Boy Talk

I barely recognized Jonathan when he came out in his cream colored crisp linen suit. He had developed a little bit of a gut, his hairline was slightly higher than I remember last seeing it. He was nonetheless, a very attractive man. And all these marks of time passing were the natural aging process. I wondered if I had similarly aged in the last year and a half. My hair hadn’t turned gray, or began to fall out, save for that first winter, in which I remember hair falling down into the book I was reading and I panicked a bit. But that was for just a few days and then I completely forgot about it. I exercised to stay slim. I moisturized. I wore sunblock even in the winter. Finding each other we opened up our arms and embraced. Jonathan ran a prurient hand over my chest and stomach, which I tightened to show off the abdominals that I woke up early every morning to exercise until they were flat and hard.

“You look exactly the same,” he said and stood back eyeing me as though for defects. “I don’t know why, but I honestly thought that living out there would take a toll on you. And here you are.” Jonathan knew exactly what to say to me, appealing to my vain side. We walked over to a deli and ordered sandwiches. I still had no appetite; the availability of foods and tastes that I’d now practically forgotten did not whet it. I was not tempted by the chicken breast in aioli pesto, or the turkey with avocado and jalapeno peppers, all of which I knew would be delicious and which sounded so lovely to say aloud, but which I only thought of at this time as fuel to give me energy to make it through the day. We too our food over to a park bench and I asked him to tell me about his life. Not much had changed since I left. Same job, same boyfriend, same sense of restlessness and dissatisfaction that is so much a part of the New York landscape. Same circle of friends, the city was small in that way “I saw your ex the other day at a party.”

“Which ex?” I asked. New York was full of my exes and I wasn’t sure how I felt about seeing some of them, though it was inevitable running into them or of them finding out about my return to New York, the city was small in that way and the circles we run in were small.

“Adrian,” he said. Adrian was a few relationships back, before I left the United States. We were still on speaking terms, even on friendly terms before I left. Every time I saw him it seemed that he continued to try and work through why things never worked out between us – and when I left he had concluded that it was because I needed to travel and see more of the world and that prevented me from settling down with a nice guy like him. Perhaps that was a part of it, I hated to say it, but I was just bored with him and secretly had fallen in love with someone else. And for this, I always felt uneasy and guilty around him. I decided that I did have to call him while I was back. “How is he doing?” I asked.

“He was seeing someone. In fact, his boyfriend reminded me very much of you, just a much quieter version. Very cute. But I think they’ve split up, already.” There was some consolation< I suppose in the fact that though life went on without me, and that things changed, that I got this sense that my whole world that I left behind in New York had gone through a complete revolution, at at this time was back at the very start where I had left it. “Are you seeing anyone?” Jonathan asked.

I thought for a moment whether to answer, how to answer. In so many ways, my life had really changed. I wondered how to explain all the changes and thought that it would require trying somehow to find the language to explain this place where I was living and my state of mind there and the series of events that brought me to the situation I was in today. There would be so much catching up that would be necessary and the situation was complicated enough as it is, I didn’t even feel myself that I understood it all. And then I wondered how people would respond. Would they understand? Would they be shocked? confused? appalled? I felt speechless.

“Is this a difficult question?” Jonathan asked.

I started, “you know it’s really challenging being gay out there. There are class issues, cultural issues, and the law. They have an old soviet law banning homosexuality. So, it’s pretty underground there.”

“Are the guys hot?” Jonathan had taken me off the logical course that I was building up to, which was about how difficult it was being gay and how it sort of spurred me on a different course. But instead we turned to talk about boys, which I felt so much more comfortable and relaxed doing.

“You know, at the start, I didn’t think so, but I opened my eyes a bit. They’re exotic, a mixture of Asian, European, Persian, but they’re all different. They’re usually dark, but sometimes they have blue eyes. Sometimes they have light hair. Some of them look Latin to me. It’s gotten to the point where I walk around there and I just find the faces so fascinating. And in New York, I’m just looking around at all these white people and even think that people here all kind of look alike. All pale. It’s strange how that can happen.”

“I remember when you first got there, you wrote me how you thought that everyone kind of looked alike.”

“That was so long ago, it seems.”

“Where do you find guys?”

I tried to answer. Well, since it’s so underground, you just sort of find people. In the park, in bathhouses, I even heard that people find each other on the bus or on the subway. Most of the ways I’ve gotten entrée into the underground was through random people I talked to in the park.”

“So, who is your Uzbek boyfriend?” Jonathan asked, and I realized that he is most likely the most tolerant person I knew and I decided I would tell him, after making him promise that he would not repeat it. I really wanted to keep mum about my life in Tashkent -- keep it separate, and not make it into gossip that will spread like wildfire among my friends. This was probably one of the most radical things I could have done with myself -- more radical that dropping out of my New York life for Uzbekistan. This is probably the kind of thing, I thought, the stuff that would make for an urban legend -- the gay guy who leaves New York to a distant country and becomes straight.

Jonathan swore secrecy and before I could have a second thought as to what an honest oath was worth these days -- as we didn't swear on bibles to faiths we had little faith in, on mothers' graves for mothers still very much alive, on our long-lost honour, I blurted it out. “Well, actually, she’s not an Uzbek, she’s a Russian. Her name is Yulia.”  ¶ 1:18 AM