Thoreau in Love (36 page)

All at once it came clear to Henry that he wanted more than anything to be with Ben, to spend his life with Ben. And his mind went reeling to Concord, with images of him and Ben walking the streets, living in the attic aerie he’d shared with his brother, having breakfast with his family. For the briefest moment he thought warily of Ellery, but that thought was erased quickly by the image of swimming with Ben in Walden Pond. After a few minutes of holding Ben and thinking about a life with him in Concord, Ben broke the comfortable silence, saying, “I want to be a hedonist.”

Laughing, Henry sat up. “What?”

“I do.”

Henry said, “Do you even know what a hedonist is?” And immediately wished he hadn’t.

“Of course I know.” Ben lifted himself to his elbows. “You think I’m stupid, don’t you.”

“No, I’m sorry. That was stupid of me. The fact is, you know everything. Truly.”

“I want pleasure,” said Ben. “I want no more pain in my life.”

“I love you so much,” said Henry.

“I love you,” said Ben. “That’s why we have to go to Block Island, because a poet must write and live and have a lover. . . . Have you given any more thought to living on Block Island?” Of course Henry had, but he couldn’t utter a sound, so Ben said, “We could go to Concord if you like. But I don’t think you’re prepared for that.”

“Living with you in Concord? I don’t know. Maybe I am.”

Ben laughed. “Or maybe you’re not. Or maybe I’m not. But we don’t have to live with your parents. We could build a shack in the woods. Live simply.”

“I know just the place,” said Henry. “It’s on land Emerson wants to buy. I’m sure he’d let me use it.”

“Let me or let us?” asked Ben.

“Us.” Henry pulled on his trousers. “We could do that. Oh, Ben, it would be perfect. And there is something about Concord. Some sort of spirit or something. Like it’s a holy place. God, and a noisy house. My mother would like you. Not much fazes her. And she’s the only one that matters. And if anyone rocks the boat it’s her. She’s always getting into trouble for saying exactly what she’s thinking.”

“Like you.”

“I guess a bit. But I mostly hold my tongue.”

“Do you now? You could have fooled me.”

“Compared with my mother. She never stops talking, from the moment she wakes up in the morning till she falls asleep. But she falls asleep a lot, all day, morning, afternoon, evening.”

“Your mother falls asleep?”

“Not for very long. Then she wakes up and doesn’t even realize she was asleep. Sometimes she’ll be in the middle of a sentence, then she’s out.”

Henry described the family house in Concord, then said, “I can still smell the musty corners, that smell when you open a door . . . no, not a door, a book. A book that hasn’t been opened in so long. That’s what the house smells like. I love that smell. My mother at the piano, talking to whomever will listen. She’s the one supports the family; she takes care of the boarders while my father hides in his room making his pencils. Or sits quietly while my mother, my aunts and my sisters all talk at once. Of course, going there with you would rock everyone’s boat.”

“You come so alive when you talk about Concord.”

“And in the woods. Isn’t that what you said?”

“You know it’s true. But more when you talk about Concord.” Henry stood, gave Ben a hand, and as Ben came to his full height, he asked, “Are there any pansies in Concord?”

“Let’s go to the shore,” said Henry.

“No, are there?” asked Ben, still holding Henry’s hand.

“Pansies? No.”

“Not one?” said Ben, following Henry as they headed toward the shore. “You never got that feeling there, like when you’re with some man in a room and you know there’s something more going on than just two people being in a room together?”

And of course Henry had. He told Ben he had often felt that way with Waldo. “And when I met Giles I wondered if something had happened between him and Waldo and if Waldo wanted me to get in touch with him because he wanted me to live the life he knew he couldn’t.”

“Why couldn’t?”

“Well,” said Henry. “Because he’s Emerson. He’s got a reputation. If anyone even thought, for one moment, that he was a pansy, his whole life would be ruined. He’s Emerson.”

“So, because he’s ‘Emerson,’ he can’t be Emerson. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

“Well, yes. And you know it’s true.”

“Anyone else?”

“Well, there’s Channing.”

“Ellery Channing, right?”

“Yes. Ellery. All Ellery wants to talk about is sex. We translate the Greeks for each other. But he just moved there.”

“That Concord’s a regular garden of pansies, isn’t it?”

“But they’re not pansies. They’re all married.” Ben and Henry looked at each other and broke up laughing. And then Henry said, “Well, except Channing, though in fact he’s married too. He and his wife moved to Concord, and two weeks later, he left her. That rocked the boats. And Waldo, well, Waldo would like you.”

Giving a weak-wristed pansy wave, Ben said, “I bet he would.” Again, there was such truth to what he said that they both broke up and laughed nearly the rest of the way to the shore.

On the beach they sat on a log with their feet buried in the hot sand, and for a long while gazed quietly at the sea and all the ships and boats passing by. Inside, Henry was roiling with thoughts about Ben, about giving up his life to go with Ben to Block Island. Then Ben jumped up and said, “Let’s go for a swim.”

They stripped off their clothes and ran over the hot sand to the water’s edge, where they stopped short in the ankle-deep water. “Still freezing,” said Henry.

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” said Ben, and he flopped into the sea. And rose up out of the navel-deep water, shivering and shaking. “It’s really not so bad,” he said through chattering teeth. “Come on in, Henry.”

“You’re insane,” said Henry.

Ben raised his right arm over his head, pulled an imaginary rope and made the sound of a steam whistle. “Full steam ahead!”

“Full steam ahead,” said Henry. He dived in, grabbed Ben and pulled him under—and immediately surfaced, gasping for breath with Ben in his arms. “It’s like ice!” he exclaimed and, letting go of Ben, high-stepped through the water to the shore. Ben followed, laughing. Henry sat back on the log and made fun of Ben’s shriveled-up cock, which Ben then shook in front of Henry’s face. Henry held himself in an attempt to stop shivering. “Shouldn’t the ocean be warm?”

“You’d think so,” said Ben. He sat beside Henry, the two of them shivering and laughing and tickling and touching each other until the sun warmed and dried them.

After they put on their clothes and sat back against the log, Henry regretted saying what he had about their living in Concord. “What was I thinking?” he said aloud. And Ben, understanding Henry was having second thoughts, said casually, “We don’t have to go to Concord. But I can’t stay here.” Henry, deep in thought, nodded. And Ben, infused with a new enthusiasm, said, “What about the west? St. Louis? The Oregon Trail? There’s plenty of forests out there.”

“You mean me?”

“Yes, you Henry. You and me.” Henry didn’t know what to say, so he sat in stony silence. Ben said, “I guess the real, the only question is, Do you really want to be with me?”

After grimacing and balling his fists, Henry sputtered, “If you need an answer, if you really need an answer now, I’m not ready. I’m sorry. I’m just not.”

“Ready?”

“To go west or off to some island I’ve only seen in the misty distance with someone I’ve known not even a couple of months. I’m sorry.”

Ben was floored. “What?” His mouth agape, shaking his head, not knowing what to say, he repeated, “What?”

“I wish I knew a better way to say it.”

“You wish you knew a better way to. . . ?” Ben slid down the log away from Henry. “I always thought you were just afraid, but it’s not fear. I just realized. . . . You know what’s wrong with you Henry? Your heart is hard. . . . You don’t even get what I say, do you?”

Henry did get what Ben said, but he was too devastated to speak. “You’re hard-hearted, Henry.” Ben’s voice was rising and as his passion increased he stood and stepped back. “You want to be a writer? You think you can write about people, even yourself, with your hard heart? Do you feel passion for anything? Do you feel anything?”

All Henry could think was, Oh God, what have I done?

“I should have known, when you told me that story about your brother, about your brother and Ellen. He was in love with her. And how you very casually won her heart. How could you do that? How could you do that to your own brother? Have you no feelings? Christ Almighty, your heart is stone. What a fool I am. To think . . . I got to get out of here.”

And with that, Ben ran off toward the marsh. On the top of the dune he turned to yell something at Henry, thought better of it and disappeared behind the dune.

For the longest time Henry sat, unable to move. Then, as if nothing was wrong, as if Ben hadn’t just cut him to his core, Henry lifted himself off the log and stumbled over the dune into the marsh, hoping Ben was waiting for him there. But Ben was nowhere to be seen. Henry ran for a bit, but his breath became short and he coughed up phlegm and had to slow down. When he got back to the long brown house he hoped Ben was inside and that all was forgiven. He walked through the front door as if nothing was amiss and went quietly up the stairs. When he got to the attic, he saw Ben sitting on the bed with his face in his hands. Quietly, Henry said, “Just not now, Ben. That’s all I meant to say.”

“Not now and never are the same for you.”

Not knowing what to say and wanting to warm the air between them, Henry said, “Will you go on your own, to Block Island?”

Incredulously, Ben said, “What?” Then, quietly, shaking his head, “What is wrong with you? Can you really be that hard-hearted? You don’t get it, do you?” Henry stood quietly, afraid to say anything for fear he’d make it worse than it was. Ben went on. “What would be the point, Henry, of me going alone? It was so that we, you and I—you know, Henry, sometimes I . . . no, no. No more. I’ll just. . . . I only came upstairs because I thought I had my sea bag. I forgot I just came out here for one day. I’ll just go. Goodbye, Henry. You’re breaking my heart.”

Susan, befuddled after Ben thanked her and asked her to say goodbye to the boys, said to Henry, “Why did he have to leave in such a rush? I thought he’d stay longer.”

Standing beside Susan as Ben hurried down the road, trying to pretend everything was normal, that Ben hadn’t left in a huff, that his world hadn’t just ended, Henry said, “I have to lay down. I can’t keep my eyes open. Must be the heat.”

Henry lay down on his bed and fell fast asleep, but not for long, and when he woke he tried to make his mind a blank or think about Stearns or Edmund, even Bea—anyone but Ben and all the things he’d just said. He tried to imagine he was at the bottom of a deep well, but the images of Ben, angry Ben, furious Ben, hurt Ben, Ben’s back as he stamped off, flashed through his mind, and the emptiness in his gut wouldn’t go away. Worse than wouldn’t go away. It grew. And no matter how he curled into himself or held himself, he couldn’t squeeze out his painful, empty insides. He tried to throw up, heave it out, but that just left him emptier. When he dozed off again, his only thought was, Oh Lord, what have I done? What have I done?

When he awoke a while later, the cannon from the forts around the harbor were once more disturbing the peace, their reports concussing the air. Henry bolted to sitting. “God I hate that. Who are you trying to impress?” His anger grew with every report, but then it hit him that his anger at the cannon was merely a ruse to keep him from feeling the overwhelming emptiness hanging in the air, the minutes and hours, the days yawning before him, the truth of Ben saying his heart was hard, the awful truth that Ben was gone.

18

From the southwest a dry heat swept over Staten Island, browning the lawns and the meadows and parching the roads so that whenever a horse or carriage went by, dust filled the air. The days were sunny but not oppressively hot, and the nights were cool, the worst kind of weather for sadness. With nothing to blame their misery on, the inhabitants of the Snuggery moped around, looking for things to keep themselves busy. When Henry wasn’t dozing, and he was dozing everywhere—at his desk, on his bed, giving lessons, at the dinner table, against this tree trunk or that, on the soft mat of the forest—he trekked the island. Every day he tried to convince himself that he was better off without Ben, that Ben would have just brought problems, but deep down he knew that Ben had brought him life.

Though he had no desire to seek out Ralph, he often hoped on his way through the woods and the marsh to the seashore, that he would find him there. Anything to divert him from thinking about Ben or about how he’d betrayed his brother. Or maybe he’d be able to tell Ralph about Ben, unload the awful weight crushing him down. And one afternoon, the sunshine was blinding and there wasn’t a breeze, but there was Ralph, and though Henry thought they’d somehow have to patch things up between them, apparently, there was nothing to patch up.

“Henry Thoreau! I’m so glad to see you. You won’t believe what has happened to me. Oh glorious God, I’ve been dying to tell you. After I saw you last, that very day, I went for my carriage and there was a new boy at the stables, fresh from Ireland, light curly hair—an Adonis.” Henry couldn’t have cared less, but he pretended to be fascinated. “I was already late for my appointment, but he seemed in no rush at all. He spoke of the weather, the health of my horse, how handsome I looked.” Ralph’s eyes bulged. “Every thing he said, about me, my horse, the carriage, was fraught with lewd references. And each time I turned to get in my carriage, he turned me back with one hand, so I faced him, and with his other he adjusted himself in his pants. I’ve never seen someone adjusting himself so in his pants. To the right, pull it here, lift it up. Finally I said, ‘I wish I could stay but I really must go.’ And he said, ‘Here, let me help you.’ Henry, he reached between my legs, one hand from the front, the other from behind, and he clasped his hands together, between my legs, and lifted me by my crotch.” Ralph was breathless, in ecstasy. “I rose up, as if I was being resurrected, given a new life. I’ve never felt anything like it. Onto the step, into the seat, I didn’t know how I got there. I turned, and there was Gregory, smiling lewdly, holding his erect organ in his trousers. I snapped the reins and rushed off, but the whole of my appointment all I could think about was the feel of his hands between my legs, lifting me.”