I sat down beside him and looked back to see that Stas had disappeared. He was no longer sitting on the side, not in the water. Jason didn't turn his gaze away for a moment from the well-built guy, who didn't seem to notice him.

I lay down on the tiled stair behind Jason continuing to stare at the Russian guy, looking up at the glass ceiling above and closed my eyes.

It was sort of pathetic, I thought. Why bother with that, why waste the time, when that can only lead nowhere? But Jason seemed completely content, even though he was completely invisible to his unattainable object of desire. Our invisibility here was such a stark contrast with the Sheraton Hotel restaurant, where the overbearing attention and typical Uzbek hospitality was cloying. Neither was particularly comfortable. Both were the extremes of living in Uzbekistan.

I liked this place because it felt like life was going on in front of us. Little family dramas, crying children, scolding mothers, fathers teaching their sons to swim, boys and girls having youthful summer romances. It all seemed so innocent, perhaps much the way things were here during the Soviet times -- much in the way the babushkas who ran the place, had wanted to preserve those better days. Back in the Soviet times, these babushkas, with their senses of propriety, ran the show. I had been told that back then they would swab your body with a piece of cotton to determine if you were clean enough to enter the swimming pool. Probably back then, there wasn't any sediment at the bottom of the pool.

Jason and I probably struck the babushkas as unwanted, alien presences; they could probably detect something in our faces -- our cynicism, our less than innocent desires -- that gave them reason for a double take. Especially with Jason and his staring.

We were misfits in this environment. We were older than the younger generations, younger than the older generations. The people around our age, our generation, had left Tashkent, where there was no future for them. They were already in Russia or elsewhere in the world. Looking at this swath of humanity, this little oasis of Russian-ness in front of us, I thought of how it would probably not exist in a few more years. These people would leave too. Yulia would be gone, too, perhaps having married some foreigner, if not one who passed through town, like me, then perhaps one of the ones she made fun of, who used the services of her online dating business.

I heard a splash in the water beside me -- and opened my eyes. It was Jason jumping in the water. At least from where I was, it seemed very intentional the way he "accidentally" brushed against the guy he'd been watching, who still took no notice of him.

A part of me wondered why he went for that and not me.On the other hand, I thought it was fun to have a gay friend to hang out with. As the wing man for someone like this, clearly always on the make, perhaps I could troll for guys for myself, since I didn't feel like I could do that kind of thing on my own. He had the guts, the predatory instinct. I was too cautious, too shy, too much of a quiet observer.

But, I thought. I could be a useful sidekick for him. I had the language skills. I could translate for him. I could be pretty indispensable for him. We could make a good team.

Doug got out of the pool, dried himself off, and motioned his head towards the showers.

"Let's do this again next week," I suggested. I told him that I knew lots of other pools around here that I'd like to check out.

"Deal," he said. "This was fun."  ¶ 10:07 AM 1 Comments