Page 109 of Exquisite Things
“Because of people like you. As long as there are humans, there will be—”
Jack yelps in agony. Then screams, “I’ll hunt you down until I die. I’ll tell my children to hunt you down after that. You will NEVER be safe.”
“Oliver! Now!” Archie hollers.
We rush past revelers dancing away the first day of a new year. Past pubs full of beer drinkers. Chants ofHappy New Year.Across the bridge. Past a group of adolescents blasting Spandau Ballet from a boom box. Music born out of the blitz of our lives.Oh, look at the strange boy. He finds it hard existing. To cut a long story short. I lost my mind.
Past piles of trash. Past last year’s last newspapers blowing in the wind. My eyes land on headlines that will either shape futures or be forgotten. Martial law in Poland. Redistricting in New York. Sanctions against the Soviet Union. Water pollution. Record high unemployment in the Netherlands. The first test-tube baby born in Virginia. More gay men dying mysteriously.
“Is anyone behind us?” Bram asks.
Archie looks back. “I don’t think so,” he says.
“Keep running!” I yell.
We go forward. There’s no going back anymore. If we had any innocence left, it’s gone now. We run past the river that flows into the North Sea, south toward what I know is our home no longer. Life will be escape again. Happiness is past tense.
Bram. London. 2025.
I try to stop Oliver from telling Tobi our secrets. But Oliver is resolute. “You’ve made decisions for us in the past without my consultation. Now it’s my turn. Do you want to know our story, Tobi?”
Tobi nods. “I do. I really do.”
Oliver takes Tobi’s hand in his. “Good. Because I’m tired of living in the shadows. Always hiding my true self. Bram, you can join us. Or you can leave. It’s up to you. But I think Tobi here deserves the whole truth. Was Lily your mother, Tobi?”
Tobi’s eyes well up at the mention of Lily. “She took me in during my transition. Helped me find the right doctors.”
Oliver smiles. “I’m happy to hear that. You realize that makes us brothers.”
Tobi lets out a sad, raspy laugh. “Brothers. Sure.” He sharpens his words. He needs answers. “Why did you both disappear? Why are you still so young? What is all this?”
Oliver speaks quickly. Breathlessly. “Thisbegins a long time ago. Come to think of it, this begins before even I was born. In the nineteenth century.”
“The nineteenth century?” Tobi throws his hands up into the air. “The fuck!”
“The fuck is right.” I can’t help but laugh. I can feel Lily’s spirit in Tobi. “I suppose I should begin, since it starts with me. Why don’t we walk toward where it all happened? Claridge’s.”
“The posh hotel in Mayfair?” Tobi seems confused by this.
“That’s the one. Shall we walk?”
And so we stroll. Three brothers. Secrets revealed. Lives relived. I tell Tobi about my mother who died when I was born. My father, who hated me for it. James at the St. James. My desperate wish to be alive in a time and place where I could love freely. Oliver tells Tobi of his mother’s love. His cousin Brendan. Harvard. The Golden Rooster. A whole lost world that did more than exist. A world that wasalive.
And then: London.
Our golden years.
That time when we were happy.
For a time.
We tell him everything as we near Mayfair. Lily. Maud. Tuesdays at the Blitz. Brixton. Pearl’s shebeen. The uprising. Heaven. Hell. Jack. Our escape.
We enter Claridge’s. We ride up the elevator next to an old man holding a cane. The lines on his face tell a story. I don’t know its details yet. But I see the pain. The love. The regrets. He holds the elevator door open for us with his cane.
I’m reminded of Jack’s cane. The blade he threatened Archie with. Jack died not long after we escaped him in Heaven. Heart attack. Full-page obituary in theNew York Times. Gushing praise for his leadership of the pharmaceutical company his father started. Quotes from global leaders about the lives saved by Whitman & Whitman’s medicines. No mention of his experiments to cure homosexuality. His children took over after his death. Under theirleadership, Whitman & Whitman has only grown more powerful. Curing hair loss. Erectile dysfunction. Injections to stop wrinkles and to fill sagging skin. Collagen and silicone. Opioids. Lawsuits. The eternal dance of industry. In interviews, the Whitman heirs have promised to find the code to eternal youth “any day now.” But that day hasn’t come. Yet. Despite their best efforts. Jack kept his promise in death. His childrenhavetried to find us. I’ve been followed by unmarked cars in Lagos and in Bangkok. Narrowly escaped both times. We’ve been running away from them for over forty years now.
Jack wasn’t the serial killer preying on London boys. The killer, Dennis Nilsen, was arrested in 1983. And Jack didn’t have anything to do with AIDS, though his children do distribute HIV medicines. Perhaps if the police had cared about queers, Dennis Nilsen wouldn’t have killed so many boys before he was caught. Perhaps if governments cared about queers, HIV could have been contained before it spread. But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world where history seems to crash into itself at every moment. A world where viruses and violence and love and community all coexist and always will.
