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There is a proverb out here on the East End, popular with our year-round customers at the Dune Road Restaurant and Bar, that one never finds love after Labor Day. Certainly I can offer no evidence to the contrary, but neither am I ready to trade my cottage in the woods for some cramped downtown apartment. Once a country mouse, I suppose. I am not entirely averse, however, to occasional excursions into Manhattan for affairs of culture, and so come that chilling exodus with the first fallen leaf, when again one discovers he has his choice of parking spaces in the village, his pick of machines at the fitness center, I find it best to keep an up-to-date train schedule in the first photograph flap of my portefeuille–though I have not often found cause to journey much beyond the doors of the Museum of Modern Art.

          As of late, I have developed a theory regarding the museum's second floor: one can conduct his latest gentleman caller through the painting and sculpture galleries there and, by the time he reaches Magritte's Menaced Assassin–that disturbing, misogynistic scene with those mistrustful lavender walls hanging, like a banner of scorn, before the exit–he will have the measure of the fellow's mind. Paintings from the modern period, more than any other, require their viewers to react; they sail at one, grapple and gore for one's soul. Take note of your suitor's sudden, consecutive cries–where the cries of horror, awe or delight; where the hot, stifled cries of bewilderment–eventually they will tell you all you need to know.

          I trust you recognize the name Alfred H. Barr, Jr. He was, of course, the founding director of this museum and, as his words inscribed on a silver plaque beside the galleries' entrance will attest, a wise man. "He once defined his task," the plaque reads, "as 'the conscientious, continuous, resolute distinction of quality from mediocrity.'" We are birds of a feather, Mr. Barr and I, but while he was a connoisseur of art, I, on the other hand, am one of men. And though Mr. Barr's efforts have thus far proved more fruitful than my own–he found many examples to which he could point and claim, "Quality," whereas I am still wandering about very much alone through empty rooms–I share his persistence and, on one particular occasion not too long ago, met with a striking brunet named Stanley Cartlin.

          As a rule, expectations are mistakes. One should expect little or nothing of anyone, and thereby never be disappointed again. But to be aware of a problem is not necessarily to conquer it–problems are rarely, if ever, conquered–and I, knowing all too well the pitfalls expectations bring, nevertheless had them. You see, as far as biography and vital statistics were concerned–which I had been able to compile, for the most part, from our two rather short but incisive telephone conversations–Stanley measured up quite well: mid-thirties; nonsmoker, with no history of drug or alcohol abuse; had tested repeatedly negative for HIV antibodies; was inclined, he also avowed, toward monogamy; and, to my delight, possessed a virtually flawless set of gleaming white teeth. (Try as I may, I have never been able to consider anyone with crooked or discolored teeth, owing, perhaps, to the fact that through most of my formative years my dearly departed mother was employed as a dental hygienist. The value of good, shapely dentition was impressed upon us continually and, in time, came to represent a mirror in which a person's character and worth were reflected. "Just like a horse." Who said that? Jimmy, my little Sancho Panza from Amagansett, full of all that . . . folklore. Like a horse; nothing of the sort. It was a sign, just like any other: the body is a temple; what transpires in the interior is bound to appear, sooner or later, upon the facade.)

          All well and good, but to be perfectly honest, what I found most appealing about Stanley was that he owned an advertising concern in the city, something about the design and reproduction of logos and an account with one of the major cable networks, all admirably understated, it would seem, for judging from his addresses alone–apartment on the Upper West Side, weekend house in Southampton–his work was quite lucrative. Not, please understand, that it is primarily money which interests me, but I will say I find a certain amount of competence and self-sufficiency prepossessing. One grows tired finally of the darling boyish types, forever floundering about, looking for occupation. Invariably they show up twenty minutes late for the first encounter, or reveal over the course of the evening that they have a "friend" in West Hollywood or Palm Beach. No more, no more, I said. Here at last was an established man, just a little older than myself, who had work he cared about and did well, a man whose very style and bearing betrayed an air of greater purpose and self-assurance–I noticed it the moment I saw him. Or rather, the moment my little Sancho saw him and pointed him out to me; as I recall, it was upon a Tuesday night in late August, and we had been sitting, as is our wont, at the corner of the bar closest to the entrance, reserved for staff.

           "Uh-oh," he had exclaimed, at once nudging me and gesturing without subtlety to the dining room. "Admirers."

          "What? Where?" I said, swatting at his pink, stub-like forefinger with mortification. Yet I could not keep my heart from racing on ahead of myself: he was rarely wrong on these matters. "Control yourself," I insisted, glaring down at his ample-cheeked countenance, whereupon he slid back in his stool, mouthing the word eight with juvenile exaggeration. I nodded and, pausing to contemplate the dark wood grain of the bar, savored those seconds of pre-knowledge, bloated so suddenly, so recklessly with anticipation and resurgent hope:

          You will turn, I informed myself, and gaze for the first time upon ton âme soeur. Here now the moment when that fair, mutable figment haunting the chambers of your imagination takes on the semblance of an actual person. It will be as you have heard it described: at eyes' meeting, recognition–deep, unquestionable recognition; you will know you have found him; your inmost soul will vibrate like a stricken gong; the very ground beneath your feet will vibrate, as if the whole of the earth had joined into one resounding chorus, "Bone of thy bones! Flesh of thy flesh!"

          Well, something to that effect, anyway. Sancho, of course, scolded me, as any good squire would. "Whatcha doin', chief? Look back, for Chris'sake; you're gonna miss your chance."

          "Does he continue to look this way?"

          "Yeah, he's lookin'. There's a few of 'em lookin', a whole section of 'em."

          "Describe him to me."

          "Describe 'em to you? Which one? You got a brunet, a blond, a strawberry blond . . . nope, now, see, you waited too long, you lost 'em."

          At that, I raised my head, and turned to the southwest corner of the dining room. There, my eyes were drawn, as it were, into the field of a slender, dark-haired figure at the center of a large party sprawled across tables eight and nine. The gentleman in question was pressing a palm to his heart while leaning to confer with a friend at his left–much, I thought, in the attitude of a little Christ presiding over a Little Supper. And I remember, in turn, that when he finally did look up again, his gaze held me for such an extraordinarily long time that my breath suddenly caught beneath it, as if it had just then extended across the room and touched me with a kind of hand.

          The ensuing half-hour was a fairly unbearable ordeal of suspense and anxiety. I must say I remember none of the conversation at the bar–I suppose there was conversation; I cannot imagine that Jimmy would have stopped chattering for that long, or that Sonny Waterson and Clark Rogers, those two tireless ruminators always foremost in the klatch of elderly customers to our right, could have. Indeed, I was most exclusively preoccupied with the question of whether the dark-haired figure would approach the bar as he exited the restaurant, the particular outcome of which had become suddenly and inextricably bound to the prospects of my future happiness.

          Yes, well, I suppose I might not have fretted quite so much: he did eventually accost me, though in the briefest of ways. In fact, our exchange was so fleeting–one second he was upon me, tapping my shoulder, the next he was drifting out the door again with the rest of the group–that had it not been for the business card he slipped into my hand (or should I say, dropped, like a lover's glove?), I would have said it had never happened.

          I do distinctly recall, however, his words, whispered discreetly over his shoulder: "Call me when things quiet down." Of course, there was, in his wake, ample time to recall them–time, even, to mull them over and commit them forever to memory. At length, I found the words quite moving: clearly, I expounded, they were not the standard salacious overtures, not the first turns of a romantic maelstrom that would commence immediately with a profusion of torrid, impulsive embraces; incessant, interminable telephone conversations–no, none of that, just, "Call me when things quiet down." A sign of patience, I thought, of maturity, which the raised black lettering on his card seemed to confirm:

          "President?" Jimmy squawked, his chin fairly lodged on my shoulder; and at once I slipped the card into the breast pocket of my blazer, away from his vulturine inspection. "He's like some hotshot Madison Avenue executive," he informed the elderly klatch, upon which a somewhat vexed smile crossed my lips. For I must admit that, though I felt immensely flattered to have attracted the attentions of a man of such caliber, I instantly regretted his name; it brought to mind a misshapen, pustulated boy I had known in elementary school and impressed me as just my good fortune that when I finally did happen upon my other half, he would possess a forename I detested, like Stanley or Dudley or Arnold.

          "Be nice if you went for something besides bar trash for a change."

          "I beg your pardon?" I reeled in my stool. "Who said that?"

          Sancho, of course, grinning into his ever-brimming mug of ale. No doubt his allusion was lost on no one: Bernard, the existentialist motorcycle salesman from Washington D.C. who had approached me on the patio some weeks before. Of course, he was not at all the type to sustain my interest (I have always abhorred leather garments of any sort, really, particularly trousers), but there are nights–and perhaps you have experienced some yourself–when in lieu of a prince, a wolf may have a few things to offer. One cannot only wait.

          "I vote for the executive, whadaya say?"

          "Here, here," Sonny Waterson said.

          Still I was taken aback. Bar trash. As if it were a sordid selection process on my part, as if I deliberately sought out just the type of wayward men who would prove incapable of any genuine, lasting liaison. I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. To be in love is the only thing I have always wanted. I can recall dreaming as early as five years of age of the man who would prove my kindred soul; I have dreamed of him these twenty-five since. And though there were times I thought him near, thought, even, that I had procured his acquaintance, in each instance I discovered quite soon that was not the case; he had yet to show. The Lord has seen fit, for reasons not entirely revealed to me, that I should go without so long. There are days I detest that hoary-haired autocrat, periods when I have refused to invoke His name. Brief periods. I do not have the courage of a Nietzsche. But let me find myself alone one night, confronting the long, dark wall of despair, and my lips shall be forming, before the hour is out, those studied syllables of the Our Father: Oh, give us this day! Oh, deliver us!

          "And don't be so picky for once."

          "Picky?” What a vile word. “One moment I am chasing bar trash, the next I am too picky?"

          "You eliminate people too fast; you have to give 'em a chance. No one's perfect. Sometimes you have to settle for what's least repulsive."

          "Least repulsive?" I recoiled at the horrific implications of his offhanded statement. "Love is not something one settles for," I said.

           Jimmy laughed then, interminably, but I, feeling for the business card in the breast pocket of my blazer, remained upright amid his cackles, once again envisioning that unimaginably different day when I would at last discover, for the both of us–nay, for the lot of us–what love actually was.

I meet them in the sculpture garden, weather permitting, Thursdays at five thirty. Since Thursday is the one day the museum is open in the evening, it is a sound logistical arrangement: most of them reside in the city and, of course, are employed there, virtually always until five–which allows me an hour or two in the early afternoon for paperwork and placing orders before handing over fort to Jimmy and taking the long sally in.

           That September day in question, Stanley himself was running late, or perhaps I was a few minutes early and he arrived nearly on time, I am not sure; there is no public clock outside, thank goodness, and I have never worn a watch–they are but golden shackles, to my mind, vulgar, nagging displays of the temporal world. And I would rather be the one to arrive first, anyway, so as not to have to ask them to move to another section of the garden–they invariably choose a seat close to the doors by that Picasso goat, which is one of the most heavily trafficked, wide-open areas. I much prefer a spot just opposite to that, facing the far side of the English beech, its lower branches a leafy screen blotting out New York. There, two can sit in relative privacy–their backs to the Matisse relief mounted on the brick wall, a view of Moore's Animal Form to the left, Maillol's The River to the right, the meditative splashing and bubbling from the jets of the pool just yards away–while wading through a repertoire of first-encounter queries or, in the pauses, allowing their eyes to follow the weaving and tangling of the ivy in the garden at their feet.

          "Where did you get your degree?"

          "Did I say I had a dagree?" He masticated inelegantly upon a piece of chicle gum.

          "Perhaps I presumed."

          "I went ta a community college on the island fa two years."

           "So you have an Associate's, then."

          He worked the toe of a worn tennis shoe into a crevice between the long, dull slabs of gray-and-white marble. Or was it faux marble?

          "I believe I'm like a credit away from an Associate's–I ovalooked a gym or a lab or sumthin'. You, on the otha hand, have a couple, I'm shaw."

          "A couple of what?"

          "Dagrees." He cleared his throat and, tapping the brim of his navy-blue baseball cap, slouched down in the black-wire patio chair. "Not the most comf'table chairs in the world." He smiled, flirtatiously revealing his faultless teeth, white as a newly painted picket fence. The smile lingered while the tennis shoe tapped in close proximity to my own polished loafer, and I noticed that just beyond the sparkling left canine lurked a section of the mashed, sputum-coated wad, like a ruinous pink mortar. I looked away, my eyes coming to rest, as they can never help but do, upon that annoying gray sign on a small metal post, rising from the ivy: Please do not sit or stand on sculpture pedestals, or touch the works of art. There are many more like it, planted strategically throughout the garden, disruptive reminders that there are people who need to be told those things. They always catch me, as this one did then, between indignation and an elementary-school fear of chastisement.

          "I have only one," I informed him, not seeing the need then of alluding to the many minors I had also completed during my extended stay at university, among them French Studies and Medieval History, "a Bachelor of Arts."

          "In?"

          "Philosophy."

          His left eyebrow rose–whether in mockery or interest, I could not discern. "Which is very helpful in the food-service business, I'm shaw." Ah.

          In moments of disappointment, I look to the Maillol for validation–to that large lead woman lying on her side, the tips of her bunchy hair touching the dark, foam-spotted water of the pool. She looks just-fallen, almost thrown, her palms raised against the threat of some descending object. As if the business of my life could be summed up in the phrase food service.

          "Well, if one's criterion for a degree's usefulness is how much it prepares one for employment, then I would agree with you, there is a little discrepancy." I leaned back in my chair, arms crossed, and refused to look at him those moments he gazed up into the branches of the beech tree, idly masticating. Silence ensued, and I was in the midst of rehearsing a polite exit from what I was certain would prove an entirely disastrous encounter, when a sudden noise, much like the discharge of a child's cap gun, took me unawares. I rose from my seat with momentary dread, looking left, right, heavenward, before realizing, with some chagrin, that Stanley had simply snapped his gum.

          He squinted up at me with curiosity.

          "Excuse me," I said, reseating myself.

          "Sumthin' wrong?"

          "Not at all," I said, inhaling deeply to moderate my quickened pulse.

          Yet what I thought was brewing into antagonism took a surprising turn when he said, "You're right," albeit a bit cavalierly, and glanced up the left thigh of my trousers. "But on the same token, college isn't the only place ya learn things."

          "Of course not." I leaned forward with guarded interest.

          "In fact, I've met some people with dagrees up their ass–up their eyeballs–don't know the first thing about themselves, 'bout people, or the world, even. My brotha. Got six or more years of college unda his belt, the other day he calls me, he wants ta know what a deductible is. See, he's neva paid for anythin' in his life before, right, and so now he's got a copy of an inshawance policy in fron'a him he can't make heads or tails out of it. So ya know what I said to him? I said, 'You are, asshole, you're a–'"

          I felt my face jerk backward at the word, much against my will, as if a little dart had hit it.

          "Whoops!" he said, eyes wide and fingers to his lips, as if I were the Virgin Mother.

          I leaned back. It worries me how protective people become of their vernaculars in my presence. On the other hand, the word was decidedly out of place: we were not alone, or in some saloon or locker-room atmosphere. Here was the kind of person, I noted, who insisted on informality as the universal decorum: life was an occasion that did not require much more than a pair of tennis shoes, several shades of denims, some T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts. It was not necessarily a bad quality, but it did indicate a certain stubborn earthiness, a singleness of expression that could grow rather dull. "I have heard the word before."

          "Good. So I said, 'You are, asshole. For the last twenty-four years you been mommy and daddy's little fucken deductible.'"

          Again my face jerked backward. A singleness of expression, I qualified, bordering on solipsism. Instinctively, I looked about me. Several yards to our left, a mild, middle-aged couple sat peaceably conversing. "And where do you find you learn most?" I asked quickly, hoping to change the subject from the apparently rousing one of the brother.

          "Where does anyone learn most? From watchin' people. Every minute of the day there's sumthin' happ'nin' you can learn from, all ya have ta do is open your f–"

          "Stop it, will you?" I whispered hotly. "Can you not just say 'Open your eyes'? Just 'Open your eyes.' There is no need to modify it."

          "You said you didn't mind."

          "Yes, but I–once, twice, perhaps, but I was not prepared for a–a–fusillade of vulgarities."

          "A what?"

          "Especially here, at an art museum, devoted to aesthetics, to beauty . . ." Oh, but I had little patience for reprimands! You see, it was as if he had just ungloved the signet ring of a secret brotherhood, and I, weary, suspecting traveler, knew that beneath his vagrant rags the marrow of him was to be trusted. His theory, the gist of what he had said–I saw it immediately–was nothing more than a restatement of my own! (Put in exceedingly pedestrian terms, perhaps, but my theory nonetheless.) Here was another anxiously collecting the signs the world flashed before him, busy with subtleties of classification and interpretation, with the formulation of rules of behavior and speculations upon the nature of the universe. "So you think you are a good judge of character?"

          I waited while he blew a pale pink bubble, then re-ingested it with a deft, almost reptilian, snap of his lingua; there followed a muffled pop, whereupon his masticating resumed, and he spoke: "I'm a fairly good judge a characta, shaw."

          "What would you say, then, from your experience, if a person were to show up twenty minutes late for a first encounter? What would that be an indication of?"

          "Encounta?"

          "An engagement, appointment. Rendezvous."

          "A date, ya mean?"

          "Precisely."

          "Show up twenty minutes late here? For a date like this?"

          "Exactly like this."

          He leaned forward, brow wrinkling. "Was I that late?"

          "You? Not at all. Several minutes, perhaps. No, you were not very late at all."

          He sat back. "Oh. Well, let's see. I guess I'd say eitha sumthin' unexpected came up, which I'm shaw they'd tell ya ‘bout right away . . . oh, but I don't know, though, twenty minutes is a long time to keep someone waitin', 'specially someone ya don't know so well. I'd say they were a person that was chronically late for just about everythin' they ever did, or they just didn' give a–didn' care."

          "Didn' care. That is exactly right. Do you like cats?"

          "Cats? Yeah, I guess I like cats."

          "And how about fish?"

          "Pet fish, ya mean, in a aquarium?"

          "Yes."

          "Oh, I love them."

          "And what is your middle name?"

          "Fred."

          "Fred?" Stanley Frederick. Doubly unfortunate. Product of a spiteful parentage, no doubt. But I was not to be daunted. "Excellent," I said, and stood up. "Shall we go in?" He rose, and, as we made our way over the little bridge that traverses the rectangular pool, several of the fingers of his left hand respectfully grazed my forearm, as if to guide the way. The pool, of course, could not have been more than several inches deep, but the protective gesture was well-taken, a symbol of our new confidence.

You know, I probably would never even have bothered with a guy like that in the first place, it's just that he was so fucking handsome. And I'm not just saying that the way some people throw that word around–I mean exceptional, one of the three or four best-looking men I've ever seen. Something like the humpy blond in Room With a View, big and tall and waspy-looking, with that kind of straight, English hair that bobs down in front–I love that shit. Kind of reminded me, too, of a guy in Stryker Force, if you've ever seen that one; calls himself Mark Hammer or something. He's busy doing the one little bottom in the first part, then at the end him and Jeff get together and he just lays down on his belly and says, "I always wanted to know what that felt like." He looks the most beautiful when he says that, his eyes all nice and closed.

          And I'm not joking, either, when I say this guy had just as nice a body, if not better, than those two. In fact, his body was even more of an asset than his face, if you can imagine. I first saw it on the beach a couple of weeks before Labor Day, and my jaw just dropped, all our jaws did. I mean, just this long, perfect preppy body, every little stomach square showing, every little obscure muscle, buffed and toned and tan. It was enough to make you cry, it really was; I just grabbed my T-shirt and put it on. I know that's why we ate at that place that night; I think that's half the reason anyone goes there, especially those old geezers, crowing and drooling all around him. One of my housemates, Todd, caught me staring at him during dinner and warned me privately to stay away, said he was supposed to be a big slut, that he'd been seen recently sucking off some leather queen in the parking lot. Then Lewis, a different housemate of mine, must've heard who we were talking about because he started glancing over at the bar and saying how crazy he thought the guy was, that he talked like he was from the eighteenth century, or some shit. But I couldn't listen to any of that, I had to at least slip him my work number as we were getting out the door. I tried to do it so nobody would see. I thought if I could just get my hands on him once or twice, without anyone finding out–whisk him up to the apartment in September while Ed was away and give it to him good in the living room. I knew Ed wouldn't care too much, really, so long as I used protection; we have that understanding, sort of–at least while he's in California, which is half the year, practically. But mostly I just wouldn't have wanted that to get around, fucking with the manager of some gay dive. I have a business to run. I mean, it's not much of one yet, but I would like it to be; I would like to live off my own money one day.

          Then, of course, he insisted on meeting at the fucking MOMA, of all places, and it had to be in the sculpture garden at five thirty. Talk about anal. I said, "Well, what do you want to do it that way for? Why don't you just come over around eight or nine and we'll order in Thai or something?" But he started whining about "neutral territory" and how he liked to make a day of it when he came to town. "It's just Manhattan," I said, "it's not like you're going overseas." "Still," he said, and stayed pretty stubborn about it. He was like a woman that way, who was going to make you take her out first.

          So I went a little incognito–wore one of Ed's baseball caps and dressed really down in jeans and sneakers; I looked for the dirtiest pair of sneakers we had around, and came up with some ancient Adidas tennis shoes. Then just to finish it off, I bought some gum at the Korean deli on the corner. The real kid stuff, Bazooka, five cents a stick. I hadn't had a Bazooka in years. Oh, and you know, I really got into it, sitting out there with him, chomping like crazy and copping a heavy Long Guyland accent. I figured that was what he wanted, I figured someone so prissy and fastidious must love to be appalled. I could hear him saying that to me, very loud, between each line: Horrify me; really offend me in some way.

          To tell you the truth, that was almost all I heard; I was finding it hard to concentrate. On the one hand, the conversation wasn't exactly riveting–school, he wanted to talk about, and what I thought about some schmuck showing up late for an "encounter." But on the other, I just couldn't keep my eyes from roaming all over him. He caught me once when I was checking out his legs, long crew-boy legs; you could just see the perfect, preppy shape of them through the light-brown cotton pants he was wearing–oow, God, I loved those pants! And then, oh yes, Jesus Christ, there was that monstrosity of his, creeping down his left thigh. That was pretty shocking to me, when I first discovered it. I don't normally zoom for a guy's crotch the way a lot of queens do, but you'd have had to be a blind nun to miss a thing like that; it looked like you could've fed peanuts to it. And that wasn't even the most interesting part; what truly captivated me was what occurred to me next: he wasn't wearing any underwear. This Little Miss Prude who got offended by the words fuck and asshole was letting her big dick flap all around New York.

          Mm-mm-mmm. It was all I could do not to spring one right there; I could have really gotten woody over a beautiful hill of contradictions like that. And so after he stood up suddenly, and I followed him across the little bridge, I couldn't help myself, I copped a feel of his shoulder, and of his long lean arm. And I swear, I could hear it then, too, even louder: Horrify me; please horrify me. I tried hard to figure out how. Because I knew if I did, this guy would lay right down for me, like a little dog; he'd say, "I always wanted to know what that felt like."

Ascending to the second floor and alighting before that unornate portal to my endless petition, we entered the first gallery–Cézannes, mostly. And I must admit, with due shame, that as he loitered before Boy in a Red Waistcoat, his large, able left hand cupping his chin, I felt what I can only describe as a sudden invasion of a whole host of fluttering, brushing, bouncing little wings rising up some dark, cavernous portion of my interior. Clichés alone come to mind in the service of such silliness: "butterflies," "breathlessness," a "thrill," the likes of which I would not have believed myself still capable. Yet I found I was going so far as to think that this Stanley might very well have been one of the most promising men I had ever led through those rooms, when suddenly I detected an alarm–some distance off, but still quite audible and disconcerting, reminding me of just the type of incessant ding ding ding ding that had announced the fire drills at St. Anthony's.

           "Do you hear that?"

          He did not acknowledge me.

          "Stanley?" I said skeptically. It was the first time I had called him by name, and for an instant, I wondered if it were truly his; perhaps I stood beside a Richard, a Brian.

          But indeed he answered, "Hm?"

          "Do you hear that bell?"

          "Shaw."

          "What do you think is happening?"

          He shrugged, and as he passed on to Still Life With Apples, the alarm ceased. Upon perusal of the gallery, I discovered that no one seemed at all disturbed: people were absorbed in the paintings or sauntering about, and even the rather stern-looking guard–a short, dark-skinned man, with a protruding bottom lip that reminded me quite exactly of Alfred Hitchcock's–appeared, to the best of his ability, at ease. Crossing the room, I pondered what could have caused the alarm, while vaguely contemplating the outlines of the Lautrec pastel, or Stanley's enrapture in the Cézanne across the way. And I believe I had nearly succeeded in forgetting about it, and all but quelled the further uneasiness it had engendered in my midriff, when I saw Stanley look up from the painting and start at something he spied in the next gallery–he literally took a step backward, eyes magnificently wide.

          "Did something frighten you?" I asked, joining him before the archway.

          "Frighten me?"

          "You looked up and something startled you. What was it?"

          He shook his head distractedly.

          "Nothing startled you?"

          Again he shook his head and, masticating with renewed, methodical vigor, walked, without so much as a nod to Rousseau's Sleeping Gypsy, Gauguin's Moon and Earth, directly to the foot of The Starry Night. We made our obligatory pause.

          Yes, yes, the cluster of blue and green flamelike cypress trees to the left, the sleepy little town down on the right, the church steeple piercing the blue hills, the swirling sky, the eleven stars, the crescent moon . . . I have seen this painting in so many books, over so many sofas, I have been given it so many times in the form of a Christmas card or calendar, that whenever I come across it actually hanging upon the wall, I suspect its authenticity. Surely this must also be a reproduction, I say, the original in a fortressed vault somewhere–or perhaps it has been removed from the planet altogether, like the Holy Grail. In any case, I can no longer see it. Like the visage of an old encounter, whatever ardencies it might enkindle behind a fresh eye are lost to me forever.

          A capital masterpiece.

          A powerful example of proto-Expressionist art.

          One of the most beloved paintings in the world.

          Let us move on.

          I noticed that Stanley had arrived at an impasse of his own; he could not bring himself to look at it, but rather cocked his head to the right, shielding his eyes with his hand.

          "How many million you think this one's worth?" A matronly woman had poked her bespectacled head between us, the gold initials N. R. at the bottom of the large right lens. I breathed out, a patronizing half-laugh; Stanley made no response, as if he did not see her. "Tsh," the woman added, shaking her head at the painting, and walked on.

          "Is anything wrong?" I asked Stanley.

          "I forgot this was here."

          "Why do you refuse to look at it?"

          He shook his head.  

          "Look at it; do not be ridiculous."

          "I guess I am bein' stoopid," he said, hesitantly unveiling his eyes, upon which his lips parted, and he inhaled fitfully, deeply, then slowly expelled the large quantity of air. And I noticed, as behind us a passing gentleman hummed a bar of "Starry, Starry Night," that his eyes did not move at all, but merely stared, fixedly, into the center of the painting. Finally they fluttered and crossed; his entire body swayed; then he quickly straightened up, resuming the unfocused stare–an attitude, it seemed to me, of such sublime appreciation and reverence that you can imagine my astonishment when, several seconds after an almost unintelligible mumble had issued from his lips, the sentence he had uttered formed itself in my mind: I have to touch it.

          At once I thought it the machinations of Sancho, insisting so suddenly and boldly from some lurid quarter of my mind that it appeared to be egressing from an outside source. Surely Stanley had said nothing of the sort; surely Stanley had said nothing at all.

           To our left, leaning within the archway that led to the third gallery, was another blue-jacketed guard, younger, slim, with thinning flaxen hair and a prominent nose shaped like a capital D. He was sketching with ballpoint pen in a little green-covered memo pad, precisely the type of pad we were once required to carry to copy down homework assignments at St. Anthony's. I thought it best to move on, and was just about to suggest so to Stanley when, oh my, his voice rose to a whisper and said, with unquestionable clarity, "I hafta touch it."

          Behind us, the elder guard with the Hitchcock countenance stood with his hands folded, his left foot out before him, tapping repeatedly. Could he have heard?

          "Touch what?" I whispered back.

          He did not respond.

          "You do not mean the painting, of course."

          Again no response.

          "Stanley," I said anxiously, "you do not–"

          He nodded.

          "Touch it with your hand?"

          "Distract those guards fa me, will ya?"

          In the archway now, the elder had joined the younger, who had shut his pad. I leaned closer. "So you can touch it? One of the great masterworks of the late nineteenth century, distract the security guards so you can touch it with your hand? Do you think I would be an accomplice to that kind of sacrilege?"

          "Ask 'em the time."

          "You want me–"

          "A fraction of a second, that's all I need. One little touch. I can't leave till I do it."

          "You will never get away with it. The instant your hand reaches out, those–" The northern sectors of his thighs pressed against the white guard rail, the only one of its kind in the entire museum; his upper torso leaned dangerously close to the canvas, his face not a foot from the bright, raised swirls, his respiration upon them already . . . I struck out, despite myself, and tugged on his seedy sweatshirt. "Step back, will you? They are looking this way."

          He shook my hand off callously.

          "Please do not do this."

          "I neva leave a museum till I touch the Van Goghs."

          Van Goghs! A plural construction! He had done this before. And what of Joseph Roulin, would he have to touch that as well? Saint Rémy? I had no intention of finding out.

          "I will not stand here," I said, and walked directly out through the archway, back stiffening, heart palpitating, as if it were I who was summoning courage, I who was raising my hand, stretching my fingers toward the hard . . . lumpy . . . paint. MAN TOUCHES VAN GOGH IN MOMA. I stumbled blindly through the next two rooms, waiting for alarms to sound, voices to raise. Instinctively, I turned left for Monet's Water Lilies, avoiding the further confusion of the cubist galleries, and perched on one of the gray vinyl benches that look down on the sculpture garden. There, a prickling scuttled over the back of my neck as the slow sullen weight of truth descended: Stanley was a fool. Every man was, of course, I knew that, but I had agreed to be tricked, to be veiled with that delicate delusion that allows for the possibility of love. I had thought perhaps Stanley could sustain it–for several months, a year, four. Instead he had destroyed it instantly. How could I feign blindness now? There was no return to ignorance.

           I thought of Bernard from Washington D.C.–the unpleasant odor about him, his doughy, pale anatomy. In my rarely doubly occupied full-size bed, I had tossed and turned into the morning hours: what we had just completed had been so narrowly defined and yet he slept soundly enough. Time and again I had attempted to curl up behind him and drape my arm about his bosom, but then it would feel like such mimicry, to be embracing a stranger so tenderly, and I would recoil to clutch at my pillow on the far edge of the mattress. Finally I rose for the shower; in the mirror my person looked blotched, handled. Then all in a dark moment, beneath the hot lashing jets, a quiet of seemingly infinite magnitude came over me: perhaps there would even be no making do, but only periods of yearning, followed by spells of nausea, yearning or nausea. Well, if one could accept that, what would he have left to fear?

          Below me, I saw the raised, pleading palms of Maillol's thrown woman, and for an instant I imagined myself the object she anticipated: hurled from the huge window in a wide, gravity-defying arc, limbs spread, taut abdomen about to impale upon her wrist.

           "Here you are."

          I started, sensing a fast-moving presence closing in on my right: it was Stanley, already. Glaring up at him, I saw none of that unfocused, fluttering mania I had witnessed just moments earlier; instead he stood before me, exhilarated, quelled. "Ya mad at me, aren'cha?" he said, smiling his snow-white, faultless smile. "I'm sorry; it was so thick and chunky I couldn' help myself." He attempted to touch my hand, but I quickly withdrew it and made for the next gallery, in awe of the transparency of his words.

          We walked on without speaking, then I broke off ahead of him, hardly caring, I told myself, if he were to turn around and leave. He followed me, however, doggedly, and at a measured distance, past the expressionists, the futurists, the constructivists. And it was not until the Matisse gallery, before the imposing Dance, that he stepped up beside me, and, after a lengthy silence, I spoke to him: "Well?"

          "Hm?"

          "Did you do it?"

          "Do what?"

          "The painting."

          "Did I touch The Starry Night?"

          "Shhh. Yes. Did you?"

          He grinned. "Uh-huh."

          "Good Lord." I crossed the gallery, pausing before Piano Lesson; again he followed. In my distracted attempt to examine the painting, my eyes were drawn, as they so often are, to that green triangulation down the left side of the canvas, the insinuation of nature into the gray room. I noticed that Stanley, however, was preoccupied with the boy at the piano to the right, and I took the opportunity to glance briefly at his left hand–the one I presumed to have accomplished the lawless deed, the thumb of which he pressed just then to his teeth: its knuckles were large and red, the veins bluely prominent; at the base of each finger, and across his wrist, was a tuft of black, brutish hair. "So?"

          "So what?"

          "So what happened? Did anything happen?"

          "What could of happened?"

          "No type of alarm went off?"

          He shook his head.

          "No one saw you?"

          He nodded. "Someone did see me."

          "I knew it. I knew you could not get away with it." I looked left and right, but the few people nearby did not appear to be in any kind of pursuit. "Who? Who saw you?"

          "A woman did. She was standin' bahin' me."

          "How do you know?"

          "I heard 'er; she went, 'Goodness!'"

          "Oh God, and did she say anything else? Where is she now?"

          "I don't know."

          "Well, do you know if she told anyone? Did anyone hear her?"

          "No. Nothin' like that. She just said, 'Goodness!' and that was it. What did you go to Catholic school or sumthin'?"

          "Now what would that have to do with anything?"

          "Why are you so afraid of gettin' in trouble?"

          "Why are you so insistent upon breaking every rule?"

          "What rule did I break? Whose rule?"

          "Why have you no respect?"

          "I got plen'y of respect."

          "No. No, I do not think you do. Not when you go pawing at one of the most valuable works in this entire museum on the least little whim; I can think of nothing more selfish."

          "Selfish?"

          "What else could it be, Stanley? You wanted to touch it, and so you did. Without a thought to how anyone else might feel about it. What about the people who value that painting, the people who value it tremendously? Do you think they want your hands all over it? Your oily hands?" He would have nothing to say to that, I knew, so I returned to the Matisse, all the while imagining the very tips of his fingers fleshing over the hard, hundred-year-old ridges of paint: he pulls his hand away, leaving several ever-so-imperceptible trails of moisture upon the night sky; they evaporate, and he discovers a particle adhered to his forefinger, like a piece of eggshell.

          "Which part did you touch?"

          He looked at me quickly. "Which part would you of touched?"

          "I would never have considered touching it in the first place."

          "Then why are you so interested?"

          "You are quite right. Actually, I am not interested at all; I think it is absolutely infantile and selfish. You could have damaged it for all you know–with the oils in your hand, with the pressure on the canvas."

          "It was tight as a drum."

          "What was?"

          "The canvas. It didn' give one bit."

          "Huh. Well, you could have cracked it, then."

          "How'm I gonna–?"

          "The paint. You could have chipped it."

          "It didn' chip."

          "It is old, Stanley, one hundred years old, a one-hundred-year-old chef-d'oeuvre of inestimable–"

          "He couldn' of traded that thing for a loaf a bread in his day."

          "Oh, I see. So because–"

          "This whole thing stinks like a lot a pretentious bullshit, ya ask me.”

          “I beg your–”

          “Personally, I don't think he woulda minded me touchin' it one bit; I think he woulda let me touch it all I wanted if I asked him to."

          "Well, that is a facile claim, is it not, now that the fellow has been interred for more than a century. You think he had no respect for his work? He cherished that painting."

          "So I like it, too."

          "Then you should respect it."

          "I touched it bacause I respected it."

          "Now how does that follow?"

          He sputtered.

          "How does that follow, Stanley?"

          "It wanted touching."

          "What wanted touching? The painting?"

          He nodded.

          I laughed, incredulously. "How does a painting want? What did it do, speak to you? Did it say, 'Touch me, Stanley; I need you now'?" I watched his eyes narrow at the boy-musician. "Is that what it said?"

          "Nothin' happened. You can be as sarcastic as you want. I touched it, and nothin' happened."

          That was hardly a justification, I thought, upon which another silence followed, and I pondered if he was merely defending a puerile impulse. Perhaps it was he who was nothing more than a lapsed Catholic, one who after years of being threatened into submission with yardsticks and pointers now felt compelled to walk wherever he discovered a NO TRESPASSING sign. Or perhaps his words did rise from some theoretical perspective he could not skillfully articulate–one, undoubtedly, that had not been thought through very thoroughly, and that, at its kernel, would most likely be concluded unsound. How much did he believe, I wondered, of what he said?

          But before I was able to settle the matter to my satisfaction, he raised his lips within inches of my right ear and whispered, "I touched the crescent moon."

          "The moon?" I nodded automatically–then, upon further reflection, wrinkled my nose.

          "What's wrong with that? It's the best part a the painting; it's chunkiest there."

          "That is such an obvious choice; anyone would have touched the moon. Did you ever look closely at the lowest star, right above the smaller cypress trees? The paint is very thick and extruded at the center of it, like the tip of a ni–" But here I stopped myself.

          "Tip of a what?" he said.

          "Of nothing. Of a papilla."

          "A what?"

          "Teat, pap, the small protuberance through which milk is drawn from the breast."

          "Nipple, ya mean? 'Tip of a nipple,' you can't say that?"

           "No. You said it."

          "Why can't you say 'tip of a nipple'?"

          "I–"

          "Say, 'Tip of a nipple.'"

          "Why?"

          "Say it."

          "I do not wish to say it."

          "You betta say it."

          "I do not see any reason why–"

          "Then there's sumthin' very wrong with you if you can't–"

          "Why?"

          "Say it."

          "No."

          "Say it."

          "Ni–"

          "All of it."

          "Nip–"

          "More."

          "Nipple." I scarcely breathed the word, taken back, as I was, by the forceful entry into my mind of the image of a man–perhaps it was Stanley, or some equally uncouth thug with a similar, navy-blue baseball cap–his thighs pressing rudely against the white guard rail, his plump, moistened lips closing around the protruding star; he suckled it like a newborn babe, whimpered and writhed as he drew off the primitive saps and juices, as dribbles of primary yellow, primary blue, ran down his chin; and for an instant, it was as if I felt that tugging upon my own breast, the scraping of teeth across the hard, red tip of skin. "Oh," I said, looking over at him, "did you ever feel that?"

          "What?"

          "Did you ever notice that?"

          "The nipple star?"

          "Yes."

          "No, I didn'."

          "I see." I exhaled. "Perhaps next time."

          But his brow furrowed. "What next time?" he said and, without further comment, cupped his chin again and looked to the Matisse.

          I did not know how to interpret his remark. Did he mean to say there would be no future appointment? Of course, I would never have wanted one, either; in fact, I had been hoping just previously that he would simply fade somehow, back into the squalid city air. And would that not be additional evidence of his degeneracy, anyway, that he would reject someone like myself? I should think any gum-snapping, expletive-spewing art molester would lose interest in a person with actual principles and tastes; I should think that would be very typical.

          I turned slightly, squinting sideways at his profile, a not unattractive one. The wave of dark hair that hung from his cap was stippled with silver; his nose was strong, Romanesque. And I thought, then, for one depraved moment, that however selfish his act, it had been rather bold. That this man beside me, through the agency of his own foolish courage, had joined the ranks of the presumably few people ever to have touched The Starry Night. And I here shamefully admit that the action distinguished him in my mind, and that I had even begun to wonder about the others who might have touched it, when suddenly I found myself asking, "What did it feel like?" the words racing from my mouth before I could stop them. Immediately my cheeks flushed with heat; surely I had betrayed my thoughts with their utterance; he would have every right to chuckle now, triumphantly.

          But he did not chuckle, he merely stared into the center of the Matisse.

          "Stanley?"

          "It's hard ta explain."

          "Try."

          "You'll laugh," he said, turning to me with a seriousness I would have thought uncharacteristic.

          "No, I will not. Try."

          He looked ahead again. "I've been thinkin' about this, 'bout how I'd describe it."

          "Yes, and . . ."

          "It felt like a soul."

          "Like a what? A soul?" I believe I recoiled, physically. That such a simile should tumble so freely from his lips, that it should engender in my mind an image of such clarity, such enormity, I . . . saw the paint moving: smoky white wisps appearing, disappearing, tumbling, swirling, trafficking, endlessly, within the waves of the sky; transposed, under all that paint, the artist–just as I had felt the words of poems and stories betray their author's being, as if there, within the ink, within the paper itself, dwelled the living, breathing thing: he was the paint! he was the page! "Are you mocking me?"

          "I'm not mockin' you," I heard him say.

          And so might it not be worth it, then, I wondered, if just for one second, to really feel one's soul pour out of oneself; if just for one second, to really be filled by another's? Might it not be worth it? And if that was the best this existence had to offer, then must one not be ready to die for it? Must one not go rushing gladly toward that death? Oh yes, I answered, oh flow–yellow, orange, green, white; suck in through the grooves of his teeth. Come blue, come indigo, come red and violet; run over his tongue, seep down his throat. For I have been too rash, I have been much too rash.

          With new urgency, I looked to the senseless green insistence at the left of the canvas–senseless, and yet when I tried to imagine the painting without it, an uninterrupted gray room, a claustrophobia came over me. Yes! It would have failed, failed miserably. Yes! Yes! But as I turned to say something, anything to Stanley that would have communicated my understanding of his words, I discovered he was no longer beside me. He had stepped back a yard or two and was engaged, to my surprise, in the contemplation of a young man on the far side of the gallery, fair-haired, sporting a black polo shirt and a pair of khaki walking shorts. His legs were tanned, though he wore yellow socks, and as he walked quickly from painting to painting, he held his hands behind his back, clutching a newspaper.

          When Stanley broke his stare, he turned into my own–"Whoops!"–his eyes widening again in a chilling caricature of a schoolboy caught red-handed at some latest mischief. "Neva forget to admire the works of art that are walkin' aroun'," he added lightly, though I thought I detected more of a scarlet color to his cheeks than before. I must have glared; his eyes narrowed. "That doesn' botha you, does it?"

          Botha me? Not greatly. And if several months from now I had the misfortune to stop by the apartment unexpectedly and happen upon an attractive blond in the bedroom adjusting his trousers, it would still not botha me greatly. Resiliency is a woman's ability, I have heard it said. Or perhaps it is a curse, this stubborn picking up of oneself, this dusting off and straightening up, this readying for the next blow, and the next blow. All because I cannot keep myself from needing, because all that I have always wanted is to be in love. You must believe me when I say that. I'm sorry; it was so thick and chunky I couldn' help myself. Indeed.

          His eyes held me an instant longer, and I looked deeper into their golds and grays, down to the darker, spongelike recesses, down to the vast depths of the pupils, intricate and inexplicable. He was a terribly attractive man. "Museums make me horny," he admitted at last and, with a bright flash of teeth, bowed his head in mock shame.

          "Unnh!" The sound escaped from my throat. I had hoped not to entertain him with any reaction at all, but what did it matter now? I was free to turn, to walk briskly past the Klees, the Picassos, the Mirós, coming at last to the surrealists. Ahead lurked the final Magritte.

          All the character, I remember reading, of one of those psychological games in which one is supposed to make up one's own story from the image. Exposed and bleeding from her mouth on the bed, the woman is love; the hatless equivocal man gazing into the gramophone, her latest assassin; others wait their turn outside the room, one with a club, the second a net. Although the men-in-waiting always look the same, weekly their weapons change: a rope, a cleaver, a hammer. The woman's revivifications are brief, just long enough for her to re-dress while the men exchange places, long enough for the molestation, the disposal; I would imagine them quick, precise affairs.

          And then one week, oh yes, one week I am walking toward that last gallery, that final canvas, ready to stand in the face of its pessimism, my arm linked to the one who will invalidate it, only to discover that the painting has changed completely. The walls are the blue of affirmation; a couple sits peaceably upon the sofa, the antechamber empty, the view from the window pastoral, green. It will always have been that way.

          Where is he, mother? How much longer until I am free?

          A hand touched my shoulder. Turning, there again were the grays, the golds, such captivating eyes. They were Stanley's. A sinking renewed in my interior at the thought of the circles I had yet to make through those galleries, the signs I had yet to interpret, theories I had yet to formulate. At best, we would dine at a mediocre restaurant, perhaps share a bottle of mediocre wine; I would follow him to his apartment on the Upper West Side. In an hour, we would finish, and the nausea that physical sensation can no longer postpone would claim me. I would dress, and excuse myself in time for the twelve-forty train–a time of failure, disappointment, perhaps, but as I settled onto one of the cracked vinyl seats, as the bell rang for the car doors to close and the train jerked and pulled out of this hardscrabble city, a relief would come over me: a shedding of worries at the realization that Stanley had not been love, that love, when it finally did arrive–

          "Come. In an hour, we would come. Blow our fucken loads to kingdom come, come,

come–"

          Enough. Vulgar thing. Love, when it finally did arrive, would be something far more grand.

You could see the little war he was having with himself, should I or shouldn't I, all the while he was looking down at it. Then he mumbled something he thought I didn't hear: "You were not lying when you said you did not have HIV, were you?" I swear he mumbled that, and laughed this light, little crazy laugh. Poor guy; another second, and his devil got the best of him: he fell right to his knees and gobbled me down whole. And I mean whole; he just went at it, whining and grunting like a little starving animal, clutching up against my thighs so tight I thought he was going to try to climb inside them somehow. I gushed all over him, big creamy load. And when I finally was able to pry his mouth off me, he just did whatever I asked him to: lay on his belly across the couch, his right knee on the floor; said the line on cue. "Thata way," I told him. "Now smile, Cinderella."

"Please Do Not Touch the Works of Art" was first published in Puerto del Sol. It was reprinted in Best American Gay Fiction 3.