Arkansas Read Online Free PDF

haircut; then I bathed and shaved; then I put on a new beige vest I’d bought at Banana Republic, a white Calvin Klein shirt, and fresh jeans. And at the risk of sounding immodest, I must say that the effect worked: I looked good, waiting for him in that little oasis of homosexual civility with my cappuccino and my copy of
Where Angels Fear to Tread.
Except that it hardly mattered. Eric arrived late, and only stayed five minutes. His eyes were glazed, his hair unwashed, his green down vest gave off a muddy smell, as if it had been left out in the rain.
    â€œMan, I feel like shit” was his greeting as he sat down.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?”
    â€œI haven’t slept in three nights. I’ve got this huge econ project due Wednesday. Airline deregulation.”
    â€œYou want some coffee?”
    â€œI have had so much coffee in the last twenty-four hours!” He rubbed his eyes.
    We were silent for a few seconds. Waiting, I’d been curious to know what he’d make of the Ivy, the clientele of whom consisted pretty exclusively of West Hollywood homos. Now I saw that he wasn’t awake enough to notice.
    â€œSo do you have it?” he asked presently.
    â€œYeah, I have it.” Reaching into my briefcase, I handed him the paper. “Seventeen pages, footnoted and typed in perfect accordance with MLA style rules.”
    Eric thumbed through the sheets. “Great,” he said, scanning. “Yeah, this is just the sort of shit Professor Yearwood’ll eat up.”
    Stuffing the paper into his backpack, he stood.
    â€œWell, thanks, Dave. Gotta run.”
    â€œAlready?”
    â€œLike I said, I’ve got this econ project due.”
    â€œBut I thought...”
    My voice trailed off into silence.
    â€œOh, that,” Eric said, smiling.
“After
I get my grade. I mean, what if she gives me a D?” He winked. “Oh, and
after
I’m done with fucking airline deregulation. Well, later.”
    He was gone.
    Rather despondently, I finished my cappuccino.
    Well, you’ve learned your lesson, a voice inside me said. Ripped off again. And not only that, you can never tell anyone. It would be too embarrassing.
    I know, I know.
    Alas, it was not the first time this voice had given me such a lecture.
    Â 
    I drove home. My father and Jean were out. Locking myself in the guest room, I took off my Banana Republic vest, my Calvin Klein shirt, my no longer fresh jeans. Then I got into bed and called the phone sex line, a particularly desperate form of consolation, to which I had not resorted for several weeks. And as is usual in that eyeless world (Andy calls it “Gaza”), various men were putting each other through panting, frenetic paces on which I couldn’t concentrate; no, I couldn’t concentrate on “the bunkhouse” by which one caller was obsessed, or the massage scenario another seemed intent on reenacting. Finally, feeling heartbroken and a little peevish, I hung up on Jim from Silverlake in the middle of his orgasm, after which I lay in bed with the lights on, staring at the vase from which the society garlic had been emptied; the phone, smug on its perch, coy as a cat, not ringing; of course it wasn’t ringing. For Eric had his paper, and so there was no reason he would call me tonight or tomorrow night or ever. Nor would I chase him down. Like Mary Haines in
The Women,
I had my pride. He’d get his A. And probably it was better that way, since after all, the terms of the arrangement were that he would let me suck him off once, and if I sucked him off once, I’d probably want to suck him off twice; and then I’d want him to do it to me, which he wouldn’t. Falling in love with straight boys—it’s the tiredest of homosexual clichés; in addition to which Los Angeles circa 1994 was a far cry from Florence circa 1894, from that quaint Italian world to which Lord Henry Somerset had decamped after his divorce,