip downed another glass of champagne. "Why does everyone think this is so good-- it's sour," he said to himself. Who are all of these people, I hardly know any of them. The groom, his brother David, his mother, that was it. Sharon's parents and friends huddled on one side of the reception hall. They look like everyone else is going to attack them, Skip thought. But Sharon is one hot chick. I'd love to spend a wedding night with her. How had Eddie scored such a bride, Skip wondered. He's such a troll, bending over her like some prisoner he's guarding. 

"Are you excited about joining the Air Force." Esther asked, appearing suddenly at Skip's side. She startled him.

"You know I just joined to stay out of 'Nam," Skip said. "I'm doing boot camp in Biloxi; so I'll be able to party with David in New Orleans."

"Skip Jackson!" Esther shouted. "I thought you were joining up to fight for our country. We need good soldiers."

"Then we need someone like your Carlos-- big and strong-- to do that." 

"Carlos is going to take care of me," said Esther. "Thank God he got a high lottery number. So how's David staying out of the Army?"

"Student exemption, for now," Skip replied. "But he's been to a shrink who has confirmed he's queer. Totally unfit for duty. Besides that, he's 1-Y because of his glasses."

"One son in the military is one son too many," Betty Bagby proclaimed as she walked up to Skip and Esther. "They need to give that whole stinking country to Ho Chi Minh and get the fuck out."

Betty's language always shocked Esther, who considered herself a free thinking debutante, but one who remained polite and not foul mouthed. 


"Get out, or bomb them back to the stone age."


"Betty, that is horrible," Esther shrieked in her raspy voice. "You think that would make America safe for democracy? You should be ashamed."


Betty imagined wringing Esther's scrawny neck. 


"Then let them put tricky Dick and Ho in a nude wrestling match. How would that meet your approval?"


Esther liked that suggestion and gave out a shrill laugh. 


Across the hall Eddie pleaded with Sharon, "Don't you think we can leave now. We've done our social duty."


"Eddie!"  Sharon's soft face turned red. "This is our wedding reception. We have to dance for everyone and for each other.."


Frank Sinatra gave out his suave notes from the eight track player, but was drowned out by the loud, echoing chatter throughout the hall. In the center of the room the cake, dutifully cut in countless pieces by David had become crushed, a vast white heap. Most of the champagne, the Spanish stuff served to the guests, was gone. Eddie knew there were a few hidden bottles of Moet squirreled away, a few with which they might escape.


Sharon and Eddie danced. The few others on the dance floor stood aside and clapped. They posed for the professional photographer and for David and for Eddie's sister. They smiled so much Eddie felt a cramp in his right cheek.


Then, as if in one of his acid hallucinations, there they were, leaving the hall. Their friends and family tossed handfuls of rice on them. They fled the steps of the Parrish House and the small garden for the yellow Karmann Ghia, decked out in "Just Married" signs and cans tied to the bumper. David stood holding the door to the car open. "Was he going with them?" Eddie's brief confusion stopped as Sharon hugged him and thanked him for all the wonderful things he had done as Eddie's best man. Sharon kissed his bearded mouth. Eddie thought of doing the same thing, shocking all the families. He gave David a bear hug, holding him just a minute too long. He knew David would like that.


An hour later, having dragged their cans across the Talmadge Bridge, and rattled along the pine bordered and moss draped narrow roads to Hilton Head Island, they arrived at the Hilton Head Hilton. Neither bride nor groom talked for much of the drive, Sharon resting her head awkwardly on her new husband's shoulder. The Karmann Ghia was intimate but the bucket seats made it hard, if not impossible, to snuggle. They both thought silently about the next event, the baby. 


"A spectacular wedding ceremony and reception,"  Eddie managed to say as they neared the hotel. Sharon was unsure if he was being sarcastic.


"Yes, it was."  No conviction. She stared at the huge trees lining the drive to the hotel. They crossed a swampy creek. Sharon was fatigued, ready for the luxury room.


The room was a large suite, king-sized bed, a side sitting room with t.v., and a balcony from which they could catch a glimpse of the ocean beyond the garden and grounds and pool of the hotel. Eddie rolled back the sliding glass door, but the breeze was hot. He closed it again. They would hear not the sea, but the roar of the air conditioning.

"I forgot to get a bottle of the champagne," he said. 

"Do you want to get a drink from the bar?'


They stared at each other and shook their heads no.  Sharon began to undo her dress, and Eddie helped. He put his gold cuff links on the dresser and removed his new tuxedo. They lay next to each other on the huge bed, kissing gently. Sharon sighed and lay her head on the pillow. Eddie had no idea what she wanted to do-- fuck? Sleep? Just rest a while?

Neither felt any desire or excitement at all, only the urge to shut their eyes. Sharon remained limp and so did Eddie's penis. When Eddie shut his eyes, he saw all of those faces from the reception. He imagined them all staring, gathered around his and Sharon's big bed like the witches from Rosemary's Baby. He imagined them all chanting.


"But the baby is already here!" he wanted to tell them.

Instead, he whispered to Sharon, "I love you."

"I love you too," she whispered back.

Chapter 11 Moon River (complete)

Ch. 11 Moon River

Moon River

Moon River with Fergus

Johnny Mercer's House at Moon River

where the author lived.

Photo by Jack Miller 


Standing on the sun porch, Landry watched the lightning in the distance as the clouds amassed over Moon River. Usually ignoring weather reports, he nonetheless had caught the name of the newly developing storm off the Florida coast, soon to be Hurricane David. "Please God, no more tempests of that caliber," he said, smiling.
Landry had the house to himself. He was packing in preparation for a year in Mexico. In a few more days, he and David would drive to New Orleans. A flood of memories from his days in that city watered Don's eyes.
He still had so much to do at Armstrong. Mercifully he could leave his office intact.  Someone else would use it, of course, while he was gone. But he could leave all of his books and store things in the cabinets. On one hand, Landry thought, in a year he could return to move everything stored to Mexico. On the other, he knew it was possible he would not want to stay in Mexico and choose to continue at Armstrong, teaching spoiled suburbanites who filled his English and Philosophy classes. "Come back to tossing my pearls to swine," Landry said out loud.
Landry thought of Carlos. Another marriage-- Carlos and Esther, the giant and the debutante dwarf, he thought cruelly. He couldn't conceive how his hunky sometimes lover loved tiny, thin Esther.  To Landry she was an hysterical, nervous, and high-strung child. "Mexican men are the same," Landry said. "They will marry any woman who will have them. But they will gladly go to bed with men like me on the sly, especially with the help of some tequila. Or is that just my fantasy," Don mused.
Octavio Paz caught his eye from one of the stacks of books he planned to take. "What do you say, Octavio? Am I not right about Mexican 'machismo'?"
Landry would dine alone tonight. David was taking his mother to a restaurant. "Poor Betty,"  he thought. " A painful divorce and now both her sons are leaving town."  He thought of his own mother,  " If only she can come to like Mexico.  I must show her how civilized it can be, take her to good shops in the Zona Rosa, help her appreciate how cosmopolitan Mexico City is."
By the time she flew to the city, he would be settled in Puebla. She would be impressed by the dramatic drive he planned to Taxco and Cuernevaca. Then, after showing her how elegant and rich Mexico could be, he would take her to Oaxaca. He would dispel her fear of Catholicism, a fear as deep as her homophobia.
Landry surveyed the house. So much that he had collected and loved remained. He would leave most of his art and artifacts in the care of Patricia, the wife of a colleague at Armstrong. They had become close over the past year and he trusted her. Even Fergus was staying, at least until Christmas when he would have time to return from his home in Puebla. The awareness of leaving so much here was disturbing, confusing.
It was good to have this time alone. Landry was glad Eddie was gone, married, no longer part of his routine. David would continue to work at the library until the week before they departed. He needed the extra money for New Orleans.
As rain began to patter on the porch, Don removed his clothes. He fantasized about the Mexican man he would meet in Puebla. He saw this shirtless, bronze man standing in an open field with snow-covered Popocatepatl rising behind him. The image brought an eruption of pleasure.
    
     A few days later, a hot August 1, Johnny Mercer arrived with his wife Ginger. Landry sat in the breezeway with Patricia. She was excited to be meeting the famous song writer who was about to become her landlord. After introductions all around, the four entered the screen door to the main house.
"What would you like, juice, a drink?" Landry offered.
"Oh my, no. Thank you." Mercer said. "Nothing for us at all. How nice the way you have managed the house."
"Well, it's a bit of a clutter, what with all of your lovely Stickley furniture and my not-so-practical Eighteenth Century collection." How pretentious I sound, Landry thought as he said this.

Mercer did not remove his blue, woolen  Greek sailor's cap as they toured the house. He sported a trim white beard and looked as if he had not a care in the world. To Landry, Mercer's wife appeared just the opposite. Plump, neatly dressed, she was serious, businesslike, hurried. She brought up the details of Patricia and her husband taking over the house, the sublet. They would pay the Mercer's by check each month and Johnny's niece, who lived in Savannah, would be their contact, if they needed anything.

"My niece has endless praise for you, Dr. Landry." Mercer said, "She still goes on about how moving your Yeats seminar was."

Landry was flattered.

Patricia expressed her love for Breakfast at Tiffany's. Mercer smiled like a child receiving a pat on the head.

"I hope your move to Mexico is a great success," Mrs. Mercer said to Landry as they all bid one another goodbye. What she really wished was that he were buying this property from them. She and Johnny could certainly never return here. Between New York and L.A. there was no time for Savannah, and it would be fine with her not to have the burden of upkeep of this place, lovely as it was.

_________

Hurricane David provided the opportunity for a storm party. Skip and David invited everyone they knew, including the Kleins from Asheville who were in town for two weeks. After days of downpours, Battey House creaked, its twenty-three rooms were rank with mold and mildew. Skip burned incense  to cover the odor and the smell of marijuana smoked daily by the ever changing denizens of the house. Carlos and Esther had agreed to move in and keep the house for the time Skip would be away in military training for the Airforce reserves, almost a year that included boot camp and duty in Biloxi. Carlos was relieved and grateful to be escaping from living with Esther's mother, now three blocks away on 52d Street.
"Who do you have coming," Skip asked his brother.
"Well, Don will be late. Eddie and Sharon. Andreas and Eva. Maybe Susan. Possibly Connor and Jane. I invited Brian, but who knows if he'll show. How about you?"

"Not sure. Carlos and Esther, since they are moving in. Odie. The usual neighborhood crowd. This girl named Kay I've been dating. I'm hoping she wants to give me a patriotic send off to the Airforce."

"That would be nice," David laughed. "Do we have enough tapes and records?"

Word of the party spread wider than David or Skip imagined. By the time Don Landry arrived, many of the rooms of Battey House were filled. The broken steps and railing of the entrance hall always made Landry want to turn and flee. How could such a grand old house degenerate into this wasted ruin?  The huge entrance hall rose with cracked walls to a ceiling from which half the plaster had fallen from bare wood planks. "Why am I entering this house of horror?" Landry asked himself, as he ascended  to the noise and music upstairs.

The vision beyond the open upstairs door confirmed Landry's fears. As Jim Morrison urged them to "Ride the snake," figures in the dim expanse of living room, lit only by small, bare light bulbs, one red, one blue, smoked a water pipe, crawled along the floor, and flowed in and out of the two doors connecting to the screen porch.

"Hey, man. You want some dope?" Odie offered  Landry a jay. To Don he looked about fourteen years old.
"No. Thanks."
As Landry turned to leave, David appeared. "Shocking party, isn't it?" He asked.

"Appalling, not shocking." Landry answered. But what the fuck; in another week they'd be in New Orleans.

"Let's go to the porch; it's cooler out there." David suggested. Despite the rain, the unair-conditioned room was hot. Landry saw that some of the young men were shirtless.

"Who are all of these people?" He asked David.
"Mostly neighborhood friends of Skip."

The screen porch, like the living room was huge. A ceiling fan stirred the damp, smoky air. Gusts of rain and wind came through the half dozen tall windows encompassing the room. Landry recognized Susan and recalled Andreas from their last meeting along with Eva who was sitting next to him on the pink loveseat. And there, too, were Esther and Carlos. Carlos. Carlos. Landry sat down as if stricken on another soft, filthy divan. He smiled and sought composure.

"We're smoking some fine opium hash," Carlos reached out offering Landry a water pipe. "Try it."

"I've had enough experiences of opium," Don said. "It's nothing to play around with." Then, he took the pipe and inhaled  as deeply as his lungs would allow.

An hour later, Landry felt as if caught in one of Kahil Gibran's vast spirals of naked figures, swirling upwards into the heavens. He was a magnet drawing people into his vortex. From room to room he wandered as if in a dream, and in each room others both familiar and unknown approached him with questions, "Who are you?" "How do you know Skip? "Are you a professor, what do you teach?" To them they were simple questions. To Don they were the Zen Koans of his life.

Suddenly, there was Connor Lawrence towering before him. He was a Cyclops. No, there were clearly two big round eyes looking him up and down. "Dr. Landry, what a blessing to find you here at this orgiastic affair." Connor gave Don his best mocking smile.

"My dear, you have no idea how glad I am to see you." Landry exclaimed. "You are my shining knight come to my rescue."

"But, Don, what do you need to be rescued from?" Connor asked, still smiling.

"Madness, banality, folly." Don replied. "And maybe you can help me find a simple scotch and water in this opium den."

Connor laughed his deep, throaty laugh, giving Don a bear hug. He kept his huge, artist hand clasped to Don's shoulder. "I didn't bring Jane along, tonight. This is not her scene. So, honey, it's just me and you."
 

---

Sharon would have avoided this party if she could have. When she reminded herself that David, Don, and even Skip were all leaving Savannah, she admitted that Eddie had to attend. She certainly had no intention of letting him go alone. So now she was here, lost in the funhouse. What a hideous place. How could anyone live in such a nightmare? To her dismay, Eddie was at home here. He took her by the hand and guided her upstairs, through the maze of rooms, the ceilingless breakfast room, the soiled kitchen where a cockroach scurried across the sink, to a back door where steps went up to a dark door to the attic, and down to a lower level where voices indicated a crowd.

"Looking for David?" a voice asked as a face looked up from below. "He's up there, I think."

"That's OK," Eddie yelled down. He turned to go back to the refrigerator. "Beer. Fantastic." He helped himself, offering one to Sharon.

She accepted. She decided she needed one, despite the baby.

"Two twelve packs of Bohemia," Eddie said," No doubt to celebrate Don's big move to Mexico. Of course, it's also David's favorite beer."

Landry, though, was not drinking Bohemia. He was nursing a blessed Scotch and water. Connor had miraculously produced a fifth of Inver House. They encountered Eddie and Sharon in the black light lit  hallway leading to the back bedrooms and bathroom. Strangers pushed past them going both ways.

"My congratulations to you both," boomed Connor to Sharon. "Your wedding reception was the social event of the summer."

"Right," Eddie replied. What a buffoon Connor is, he thought. He turned to Landry," Mexico so soon. You must be thrilled. I wish I were going with you."

"Thrilled, but terrified." Don said with a pained smile. "I already miss Moon River, and I haven't even left."

"Funny, I miss Moon River, too." Eddie said, not looking at Sharon.

"Well, then, we should move the whole party there," Connor suggested. "We can all get naked on the sunporch!"

Sharon blushed, but no one saw in the dayglow of the hallway.

"Did you see this?" Asked Eddie, pointing to the glowing writing on the wall.

Sharon read the scrawl Eddie pointed out, "Beam me up Scotty; there's no intelligent life here." Eddie was laughing. Sharon thought the Star Trek quote only too true.

As they moved down the hallway, Sharon continued to read the walls and survey the rooms. A small poster announced a performance of the "Now Explosion." A fractured female mannequin head stared from the lightless wall socket above her. There were more scribblings and a Peanuts cartoon cut and pasted to the wall. Strings of beads hung from door knobs. The three bedrooms toward the back of the house were filled with debris, unmade beds with filthy sheets, chests of drawers half open with clothes spilling out of them. "How can people live here?" She asked.

Then she saw the bathroom. Floor to ceiling was pasted with Playboy centerfolds and other  magazine photos of nude women. "Oh my God!" She said with disgust.

"Hell, it's a party house. Don't take everything so seriously." Eddie laughed at her," Let's go find David. "

David was on the screen porch, deep in conversation with Andreas and Eva.  "That's a great idea. Take the train to New Orleans for your honeymoon." Eva would be a December bride. She and Andy would spend Christmas to New Years Day with David. 

Eddie politely listened to the elaboration of plans he had already heard on his own wedding day.

"Speaking of weddings and honeymoons," David said looking up at Eddie, "How is married life?'

"Fantastic; nothing better," Eddie lied. Sharon gave a nervous laugh. Their marriage had improved, however. After the wedding night, Eddie's momentary impotence vanished with the morning sun over Hilton Head Island. The intensity of conjugal pleasure was theirs.

" A toast to true love and marital bliss," David proposed, lifting his bottle of Bohemia and clinking it to Eddie's.

"And to true friendship," added Andreas, touching his bottle to theirs.

As midnight approached, David missed Brian. "All these couples everywhere," David thought out loud. He knew Eddie and Sharon would leave soon. Then, he saw Susan sitting alone in the living room. He walked over to her, "What do you think of the newly weds?"

"I hope they're happy. Just glad it ain't me, you know? I am ready for New York. Or at least a different scene." Susan said.

David sat on the sofa across from her. A tall, lanky teenager he didn't know was also sitting there. "Hi. I'm Birdsey." The boy said holding out his hand, then offering David a cigarette.

"Hey. I'm David." David accepted the offer, considered making a pass, but resisted. "Much too young," he told himself. He inhaled the Marlboro. 

---

 "Your paintings are as good as Matisse. You are a genius, a great artist." Landry praised Connor but Connor resisted.

" I am a hopeless drunk and a sinner." Connor's tongue was thick with several drinks. "But you are right. I love my work; my paintings are my soul."

Landry and Connor huddled in the last bedroom at the end of the hall. Skip had left it open.

"We should leave," Landry coaxed. "I'll drive you home."

"Whatever you say, my dear," Connor accepted. "Take me away. Take me in your arms."

 Skip, standing on the brick front steps of Battey House, told them goodbye. The rain had stopped and bright orange clouds swirled overhead in the night sky. Hurricane David was passing by. Skip watched Landry drive off in his Volkswagon. "He's the professor my brother is going with to new Orleans." Skip said to Kay. She looked perplexed.

"I wish someone would take me away from here. Can I come visit you in Biloxi?"

"That would be far out. I'll need all the friends I can find there." Skip replied happily. "We'll go over to New Orleans together."

"You promise?"

---

David wondered if he should try to drive home to Moon River. A lull in the rain had passed and the wind was gusting again. "Guess I could just crash here," David told himself. There were still people scattered about the house, most of them drunk or stoned. Skip had turned Jimi Hendrix down for fear that the unhappy neighbors would call the police. Now, Skip's new Elton John album was playing. Skip and Kay walked with his arm around her, said goodnight to David, and headed down the hallway. David wished them a sweet goodnight.

"Hey! Where's the party?" David looked up and saw Brian standing in the doorway.

"Everyone is gone or passed out-- you missed everybody: Andreas, Eva, Eddie, Sharon, even Don, gone, conquered by art."

"There seem to be a few party animals stumbling around in the dark here." Brian replied.

"We like the dark." David pulled Brian down onto the sofa beside him.

---

 Connor Lawrence insisted that Landry come in for a nightcap. His small apartment near the Telfair Museum was filled with his paintings. Don surveyed them with admiration. After a few sips on their drinks, Connor seized Don in a hug, dragging him willingly to the bedroom, and the huge canopy bed. As renewed wind and rain rattled the large old window, Connor unveiled for Landry his hidden asset. Thunder and lightning accompanied.

At Three A.M. Brian drove his convertible up the dirt driveway of Moon River. The house was dark and shadowy under the moonlight. The waning moon was emerging from the bands of cloud wispy and fleeing from east to west, from the storm still over the Atlantic. The moon seemed to be gliding above the marsh.

David had slept on the drive out, glad to be rescued from Battey House, especially by Brian. he was glad to see the yellow wood frame of the house at Moon River dark, unoccupied. "It's all ours."

They entered the house, David switching on lights, heading into the kitchen. "I just want some water, good  Moon River sulfur water." He filled a glass from the tap. Brian found a beer in the refrigerator. Upstairs they undressed and climbed into David's ample Stickley bed beside the window with a view of the river. The moon shone through the open window. The water in the distance tossed yet by the easterly winds, reflected the moon in shattered images.

Mid-morning, David awoke first. Brian lay naked on the bed in the warmth of the sunlight pouring through the window. David loved his body, blond peach fuz over his lips, his slender, hairless chest, the rise and fall of his taut belly, all the ripe details of his flesh, lying before him like an offering. He lightly touched Brian, not wanting to wake him.

David knew it was just another party night for Brian. He would become one more bit of Savannah left behind. Yet, Brian had liberated David, given him immense pleasure, allowed him to let go of Eddie, finally. In time David would wonder why and how he had ever been so in love with Eddie. At the same time, paradoxically, Brian deepend David's love for Don. 

---

Don Landry, at the same moment, was also awakening. Connor Lawrence was cooking eggs in his efficiency kitchen. "Stay where you are," Connor commanded. "I shall serve the good professor breakfast in bed."

"I've been well served quite enough," Landry said inaudibly. Still, he complied with the order. His body shivered in memory of Connor's fucking. He was "in me like my death," Landry quoted his own poem.

"What's that?" Connor asked, carrying a large copper tray filled with plates of eggs, toast, grits, and coffee. "You and I must go to church together, now, don't you think?" He asked.

"No. I repent nothing." Landry replied.

---

 On the afternoon of their last full day at Moon River, Don and David sat on the sun porch drinking the last bottle of Bordeaux.

"Do you think we are born gay?" David asked.

" I don't know," Don replied. "Maybe we are born with an inclination."

"My view is we are born bisexual and that we learn what not to desire. Our experience eliminates half of what we initially are attracted to."

"Nothing, no amount of learning, could have made me desire women." Don smiled, "I appreciate their aesthetic beauty, but I am no more attracted to them sexually than I am to a Ming vase."

David thought about what Don said. He could not imagine Don fucking a woman, it was true. Still, he persisted, "We nonetheless learn our aversions. You may lack the desire for women, but what is in your genetic makeup is the need to be with men. As you know, I tried being straight. Making love to women was exciting and extremely pleasurable, physically. I felt what  D. H. Lawrence called the 'charging of the blood.' The connection and the climax were a miracle of merging and flowing into one another physically and psychically. But for me that was the problem. I need to connect on that deep level with another man. I can't really explain it, but sexual intimacy with a man is the ultimate connection for me. It is the love that surpasses the love for women to put it in Biblical terms."

Landry took a deep puff of his cigarette, inhaling so deeply that the hot smoke hurt his lungs. He thought how different he was from David. What "charged his blood," was having a man fuck him, not fucking women. "We must relish and cherish the mystery. In love we must follow not our heads, but our hearts. Best to stop trying to undo the cords which bind our hearts to others, less we ourselves fall down dark stairs of the irrational."

David loved that poetic vision. "And if the cords of our hearts entwine with more than one person, more than one sex?"

"My dear, you already know the answer, don't you?"


In the evening, after a light dinner, the two men walked to the river's edge, listening to the pulse of the cicadas. The grounds were lush, still damp after the rains from the hurricane. "We'll drive straight through to the Gulf coast tomorrow," Landry explained.  "We should be able to reach the Florida Panhandle, beyond Pensacola, maybe Destin. The beach there is lovely and we can walk along the strand. Then we can drive on to New Orleans on Wednesday, get there in time for a late afternoon cocktail at Lafitte's." Landry smiled as he imagined Davids' reaction to the French Quarter.


"I can't wait," David replied.


Back in the house, ascending the stairs, David turned and gave Don a goodnight kiss. Then he turned to sleep in his own bedroom one last night. In the big Stickley bed, however, David could not sleep. His head was filled with speculation, with New Orleans and the unknown Mexico beyond.  After midnight he tiptoed into the master bedroom, climbing into the four poster bed where Don slept soundly. At last David could sleep.

Just before dawn they both awoke hugging each other. It was pitch dark. David felt Landry touch his face, brushing back the hair across his forehead. The touch expanded into caresses as the two men massaged and aroused each other. They gave each other heart racing yet gentle sexual release. simultaneous, both sighing with pleasure.

David held Don close to him. As his breath settled down, a new specter took shape in the dark. He felt Landry's thin face with the hard bones of his skull standing out. The bones of Don's shoulders and arms jutted out in the blackness, David imagining his friend as a living skeleton staring back at him with hollow eyes. David thought of Mexico and all the skeletons of the Day of the Dead he had seen. He thought of the heart eating gods. "I am embracing Death," David thought. Panic gripped him as he thought of the future.


Landry was shivering as the air conditioner churned. He reached down to pull up the covers.


"What's wrong?" David asked.


"I am freezing," Landry whispered. He took hold of David as he lifted the covers over them both. He felt David shaking. "You're cold too."


"No," David answered.


"What, then?"


"I don't know. I'm afraid. I feel like something dreadful is going to happen. Death and disaster."


Landry shared David's premonition, but he tried to console him.

"You mustn't worry, David. I promise you, nothing horrible is going to happen. One day we'll have a wonderful house to live in, whether it's in Mexico or here in Savannah. It will be our Garden of the Finzi-Continis, our Garden of Epicurus.

David tried to smile as his tears welled.

Landry continued, "Everything will be fine. We shall weather the storms. We shall 'pasture the horses of the sea,'" he quoted. 


"I don't know why I'm so upset," David answered. "Maybe that awful trial. All the death in Viet Nam. Or maybe just all of us going away to other places, our little family split up and disappearing. Why are we all leaving, anyway?"


"Sh, sh. It's alright. We aren't leaving one another." Landry was uncertain, but he persisted," We are evolving into a richer world and new experience, that's all. You will study philosophy at Tulane; you'll come to visit me in Cholula."


"An adventure for us both," David took up the dream.


Exhausted, they both fell back into sleep.


They awoke with the sun blazing over Moon River and into the window. Landry threw off the covers and rose to lift the window to the morning air. Shrill birdsong filled the room. After showers they had coffee and a final breakfast in the breezeway. 


"When will Pat and her husband arrive?' David asked.


"Later this afternoon." Their friends would keep the house until the following June, at least. Then, Landry would make the decision whether to return or stay in Mexico.


The morning sun had brought the return of reason, heightening their anticipation of New Orleans. The dark demons of the night had vanished for now. They carried their suitcases to the car. Both looked around the grounds which shimmered in the August heat, crickets pulsing. 


"I shall miss it here." David said.


Landry felt the same. "Let's go before we change our minds." They got into the Volkswagon.


"Next stop, Destin," they said simultaneously.




Jack Miller
Druid Hills
Summer 2010