Tenting Tonight, chapter 13
There was very little we could do until Bobby regained consciousness. The hospital didn’t see that Paul and I had any status with regard to him. They were trying to contact Bobby and Liam’s parents. When Liam heard that, he said one word: “Typical.” The hospital would not talk to Liam, but then we had an idea: we called Paul back at Lindoro’s and asked him to notify the hospital that the burly nurse assigned to our Liam was also now going to care for Bobby. Once the paperwork was done, we had an open avenue to get information about Bobby, at the very least, thanks to Albert.
Albert continued to come through for us in one other way: Frank, our driver, and his alternates continued to ferry us back and forth to our dorm. We were a bit embarrassed, but Paul told us Albert insisted, for safety’s sake. Although we still hadn’t been able to meet him in person to thank him, we sent him messages of gratitude with Paul, who was our way of communicating with Albert.
We were more than a little concerned at how long Bobby had been unconscious. We didn’t know him, of course, but Liam’s concern was our concern. The nurse, Ze’ev, turned out to be quite a hot Israeli who had been a medic in the Six Day War in 1967, who had gotten training as a nurse in the army, and who hoped to attend medical school in the US. He had been in a forward combat unit on the Syrian-Israeli border, and we had no doubt that he had plenty of security skills. We didn’t assume anything about his sexual orientation, but Paul the waiter told us that Ze’ev had a relationship with an American Jewish volunteer who had returned to the US six months after the Six Day War, and Ze’ev had come looking for him after completing his training as a nurse. In addition, he told us that Ze’ev had a sister who was also a nurse aspiring to study medicine in Boston, and that the two of them shared an apartment in Back Bay in a building owned by... Albert!
Ze’ev told us that Bobby was being kept in a medically induced coma to keep his brain from swelling. Liam held my had tightly while Ze’ev catalogued Bobby’s injuries for us. He had a broken cheekbone, broken ribs, bruised and dislocated knee, and he had come in with a collapsed lung. They had dealt first with the lung and the broken cheek, and they had cleaned him up and were monitoring him against infection. His vital signs were stable. They said that they had not yet been able to determine how long he had lain under the Charlesgate entry lanes to Storrow drive, but it was more than 24 hours, most likely. Ze’ev promised to come and get Liam the instant there was any change. Liam told us after Ze’ev left that they had been chatting, and in his usual, catty way (which told us our Lingam was feeling better), Liam told us what it was like when Ze’ev gave him a sponge bath and spent particular time on his foreskin.
“Poor lamb, he hasn’t spent a lot of time around foreskins, but I hope to remedy that once I’m better.” We grinned, and Paul stuck his hand into Liam’s hospital gown to check vital signs like firmness and angle of erection. I rolled my eyes and told them I would wait until the movie came out.
Ze’ev came back with a very strange look on his face, and Liam picked up on it immediately. “Liam, do you have another brother?”
“No, why?”
“A cousin? A guy with red hair, about your height?”
“No, why?”
“While I was down here with you, one of the nurses stopped a red-haired guy who was trying to get into Bobby’s room, and who said that he was a family member.”
“Better call security.”
Ze’ev picked up a hospital phone and spoke with someone in hospital security. He told us that he had already checked in with them. He told them that he was on duty for both Liam and Bobby, who were brothers, and that they had no other brother or cousin who fit the description given. We heard him tell them also that neither brother could tell them the whereabouts of the parents, Bobby because he was still unconscious, and Liam because he simply didn’t know where his parents were. They asked if they could interview Liam, and Liam nodded yes.
When Ze’ev hung up, he said to Liam, “I want to be there with you. They know me only as a nurse, and that’s the way we want to keep it, but I’m also on Albert’s private security staff. He’s pretty careful.”
With Liam stronger each day, we wondered how long it would be before his eye was officially out of danger. An eye specialist was still monitoring his condition, and on the fifth day after he regained consciousness, they did a battery of eye tests and told him his eye would be fine. As soon as the specialist left, Paul and I started dancing around the room, clapping our hands, and singing “Eye, eye, eye, eye,” to the tune of “Cielito lindo,” while Liam laughed uproariously and asked us to call Ze’ev to help him use the urinal at his bedside.
Paul got serious and asked Liam whether he still felt uncomfortable standing or walking. Liam, equally serious, said no, he was feeling better. “Just don’t tell Ze’ev, because I’m beginning to enjoy his getting me ready for the urinal and cleaning me up afterward.”
Leave it to our Lingam to find something sexy in a hospital and a nurse who was cleaning him up.
We gathered that between Frank and Ze’ev, Albert had spread out quite a security net around us, and we were grateful, but we wondered whether they had found anything. Ze’ev confirmed to us that he and Frank were in touch all the time, and that Albert had given instructions for round the clock care and security until the whole episode was clear and we were completely safe. We knew that our waiter Paul was pulling the strings, and we were grateful. How we managed to get to a few classes during this time is beyond me. We got to a bare minimum, that’s for sure. We had not seen Liam10 during all this time, but Paul told us he was OK and was also being monitored, quietly, for security. We gathered from Paul at Lindoro’s that the security in this case was to make sure also that there was no further attempt to harm himself, but Paul said that the two of them were together every night, and that Liam10 and he were beginning to be involved. We hoped it would continue.
Two days later, with Liam ready to be discharged, we wondered how things stood with Bobby. Liam had to ride a wheelchair down to the front door of the hospital to be discharged officially; he could not simply walk to his brother’s room. So with some grumbling, we went through this charade, with Ze’ev shepherding us along, and with Frank coming in to pick up Liam’s bag of clothing and put it in the car.
Down we went, accompanying Liam, and then around to another door, back inside, and down the corridors to Bobby’s room. Ze’ev had left another security guard there, temporarily, while he took care of Liam’s discharge (when he heard that, our Lingam went into an hour-long routine about Ze’ev begin his “discharge master,” and about how Ze’ev had not only put him together with his urinal; he had also cleaned up his discharge. Gross, I know, but Liam was joking and himself, and we couldn’t complain.
As we approached Bobby’s room, there was a sitting area just outside a glass security partition. There, reading a magazine, was a red-haired young man who fit Liam’s general description. He looked up, saw us, and put the magazine down. We were on opposite sides of the glass, and when he realized we couldn’t get to him for a minute or two, he calmly walked away and disappeared down a corridor. There was something disconcerting about this. Why was a guy who looked like Liam and who claimed to be a family member hanging around Bobby’s room? Who was he? Ze’ev took off to find him, but he had gotten away. Ze’ev alerted Paul at Lindoro’s, who told him that another four staff would be assigned to the hospital, for security. Paul asked to speak with us before he spoke to Liam. Frank handed us the car phone.
“Guys, how are you?” Paul began. My Paul, politely but urgently said, “Paul, what’s the situation? We need to know what’s going on.”
“Agreed,” Paul from Lindoro’s said. “We’re trying to get to the bottom of this. Until we know who attacked Liam, he needs security. To be safe, and better safe than sorry, so do you two, or at least monitoring. There has to be a reason this red-haired fellow is there. It’s not by chance, you can be sure. But we need to know who’s behind this, and what it all means.”
“OK,” we told Paul. “But what about Liam?”
“Frank is going to bring him here to stay, and we have plenty of room for you as well. Liam10 can’t wait to see you all. Please tell Liam that he doesn’t need to worry about his classes. He’s passed everything this semester, and he’s excused this semester’s exams, all of them. When Bobby comes to, the same will apply to him. And to you two.”
We were stunned. Albert must really be powerful to get us special dispensation from exams!
I had to say something to Paul the waiter. “What if we finally meet Albert and he doesn’t like us?” Liam and my Paul started laughing out loud over this question.
But Paul, at Lindoro’s, simply told me, “Albert will like you because I have told him that I like you. And that I am growing to love you.”
“Liam,” I said in a stage whisper to Liam the Red. “Albert says to be a good boy and not to fuck Ze’ev yet.”
To our astonishment, Liam started to blush violent shades of red, pink, and purple. “Liam?” my Paul said. “Lingam, you didn’t...?”
“All I did was uncover myself so Ze’ev could put me in the urinal. Well, not bodily. Not all of me, I mean. Just my cock. But once he saw this lovely (Liam pointed to his crotch) he couldn’t resist me. And I couldn’t help myself.”
A familiar voice spoke into the Lindoro’s phone: “Liam of Swan Lake, you old bugger, it seems as if you have helped yourself, and knowing you, you’re probably angling for another serving.”
“Liam of the Ten Inches!” my boys and I yelled.
Our Liam interrupted: “I lied. He’s really Liam of the Four Inches,” but now Paul at Lindoro’s interrupted: “Too late! I have already examined the patient personally.”
Frank deposited us on the sidewalk outside Lindoro’s and watched us walk in. We made our way to the private elevator at the back and rode up. The two Liams fell into each other’s arms, hugging. We each kissed Paul, and then we sat down to eat something. Liam10 kept a hand or an arm on our Liam at all times, as if wanting to assure himself that Liam the Red was really there and really OK. We watched them, and Paul the waiter (who had outgrown that designation in our esteem, to say the least) told us that he was enjoying caring for Liam10. We pursued this with him.
“Are you enjoying caring for someone or caring for Liam10 in particular?”
“It’s hard for me to say. When I’m with him, it’s as if his innocence and even some naïveté overwhelm me. He makes me feel as if I have lived 10 lifetimes before meeting him. You know my past, you know that I am more than an employee to Albert. When we met, so short a time ago, I found the two of you sweet and endearing. When I got to know you, I found you attractive as personalities, and as lovers. I admire your loyalty to each other, though I must warn you that people in love, especially men in love with each other, are tested constantly, continually. You have been together for so short a time... and I have been with so many men... but then you introduced me to Liam of the Ten Inches, and it was as if the sun came up and I had been in the dark so long that I didn’t recognize the sun for a while.
“When I thought we might lose him, I felt as though I had been kicked in the gut. You look at me and you see a man older than yourselves, and it might seem ridiculous that I should feel something so strong for a boy of Liam’s age. I don’t know what to say. I only know that I haven’t felt this hopeful about life since Albert and I first met.
“I kind of wonder whether Liam is for me what I was for Albert... and maybe I still am for Albert. I asked him that, and he told me that each individual is unique in the whole world, and that he did not see me as the reincarnation of someone he had lost, or of his own lost youth; he saw me as Paul, just Paul whom he loves. He asked me what I felt for Liam, and I had to say that I was falling in love with him.
“Albert laughed a wise, wintry laugh. I always call it that when he gets philosophical. He said, ‘falling, Paolo?’ He often calls me ‘Paolo,’ the name under which I first met him, the name with which I was baptized.
‘Falling? It seems to me that you have fallen, head over heels, and I am happy for you. I am beginning to fade from the world and from your life. I want to see you in love again before I go.’”
“Paul,” I asked, “is Albert ill? Is that why we haven’t met him in person?”
“Is Albert dying?” my Paul asked.
“We are all dying,” Paul the waiter said. “All. Some sooner, some later, but all.”
“We want to thank Albert in person,” I told Paul, and my Paul said, “In person.”
Paul the waiter began to shake, his body rocking back and forth. We were stunned, and we tried to hold him. The sudden silence caught the attention of the two Liams, and Liam10 came over immediately and held his Paul, yes, he had become his, to him. Paul wept in huge, unfathomable sobs. I have never seen so great a sadness emanate from anyone. He wept as if mourning for an entire world.
“Liam,” we said quietly to Liam10, when after half an hour, Paul’s sobs diminished, and he fell asleep, his head cradled in Liam’s arms, “should you tell Albert?”
“Shhhhh...” Liam10 said softly, as he stroked his Paul’s hair. He looked at us, one after another, straight in the eye, and said again, “Shhhhh...”
And when Paul was fast asleep, his head cradled on Liam’s lap, his breathing deep and regular, his face a picture of tranquility, Liam10 motioned to us to follow him. “Stay with Paul for a moment,” he said to Liam the Red, who took Liam10’s place, holding Paul. Liam10 led us to a door through which we had seen Paul the waiter enter a number of times, in fact, now that we thought of it, every time we were at Lindoro’s.
We went up a flight of stairs to a large room on the floor above where we had been. The room was lit dimly by a few low lights. A mantelpiece of white marble framed a large fireplace, in which a few embers still burned. A bed, covered in layers of comforters, faced the fireplace. A bottle of wine, half-empty, sat in a bucket of ice. Two glasses, one with a sip of wine left in it, stood on a small table alongside the bed.
“Sit down,” Liam10 said to us, and we did, looking at how he seemed at home in this room. “Please don’t rush to judgment. Paul was terrified to tell you, but he wants to, desperately.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked Liam10.
Liam moved over to the mantelpiece and flicked a hidden switch. A tiny beam of light fell from the ceiling onto a small photograph in a silver frame. A bud vase with a single rose blossom stood near the photo.
We stood up and moved closer. The photo was of a frail, elderly man, perhaps in his 80s or 90s, beaming at a younger man, whose arm encircled the older man’s thigh. The younger man was looking into the older man’s eyes with an expression of love. You couldn’t look at this photo and not see love.
The younger man was Paul the waiter.
“Who is the older man? Albert?”
Liam10 pointed to a small, exquisite, Chinese vase, depicting an older dragon, wounded, with a younger dragon emerging from the frame of the older. “Albert,” he said.
“What do you mean?” my Paul asked.
Liam10 said, softly, “He was afraid to tell you. He was afraid that you would think him strange, or weird.”
“Liam,” I said, putting my hands on either side of Liam10’s face, “please explain.”
“Albert died almost 10 years ago. He left everything, his entire fortune, to Paul. But Paul didn’t feel worthy. He didn’t think he had earned the respect of Albert’s staff. So he began to tell people that Albert was becoming are recluse, and within months, Albert was refusing to leave his apartment up here, and he would only communicate through Paul.
“Albert was respected and loved by his employees; Albert was an educated, cultured man. Paul was the son of generations of fishermen, and his education was the street. Paul told me that you already knew that when he first came to Boston, he peddled his ass, and that he met Albert in some way connected to his... work.
“Paul worships Albert, even now, with Albert long gone. He comes up here and asks Albert what to do. Albert is a kind of god to Paul. He doesn’t seem to grasp that Albert had faith in Paul’s judgment, and that he, Paul, has really been the one making decisions, the one to open Lindoro’s and to follow Albert’s dreams, based on conversations they had.”
“So it’s been Paul sending staff to us, Paul helping us all along?”
“Paul. He loves you.”
“Liam, he loves you. I mean, he’s in love with you,” I said, quietly.
“I know,” Liam said, “and I am falling in love with him. A few days ago, I nearly killed myself. Then, when Liam and his brother were attacked, I began to see my problems in perspective. I was desperate to be of help, and I told Paul what I was feeling, and how much I needed his arms around me. He brought me up here, and we made love for the first time, and the next morning, he explained to me what this room was for him, Albert’s room, the place where he comes to speak with his dead love.
“I told Paul that I understood, and that what he was doing to keep Albert alive was beautiful, but that someday he had to come to terms with Albert’s death.
“Paul looked dazed, and then he started to tell me that Albert wanted the two of us to be lovers. I stopped him and asked him to banish Albert from the room for a moment,and to tell me what he, Paul, thought and felt.
“Paul began to weep exactly as he wept tonight. When he calmed down, we talked for hours. We talked about my suicide attempt, and my fears, and his. We talked about how people who fall in love may fall out of love.
“Paul told me that he had decided to tell you two and Liam, and then to make this room our bedroom. In these past days, sometimes I feel when Paul makes love to me that he is showing Albert that he has learned to love again. But then, the other night, after he brought me to the edge for hours and then nudged me off, so that I had the most amazing orgasm I’ve ever felt, and kind of orgasm of the soul, as I lay there, with Albert’s head on my chest...”
“Albert’s head?” the two of us asked Liam10 in unison.
“Did I say ‘Albert’s?’ I meant ‘Paul’s.’
“Are you sure?” I asked Liam10, and he said, ‘No.”
“No?” my Paul asked.
”Sort of yes and no,” Liam said. “I was going to say that when Paul’s head was against my chest, I began to visualize Albert smiling at us, and I looked at Paul, and he had the most angelic smile on his face.”
"But Liam," I said, "you told us that you MET Albert. You told us... you gave us details... we believed you..."
"I had to say something, and I couldn't tell you the truth until Paul was ready. I'm sorry that I lied to you, but I knew that Paul was going to tell you the truth soon, and everything would come right. And many people, I'm discovering, thought that they had met Albert, because Paul made him so important and so vital and so generous a member of the community. But the truth that none of them could ever really have met Albert by then, unless they met him years ago, because Albert was dead and buried. I still have a feeling that Paul hasn't told me a few things, some details. I wonder Frank or some other driver didn't appear to be Albert, at a distance, or Albert, asleep. Paul will tell me when he's ready."
My Paul gave me a look that said, “We have to talk about this,” and I gave him a look back that said, “We sure do.”
“Paul,” Liam10 said, “can you go down and watch my Paul, and send Liam up?”
“Sure,” Paul said, and he left quietly.
Liam came in, looking very serious, but very tired, and Liam10 told him pretty much what he had told us. I watched Liam10 and our Liam for reactions, but our Liam simply let Liam10 finish, and then said,”Good for you.”
Turning the lights down even lower, we all went back down to the room where Paul the waiter lay sleeping. My Paul gently relinquished his position, and Liam10 put his arms around the sleeping Paul. Liam, Paul, and I cuddled on another sofa, and as we were nodding off, we heard a knock on the door.
Our Liam, nude, answered the door, and Frank said, in an urgent voice, “They found the red-haired guy trying to see your brother again. You’re not going to believe who he is...”
