eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781481740883 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 05/13/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 222 |
| File size: | 456 KB |
Read an Excerpt
The One A Gay Fable
By Alex Alvarez
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2013 Alex AlvarezAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4817-4090-6
CHAPTER 1
Vincent
I
He had nearly convinced himself that this latest break up wouldn't hurt as much, not like Jeremy or Mike or his first love, Logan. With Orlando, he had time to prepare for the blow, a year at least to trace the sad eclipse of happy possibilities.
What Vincent hadn't expected was how quickly it was all settled once the decision had been made. Within a week, Orlando was gone, leaving Vincent a bit disoriented if not thoroughly in despair. There were mornings when he woke with the comforting sense of having his boyfriend next to him—but that Orlando could be a comfort at all after so many months of stiffness was a tribute to the overall loss. The evenings were by far the worst; he would fall into inexhaustible loneliness, reaching out to their four years of togetherness for some kind of purpose, some substantial ground that he could build some meaning on. In the end, the only thing concrete was the familiar humiliation of another failed relationship. This was his fifth and he was only twenty-seven years old—
And if this time Vincent could burrow deep with the pain, it was simply because the sting of rejection was so palpable. Not only had Orlando thoroughly given him up, he hadn't even bothered to show him what he had been given him up for. All Vincent had, with any certainty, was that his boyfriend had come back from a "time alone" vacation to Poland even more aloof. And when he wasn't, he was even more irritable. The months that followed consisted of bitter, erratic argument that left Vincent spiritually wasted ... until he was done—everything breached, exposed, and exhumed.
Now he was left to search out where he had failed, where Orlando had failed, where the world had failed. Round and round, the only end was that there were no answers, only that he hated Poland, would always hate Poland. But he couldn't so irrationally hate without often smiling afterwards at the insanity of simply being human.
Orlando moved out in November and then moved away in January. That, at least, was a blessing. If his ex had stayed in New York City, Vincent was sure he would have run into him by chance, or worse, by convenience. That it all shifted during the holidays was another blessing; the holidays Demanded attention and therefore could prove a much needed distraction from the dangers of his renewed state of aloneness. This is not to say that Vincent was by any means in the Christmas spirit. He was an actor by profession and passion and could thus just play the spirited Christmas.
The worst of the three holidays, New Year's Eve, might've posed a challenge, but that too he performed expertly: he went out with uncoupled friends and then went home with the first man who made a convincing move. He woke up the next day with an exhausted relief that the holidays were over. It certainly gave him courage to face the new year ... until he couldn't find his underwear—or a yellow cab out of the Bronx.
When winter established itself, he could truly find no desire in his life, only the routine of singleness to fiddle with and adjust to—again. January and February were cold, harsh, servile months of self-reprisals and subtle despondency. That it only showed outwardly in the slack of his often generous smile, the thoughtlessness in his words, and the unkempt length of his dark hair, was proof that Vincent wasn't the type to hold up his feelings for the world to see. He showed enough, but that quality was now measured by the collapse of repetition and a suppression of feeling, patterns of behavior that nevertheless promised nothing overwrought or hysterical, which then added, for the intimate observer, poignancy to his overall spiritual derailment.
Fortunately there were several unexpectedly warm days in March and you could say that kept him superficially steady until the early spring pulled him out from the frozen finality and placed him firmly on new ground: new hope and better days. And yes, Vincent came into happiness again. Well, not so much happiness as a lessening of unhappiness—but that was a start. Here, he had been before and from here he knew the way. He knew too that he wasn't alone on this road, the result of which was to find himself on a brilliantly warm afternoon in Central Park, along with hundreds of other New Yorkers who were bidding farewell to the exhausted winter. And it was under this sun, on a soft grassy incline of his young life, that Vincent took up again an appreciation of all that could be right and good around him.
It was here too that Vincent, with no need to struggle with questions of expense or prudence, decided to take a two-week vacation, in the late summer, to somewhere in Europe, specifically somewhere he had never seen before. Why not? He had the means, the accumulated time, and the personal freedom. And if it seemed as if he was taking a characteristic cue from Orlando, then he had recovered enough to cite him as inspiration. Vincent had never been on a trip alone, not even cross-state. There was now a curiosity in the thing that his ex had seemed to flourish in. Perhaps he had been missing something; perhaps it lay mostly in introspection than the generic sense of change; perhaps the thing he was missing-out on was the thing that ultimately broke them up—
Looking into the fractured light of the sun from behind his dark sunglasses, Vincent could now see how Orlando had perched himself high above everything. Even him. And now he wanted to be perched, to see what all the fuss was about—to know what he had been given up for. Surely it was better than the nothing Orlando had left him, nothing in the form of an almost offensive platitude: "I don't think we were meant to be."
II
"Scusi, is this where you get the ferry to Dubrovnik?"
Vincent certainly could've pieced together the question in Italian, but he was tired and just didn't have the patience for translation. The fleshy middle-aged native hardly moved from his low canvass chair; he might've even resented having to turn away from the shifting afternoon on the Adriatic: "Yes, that come from Dubrovnik," he lazily pointed to nothing particular, "another to Dubrovnik in eight tonight, eight tomorrow, no problem."
Vincent turned to the harbor, to the direction the weary Italian had returned to. "Grazie," he brushed him off with ease, "just wanted to be sure." He then walked to the edge of the harbor for a moment's absorption. It was still insistently humid but the clear green-hued water refreshed his consciousness so that you could say there was a hint of satisfaction in his expression—
Indeed everything was going well. He had flown into Rome and stayed a night, just enough time to retrieve a past connection: a birthday surprise, his two best friends, Dave Matthews Band at the then newly erected Gran Teatro Roma. That had been a good trip, but he couldn't count on nostalgia to keep him in Rome for more than a day. Vincent wanted novelty; he wanted an experience all his own. The old port city of Bari was all his.
And he had had a good day in Bari, a day encased in summer and shade, not dust and ruins. So to linger at the harbor, in the dwindling afternoon, showed that Vincent was going to do as he pleased and what pleased him was to absorb what was in front of him—
But he couldn't take it all in without an irritating sense of Orlando establishing a fine mise en scène for him. In fact, his ex-boyfriend had forced his way in, here and there: in the taxi on his way to the airport, a little in Rome, more during the five-hour train ride across Italy, and now in Bari. It was always, at those moments, as if he were seeing through his eyes—establishing his impression in a voice that deepened and expanded simultaneously.
Then again, Vincent had only himself to blame if his ex-boyfriend established connections. Hadn't he given him the destination, the initiative retrieved from an account Orlando had given him, very early in their relationship, of a trip to Yugoslavia, to Dubrovnik and Belgrade and the Vojvodina province of Serbia?
At the time Vincent was left with a great deal of impressions, impressions that transmuted and dispersed with time, but the thing that lingered was the sound of Orlando's voice when he pronounced Vojvodina. He had asked him to spell the exotic sound that night, and it then gave him a feeling of exclusivity to know that the j was pronounced like a y—the exclusivity all between them, which was the thing that characterized their relationship the most.
Vincent turned away from the harbor and slowly walked back to the hotel. There was no time for a nap; he needed a two-hour window for that. Instead, he sat in the hotel bar, alternating his seemingly passive glance from the wonderful sunset to the wonderfully beautiful Italian waiters—and the admiration was returned.
Our hero could be sorted as the ambiguously white (and please excuse my racial generality) American. The soft angularity of face and dark features were appreciated as handsome. But Vincent wasn't just a pretty face. There was an edgy masculinity in his face that reinforced some kind of conscious work. Then again, the skilled actor could always produce an impression. It was certainly helped by a literal "mark," a seasoned scar taking up a good part of his chin, creating a visual reference point in which all else had to contend with. So that on closer inspection there was no mistaking the intent in his black brown eyes; the intent all in what he saw at a deeper vantage point—
It was in this posture that he lingered before his next jump. But it would be dark and cool and he would have a sweet alcohol buzz by the time he boarded the ferry. The crossing to Dubrovnik would take eight hours. He had splurged on a private cabin and there could be no sweeter anticipation than to be cradled by the Adriatic and then to be awakened to a splendid new world.
III
The sun was without confines, extending beyond the horizon with an oppressiveness that was surely aggravated by the crowd that ringed the galleries in anticipation of the arrival. This wasn't exactly how Vincent had envisioned his arrival. Nevertheless, at the first faint sight of the fortress city, he felt a pull, a tug toward possibilities ... the sharp contrasting colors of the water and sky, the red clay roofs and glaring white stone, all might've produced an aesthetic rapture if not for the four giddy Japanese girls crushing beside him to photograph and record the landing.
To his surprise, the ferry docked at the harbor some distance from the high bleached walls. Vincent then had to move among the other tourists in tight procession toward the old city, pushed and paused by some unseen guide. He expected to escape the throng once through the main gate but even here there was a crowd, and once inside there was little to detach him from the clashing variation of voices that dimmed and doused the restored city with an artificiality of a stage show still in rehearsals. But Vincent moved on, seemingly thrust without direction, through tight alleys, high arches, no pausing to soak in the history or the architecture because there was simply no inviting space—
"This sucks," he thought aloud.
It took a great deal of direction (he was too indignant to purchase a map) to find his way back to the main gate. He wasn't sure of his next move but he wanted to be close to an exit—
Frustrated and overheated, he paused in the slim shade produced by a domed fountain that gave him the impression of a bombastic mausoleum.
He finished the bottled water he had reluctantly paid seven euros for and retrieved his Let's Go Balkans from his backpack. Even in the cooling shade of the sprouting water behind him, he couldn't shake the burden of disappointment.
"Don't you wish you could jump in?"
Vincent turned to the voice that struck him with a familiarity that was impossible not to welcome even in its suddenness—
"Well, like everything else," he said without hesitation, "there's not much room for even that. "I'd prefer the middle of the Adriatic right about now."
"Yeah, it's really crowded," his compatriot said not very convincingly. "Where you from?"
"Originally from Tucson, but I live in New York City now."
The young man, unquestionably college age, smiled but then he had beensmilingallalong—allteeth,straightandwhiteandbright,theiconic American smile that Vincent made a quick connection to Jay Gatsby—or was it Robert Redford?
"I've never been to New York," the young man said with enthusiasm that Vincent thought out of context. "But I'm definitely going there someday. Just waiting for the moment to come."
Vincent took his own moment to take in his companion's fairness, his confidence, the muscular calves that only genetics could produce. His frame was also wide but not necessarily attributed to the gym. He wore a dark blue t-shirt with IOWA in rust yellow. This detail instigated Vincent's next question: "And where are you from?"
The young man slapped the letters on his chest. "Iowa—the beautiful land!"
Vincent laughed but it wasn't disrespectful. "Can't say I've ever been to Iowa."
"Yeah, not many people can say that. I'm sure people think it's all farmland, which most of it is, but Iowa City is a university town. I've lived there all my life, went to the University of Iowa. I just graduated. This trip is a present to me."
"That's awesome, congrats."
His new friend looked up seemingly for some direction and then came back to him: "Thanks. It's my first trip out of the country by myself. My parents weren't happy about it for about five minutes, but they support things that they see as enriching. They're both teachers so you know how that goes."
Vincent didn't. "That's great."
"I've already hit twenty-three of the fifty States. Now I'm making my way through Europe. I definitely wanna hit as many countries as I can in thirty days. I know it sounds cliché but I don't care. I'm having a great time."
Vincent couldn't help being carried away by the young man's candidness—and so much of it. It reminded him of home; it made him take a step closer: "I remember the first time I came to Europe I just wanted to see everything fast. I was with my boyfriend at the time and he kept me from jumping ship whenever I got an itch."
The young man slackened his smile. "So are you traveling by yourself too?"
"I sure am."
"Cool—how long you in Dubrovnik?"
Vincent sighed. "Not for long I hope. I'm sorry—yes, this city is amazing but it's just too freakin' touristy. I think I've seen enough."
The young graduate rose to make a point: "Yeah, it's a tourist trap. It doesn't bother me though, I'm a tourist too!"
"You sure are," Vincent came in with his own candidness.
His companion didn't take offense, instead, regenerated his smile. "So where you heading to?"
"Belgrade."
"I just got back from Beograd. It's pretty intense, very foreign. It's definitely one of those places where you need to know someone or even someone to go with. Supposedly the best night life in Europe, but there was no one to show me the way. I did meet these guys from Ireland on my last night so that was fun."
"Cool."
"No regrets though," he seemed to want to end on a light note, "I just got back from Herceg Novi in Montenegro. Now, that was awesome. You should go there if you want something that is totally not touristy."
For a moment Vincent let the young graduate hang a bit and he responded by looking past him in a moment of reflection: "I think it's my favorite place in the world so far."
"Really? In the world? Then maybe I should make a pit stop. I have time."
"You should. I'm going to Slovenia from here. The legal age of consent is seventeen."
Vincent laughed. "Oh, okay—so you like them young."
At this point he should've gone further and asked if he liked girls or boys, his gaydar clearly left back in New York. Instead Vincent smiled with a tinge of suggestion.
"No, no—it's just a bit of trivia. I'm Ethan, by the way." He extended his hand with the first sign of timidity.
"Vincent."
"I have a cousin named Vincent. My uncle is obsessed with Vincent van Gogh."
"I was named after my grandfather—the Italian side."
"What's the other?"
"Scottish, English."
"You look more Italian."
"Yeah, I look like my mother—so what did you get your degree in?"
Ethan leaned against the fountain. "Accounting. Numbers are my soul." And he placed his hand on his chest and tilted his face up to the sky.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The One A Gay Fable by Alex Alvarez. Copyright © 2013 Alex Alvarez. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.