Exiles in America(2)

Full-time. I don’t miss all that my-paintbrush-is-bigger-than-your-paintbrush

macho bullshit.”

There was a tread of shoes coming toward the kitchen, and a clack of toe-

nails against the hardwood floor. A large black poodle with a pink tongue

trotted into the room, Jocko, followed by Zack, a solemn man with a pale

beard and a starched blue shirt.

“Hey there, Jock,” Ross sang out, crouching down to scratch the happy

dog behind its ears. The poodle wasn’t trimmed like topiary but left woolly all

over. “Hey there, Zack. How you doing?”

Zack only nodded, looking preoccupied, distant, sad.

“Bad session?” said Ross.

“Who-what?” Zack snapped his eyes open and saw Ross. “Oh, Ross.

Sorry. No. Good session. Actually. Very good. Hi.”

Zack was often like this after seeing a patient, spacey and distracted, still

listening to the conversation in his head.

He went over to Daniel and kissed him on the temple. “That’s right. We

got company. Need any help?”

“No, dollface. We’re fine,” said Daniel. “Why don’t you pour yourself

some wine?”

4

C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m

Gay male couples are said to grow more alike over the years, like people

and their dogs, but it isn’t true. More often, each man looks more different

over time, half-consciously marking out a territory of his own. Zack and

Daniel were roughly the same medium height, but Daniel was trimmer, clean-

shaven, and bald—not entirely bald but with two cropped wings of short

brown hair left over his ears. He joked that without the hair he’d look like

Henry in the old comic strip. Yet his profile was strong, and he had the hand-

some, masculine baldness of a Roman statue, not a debauched emperor but a

young senator or maybe a general. He looked butch enough that he wasn’t

afraid of acting nelly now and then.

Zack was stocky and bearded with a full head of hair—hair and beard

were the color of flat ginger ale. If Daniel didn’t remind him to visit the bar-

ber, he began to look like an old hippie or Civil War reenactor. Zack dressed

much as he’d dressed for the past twenty years, in oxford cloth and khaki,

while Daniel wore the clothes of his students: this year it was baggy jeans or

cargo pants and long-sleeve T-shirts. Daniel visited the college gym regularly

and swam laps in the pool there. The only exercise Zack ever got was on the

days he bicycled out to Eastern State Psychiatric Center, where he was a visit-

ing psychiatrist.

“What’s for dinner?” Zack asked.

“Grilled veggies and burgers. Muslims eat cow, don’t they?”

“Or they’d starve,” said Ross. “If they’re good Muslims, they might not

drink.”

“Not drink?” said Daniel. “An artist doesn’t drink? I can’t believe that.”

“If they’ve come to the land of the Great Satan,” said Ross, “and he paints

figures, they can’t be very good Muslims.”

“Is that true about artists and alcohol?” asked Zack. “They don’t all drink,

do they?” He was still locked in earnest therapist mode.

Jocko let out a soft woof, more like a burp than a bark, just before the

doorbell rang.

“Speak of the devil.” Daniel hurriedly wiped his hands on a dish towel.

“I’ll get it.” He readjusted his cargo pants over his ass and calmly walked out

to the hallway.

2

They stood side by side on the brick porch, lit from behind in the

dusty copper sunlight: a tall, elegant woman and an even taller, elegant

man. They both wore glasses; they both had dark hair. The woman’s skin was

paler than the man’s.

“I am Elena Rohani,” she declared in her lovely musical accent. “You must

be Daniel.” She laughed and shook his hand. Her fingers felt cool and deli-

cate.

“A pleasure to meet you,” said Daniel. “Good to see you again, Abbas.”

He shook his hand, too. The Iranian’s grip was firm.

Daniel had met him only briefly, introduced by Jane Morrison, the depart-

ment chair, when she gave the man a tour of the art building. Abbas looked

more distinct in daylight than he had indoors. He had an umber-olive com-

plexion, heavy eyebrows, and a very high forehead. He was younger than

Daniel—in his mid-thirties—yet apparently losing his hair as quickly as

Daniel had lost his.

“What a pretty house,” said Elena as they passed through the living room

full of comfortable old furniture, including pieces inherited from Daniel’s

mother. “Very homey, very open.”

Abbas said nothing but gazed intently at the drawings, watercolors, and