Ch. 2
Blaine woke up suddenly after a few hours to an itch on his leg. Of course it was in the leg that was in a cast. He squirms, tries to move the leg a little but it gives no relief. He tries scratching the outside of the cast, but it gets worse. He reaches for a long, Chinese back scratcher lying on the windowsill. Carefully, and with considerable ingenuity, he works it under the cast. He scratches, and a look of sublime relief comes over his face. Satisfied, he takes the scratcher out. As he replaces it on the windowsill, his attention is drawn back to the scene outside the window.
Karofsky left his apartment and was working on his small patch of flowers. They were beautiful, multi-color three foot high zinnias. He kneels down, inspects them, touches them affectionately and with some kind of pride. His anger seems to have left him, replaced by some kind of peace that flowers bring to many people. He stands up, carefully hoes the ground, then rakes it. Then he snips off a few leaves from the lower parts of the plant. Finally, he waters them.
Blaine's attention is turned to something else of interest.
Into the next door yard, Blaine sees the Artie emerge from the apartment underneath the dancer. He comes out carrying a copy of the Herald Tribune and wearing sunglasses. Prepared for reading in the hot sun. He sees Karofsky working on his flowers and wheels himself over to the fence. The Artie begins gesturing to him how to take care of his flowers. Karofsky listens for a moment, then directly looks at the him. Blaine can tell by the strong movements of his mouth that he vigorously objects the man his comments. Artie wheels away from the fence, a little shocked.
Behind him, Blaine can hear the door of his apartment open but he doesn't turn around to greet the new comer.
"The New York sentence for a peeping Tom is six months in the workhouse!" shouted the newcomer.
"Hello Sebastian," replies Blaine, still not turned around.
As he is coming down the stairs of the landing Sebastian says, "And there aren't windows in the workhouse."
He puts his bag down on a table. It is worn, and looks as if it belongs more to a fighter than a physical therapist. He takes off his hat and coat and hangs them on a chair.
"Years ago, they used to put out your eyes with a hot poker," said Sebastian, "Is knowing what everyone's life is like worth a hot poker?"
Blaine doesn't answer. Sebastian opens the bag, takes out some medical supplies: a thermometer, a stop watch, a bottle of rubbing oil, a can of powder, and a towel. He talks as he works.
"We've all grown to be a race of peeping Toms. What people should do is stand outside their own houses and look in once and a while. What do you think of that homespun philosophy?"
Finally turning to face him, Blaine responds with, "Readers' Digest, April, 1939."
Smirking, Sebastian takes a thermometer out of his case and shakes it a few times. He looks at it and is satisfied with its appearance and walks to Blaine. Blaine grimaces as Sebastian shoves it into his mouth.
"Really Seb?"
"Ten bucks says you can't break a hundred," replies Sebastian.
He leaves Blaine to hold the thermometer to set up the divan. All the while saying, "I shoulda been a Gypsy fortune teller, instead of a physical therapist. I got a nose for trouble, can smell it ten miles away."
Turning to look at Blaine he asks, "You heard of the stock market crash in '29?"
Blaine nods a bored 'yes'.
"I predicted it."
Around the thermometer, Blaine asks, "How?"
Sebastian stops for a moment and looks at Blaine challenging.
"Simple. I was nursing a director of General Motors. Knee problems they said. Nerves, I said. Then I asked my myself, what's General Motors gotta be nervous about? Overproduction. Collapse, I answered. When General Motors has to walk with a limp, the whole country's ready to let go."
A patient, suffering look comes over Blaine's face. He takes out the thermometer.
"Seb, in economics, a knee problem has no relationship to the stock market. Absolutely none."
"It crash, didn't it?"
Blaine has no answer. Defeated, he put the thermometer back into his mouth while Sebastian goes back to work and says, "I can smell trouble in this apartment. You broke your leg. You look out the window. You see things you shouldn't. Trouble. I can see you now, in front of the judge, flanked by lawyers in blue double-breasted suits. You're pleading, 'Judge, it was only innocent fun. I love my neighbors like a father'. The Judge answers, 'Congratulations. You just gave birth to three years in Dannemora'.
After Sebastian has finished making the divan, he walks over the Blaine, takes out the thermometer and looks at it.
Breaking the silence, Blaine responds with, "Right now I'd even welcome trouble."
"You've got a hormone deficiency," said Sebastian flatly.
"How can you tell that from a thermometer?"
"That picture of your sexy lover boy there hasn't raised your temperature in four weeks."
Sebastian cleans the thermometer with a of alcohol-soaked cotton ball. He then gets behind the wheelchair and pushes it over to the divan. He puts the thermometer away in its case. Then, he helps Blaine take off his pajama top. He then helps Blaine stand on one foot and sets him on the divan.
"I think you're right. There is going to be some trouble around here."
Sebastian takes a handful of oil and slaps it on his back. Blaine winces.
"I knew it!"
"Don't you ever heat that stuff up?" complains Blaine.
Beginning to message his back, he says, "Gives your circulation something to fight. What kind of trouble?"
"Kurt Hummel."
"You've got to be kidding. A beautiful young man like him, and you, sex on a stick. What trouble can there be?"
"He expects me to marry him," said Blaine dreadfully.
"That's normal."
"I don't want to."
Slapping him again with the cold oil, Sebastian responds with, "That's abnormal."
"I'm not ready for marriage," fired back Blaine, wincing from the cold.
"Nonsense. A man is always ready for marriage, with the right person. And Kurt Hummel is the guy for any man with half a brain, who can get one eye open."
Indifferently, Blaine says, "He's all right."
"Behind every ridiculous statement is always hidden to true cause. What is it? You have a fight?"
"No."
After a pause, Sebastian asks, "His father load up the shotgun?"
"Seb!"
"It's happen before, you know! Some of the world's happiest marriages have started 'under the gun' you might say."
With a deep sigh, Blaine says, "He's just not the man for me."
"He's only perfect," reasons Sebastian.
"Too perfect. Too beautiful, too talented, too sophisticated, too everything, but what I want."
"If what you want something you can discuss?" asks Sebastian.
Blaine gives an exasperated look.
"It's simple. He belongs in that rarefied atmosphere of Park Avenue, expensive restaurants, and literary cocktail parties."
Sebastian fires back with, "People with sense can belong wherever they're put."
"Yeah, but can you see him tramping around the world with a camera but who never has more than a week's salary in the bank?" asked Blaine.
They then fell into a silence. Sebastian understood. He had that same thought process before he married Chandler. He understood the feeling like the one person you love more than anything would be better off with someone else. Sebastian has seen how Kurt looks at Blaine and he just hopes Blaine would pull his head out of his ass and see that Kurt doesn't want anyone else. Once he was done with Blaine's back, he helped him get his shirt back on and back into the wheelchair.
"So, you're never gonna get married?"
"Probably. But when I do, it'll be to someone who thinks of life as more than a new suit, a lobster dinner, and the latest scandal. I need a man who'll go anywhere, do anything, and love it."
Sebastian swings him around in front of the window Blaine starts to look out and says with less conviction, "The only honest thing to do is call it off. Let him look for somebody else."
Trying to lighten the mood, Sebastian says, "I can just hear you now. 'Get out of here you perfect, wonderful man! You're too good for me!"
"That's the hard part."
Frustrated, Sebastian responds with, "Look, Mr. Anderson. I'm not educated. I'm not sophisticated. But I can tell you this, when two people see each other, and like each other, they should come together, like two taxies on Broadway. Not sit around studying each other like specimens in at bottle."
"There's an intelligent way to approach marriage."
"Intelligence," scoffs Sebastian, "Nothing as caused the human race more trouble. Modern marriage!"
Blaine swings his chair to look at him and says, "We've progressed emotionally in..."
"Bullshit," interrupts Sebastian, "Once it was see somebody, get excited, get married. Now it's read books, fence with four syllables, psychoanalyze each other until you can't tell a petting party from a civil service exam."
"People have different emotional levels that..."
Interrupting again, Sebastian says, "Ask for trouble and you get it. Why there's a good boy in my neighborhood who went with a nice girl across the street for three years. Then he refused to marry her. Why? Because she only scored sixty one on a Look Magazine marriage quiz!"
Blaine smiled at that, so Sebastian continued, "When I married Chandler, we were both maladjusted misfits. We still are. And we've loved every minute of it."
After awhile, Blaine responds with, "That's fine Seb. Now would you please make me a sandwich?"
Sebastian relaxes.
"Fine, but I'm going to spread some common sense on the bread. Kurt Hummel's loaded to her fingertips with love for you. I'll give you two words of advice. Marry him."
"He pay you much?"
Sebastian leave for the kitchen in a huff. Blaine turns this chair to see what has happened to Artie and Karofsky.
Artie is now asleep in his deck chair with his wheelchair next to him and his Herald Tribune covering his face. There is no sign of Karofsky any where. Blaine's eyes travel up to Brittany's window and sees her sitting in front of an upright mirror. Dreamily, and methodically, she is brushing her long golden hair.
Blaine's eyes are suddenly turned in in another direction, sharply to his left.
He is now looking at the windows of the apartment nearest to him. A shade has gone up, and an Indian man, obviously a caretaker is raising a window with some effort. Having accomplished this, he turns back into the room, and Blaine now sees him approach a young man and woman who are just standing inside the doorway. He hands a key to the young man, and then obligingly brings in two suitcases which he places on the floor beside them. He gives them a studied, but agreeable nod, then departs.
Blaine now notices the girl has a small hat with a veil, and an ornate corsage pinned to her light blue tailored suit. The young man wears a dark blue serge suit and a grey felt hat. He takes off the hat and scales it over to a nearby chair. Quickly they are in each other's arms, kissing passionately, crushing the girl's corsage and pushing her hat back a little. They part, the young man laughs nervously, and takes a furtive glance out toward the corridor. He looks back into the room, and beckons her to come out. She follows him wonderingly. For a moment, both are lost from Blaine's sight. When the newlyweds reappear, he is carrying her in his arms, over the threshold. He sets her down, closes the door, and they kiss again.
They part, still holding hands and looking into each other's eyes. Then slowly, and significantly, she looks toward the open window. He releases her hands, goes to the window and pulls down the shade, as she is reaching upward with both hands to unpin her hat.
There is a soft, understanding look on Blaine's face, and he gives an involuntary sigh. He is unaware that Sebastian is now standing behind him
"Window shopper," whispers Sebastian.
Blaine jumps as Sebastian chuckles and leaves the apartment.