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Loving Nobody by Chay Lemoine © Chay Lemoine
I’ve been feeling very lonely the past few days, especially around 5:45PM, as this would be the time when “the angel” would come home from work. John was “the angel”. He was a rather ugly young man, about 60 lbs overweight when I met him. Early in the relationship he shaved his head and it was unusually round like a bowling ball. He also had bright red pimples on his back. One night he had taken off his shirt for bed and as he turned his back I thought ‘how disgusting’. There was one giant pimple in the middle. It was horrible. I had to find a way to overlook it so I started calling him THE angel. All during the relationship I overlooked things so I could continue to love him. My gay friends were against the relationship. They told me he was too young, as if I were somehow blind to that fact. What was I suppose do with their observations that a 21 year old man was too young for a 47 year old man? As if their lives were an example. There was the lesbian couple who hadn’t had sex in five years. They were against it. My gay friend who married a woman because he wanted to have children was against it. My gay friend who gives blow jobs on the beach in California was definitely against it. My Catholic friend, who donates money to the church so they can spend it on anti-gay propaganda, didn’t like it either. The universal complaint was that it wasn’t going to last. It’s odd that homosexuals would be so concerned with permanence. I merely agreed with them and continued to live with a much younger man who had few redeeming qualities. My straight friends were supportive. They thought of us as a novelty act. But to straight people all gays are novelty acts. They would invite us to dinners and we even double dated. It was touching to see John have a good time with the straight guys. If he was just a bit more attractive he would have started a fire in their straight libidos. But he didn’t. Toward the end of the relationship John became cruel and cocky. He would make “old” jokes that were so poorly constructed it was obvious he made them to hurt me. He wouldn’t come home some nights and would avoid me for days. He sometimes refused to go to a gay bar with me so as not to tarnish his image. We did go out a couple of times and I could see the look of surprise on the faces of the frat boys at this confident overweight man with rolled up shirt sleeves flirting and flashing seductive smiles. If they were drunk enough they were interested but I could see them change their minds when they went to the bar area to talk. Bar light was not John’s best light. I tried not to play the role of sugar daddy, but I did give him money at times. Perhaps it bought happiness for a while. We lived together for two years and when we parted there were no screaming, crying arguments. He simply announced one warm summer evening that he was moving out. He seemed surprised that I didn’t beg him to stay. “Don’t you care? Don’t you want me to stay? Aren’t you afraid of growing old alone?” I was more afraid of growing old with John. After he left he called a few times and asked if we could be friends. I didn’t follow up on it. He was good enough to share my bed but I was more discriminating when it came to choosing friends. *** My gay friends were right, it hadn’t lasted. And tonight, as I sit drinking another glass of good red wine, I’m feeling the pain of that failed relationship. Perhaps this empty feeling is what they wanted me to avoid. Was it John I was in love with or had I simply captured the emotion and planted it in a most unpleasant location? A few months ago I received a call from one of John’s roommate/lovers, I never knew exactly which, asking if I had heard from him. A day or two later his mother called to say that John was “missing”. She was in tears. I told her to “pay his bills and he would come home”. He knew I was contacted and when he did return home he called to explain he had skipped town because he was passing bad checks and was behind on credit payments. I told him I was glad he was OK. He cried. “I’m nobody at all,” he said. “Don’t you understand that, I’m nobody!” I said nothing, but I was nodding my head. I realized he was nobody at all, but for a while that had never mattered. *** It’s just starting to get dark outside. I stand quickly and grab on to the chair to steady myself. Whenever I feel like I want to call “the angel” and ask if he’s doing anything for dinner next week I am able to avoid it by having a glass of red wine. Tonight I’ve had four, and the phone is still in my hand.
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