Exiles in America(12)

adored silent movies.

Actually, silent film was Daniel’s bug; Zack caught it like the flu. Despite

what many people think, silent movies aren’t failed talking pictures but a

whole different art form. They need music to work, and Zack already loved

music. Daniel took him into a new world of old images and live music. New

York in the 1980s was filled with it: Lee Erwin played a mammoth church

organ for summer screenings at St. John the Divine; various piano players per-

formed at the Thalia; entire symphony orchestras accompanied rediscovered

epics at Radio City Music Hall.

They adored the comedies, of course: Chaplin and Keaton. Zack preferred

Chaplin and Daniel preferred Keaton, but they admired both—only dilet-

tantes claim Keaton is greater—and in later years they would switch favorites.

But they also loved the melodramas, which are like pantomime operas full of

high, absurd emotion. It’s the convention of talk that makes such excess feel

ludicrous. They would sit side by side, staring ahead, transfixed by the sor-

rows of a disfigured clown in The Man Who Laughs or the pathos of a beaten

child in Broken Blossoms or the reconciliation of an unhappy husband and

wife in Sunrise. Without the distraction of words, such stories can pierce the

heart like a knife. When the lights came up, Zack and Daniel would slowly

rise to their feet, shake themselves out of their different dreams, and turn to

each other, grinning.

7

Something terrible is going to happen. That’s what I feel during

these attacks. I feel it first in my tummy, then it rushes up to my head and

out to my hands. A cold, icy panic.”

“Something terrible will happen to you?”

“Or to my family. Or a neighbor. Or maybe just in the world. I don’t know.

Which makes the fear even worse. It’d be easier to handle if I thought it was

going to happen to me.”

The office was dark, the curtains drawn, the air conditioner running. Sep-

tember remained warm and humid. Two bookcases flanked the curtained

window, one full of psychiatric texts, the other full of Victorian novels, biog-

raphies, and history. A soft, black leather chair squatted against the opposite

wall. Fay Dawson sat very ladylike in the chair, staring down at the hands she

kept neatly tucked in the folds of skirt between her knees.

“Prefers worrying about others to worrying about self,” Zack scratched in

pencil in his spiral notebook.

His work was about stories. Everyone had stories. Many stories. And Zack

knew how to listen. In recent years he sometimes feared that he’d forgotten

how to speak, but he did know how to listen.

E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a

2 9

“I imagine these episodes are not only frightening for you but disruptive?”

he offered. “Sometimes inconvenient?”

“You better believe it,” said Fay. “Twice I had attacks while I was driving.

I had to pull over and call home. Which is why I don’t drive anymore. I have

to get my son or husband to take me places.”

“That must be limiting.”

“Yes.” She lowered her eyes. “Embarrassing, too.”

Fay was a petite, pretty woman a few years younger than Zack, an ageless

Southern good girl with short hair and no makeup; her smart clothes gave her

a feminine tomboy look, like a motel manager or real estate agent. She’d been

referred to Zack by her family doctor, Jack Sturgeon, for panic attacks. She

wanted something for her nerves, that’s all. Zack said he’d be happy to write

her a prescription, but he wanted to talk with her first, then meet with her

while she was on the medication to monitor its effect. Since they’d be meeting

anyway, they might as well explore possible causes for her anxiety.

“Have you discussed these attacks with anyone?”

“I tried talking with Donald Kane, our minister. We belong to the Rock

Church, you know. Pentecostal. But all Donald can say is that I must trust in Je-

sus. And he quotes scripture at me. And scripture is not what I need right now.”

“No. Sometimes we just need someone to listen,” said Zack. “And your

husband? Can you talk about it with him?”

“Oh, Yancy means well, but you know how men are. Well, maybe you

don’t.” She caught herself; her cheeks and neck turned bright red. “Sorry. I

didn’t mean you’re not. A man, I mean.”

“No offense taken.” Zack smiled. “And gay men can be just as oblivious as

straight men.”

“They can? Truly? I didn’t know.” She tried looking him in the eye but

couldn’t.

Despite what he’d been taught, Zack had learned to establish as soon as

possible that he was a gay man with a boyfriend. This was a small town,