SCENE FOUR
Now Artie roared with laughter and the sound was both very welcome, because it had been a while since he heard it, and sad to Jim, because he was only dreaming it.
When Artie stopped laughing, and was breathing deep himself, wiping at his eyes, he turned those flashing dark-bright eyes on Jim and shook his head like a father would at his little boy for fibbing. '' Nice gag, there, Jim, but, sorry, no sale.'' Artie said. ''Sorry, you just didn't draw it out long enough to go over as a con. You're still no match for…''
'' The Master, I know, Artie. I know. But you still haven't asked why I'd say I … why I'd say that at all?'' Jim told him.
'' Because you like to make me laugh so hard it almost hurts?'' Artemus guessed.
''Well, I do. But that wasn't the reason, this time.'' Jim shook his head, sighing at the way this was going.
''All right. So now you are going to draw this out some more. Okay, you said all that because you want to get out of going to that new production of 'Faust' I've been talking your ears off about?'' Artie guessed, still grinning in the knowing way Jim had always wished he could memorize.
'' Nope.'' Jim shook his head, again.
''You want to go with me to see that new production of 'Faust'?'' Artie offered.
''Nope.'' Another head shaking.
'' You've got Jere or Frank, or both of them, stashed in the next room and they bet you twenty dollars cold, hard cash you couldn't scam me?'' the former actor demanded.
'' No. But thanks, Artie, I'll have to try that, sometime. Give up, yet?'' Jim asked.
'' Why, isn't this another session of twenty questions?'' Jim's partner asked in turn.
'' I didn't think it would take as many as that, partner, so no, again.'' West told him.
''You have a low, wicked, appalling and depraved mind, James, and you've got some lovely young thing, eagerly waiting for you across town. So you need to get me mad enough to forget we were going to that new production of 'Faust'?'' Artie suggested, laughing.
''Yes to the first part, no to the second, and maybe, but not really to the third. I … like watching you watch a play, Artie. You're like a kid with a new toy when you do that; a little kid, who wants to see every bit of it, and then take it apart to find out how it works.'' Jim answered.
''Oh, I'm fun to watch, am I? Well so are you, sometimes, partner. Like now, when you're almost working up a sweat trying to play some sort of shell game with the guy who practically invented that noble, early form of … commerce.'' Artemus told him, peering at Jim as if the younger man had suddenly turned purple.
''Commerce, Artie?'' Jim laughed. '' I like that. I do. But you're getting kind of off the track here. Don't you want to know what I'm really talking about?''
'' Well, all right. What on earth makes you think you're better at all those things than I am, James?'' Artie demanded.
'' Because, I am. Because I've worked all these years to make sure that you don't find out, that you didn't know, and that n-nobody in the Service, or the Army or my family kn-knows… th-that I … '' Jim sighed and made a deep study of his boot tips for another moment, profoundly chagrined to hear his boyhood stutter coming back. '' That I love you.''
''Well, Jim, I'm … you're like a brother to me, too!'' the actor exclaimed. ''But, thanks, it's always nice to …''
'' No, no, not a brother, Artemus. You didn't hear what I was saying, then.'' Jim insisted, even if this was no more than a dream, it was his dream and it might be the only way he could ever make this 'confession'. '' I said 'l love you'. I don't like the way you watch a play that was another lie. I …I love it. I don't just like the way you're as open and curious as a child about … everything you come across. I love that, too.
I love the way you put all the force of your gaze…your incredibly compelling gaze, on one face or form, or object. I love the way you drink in everything and everyone around you. I love the way you can concentrate at will, every drop of energy in your whole, entire frame on … whatever or whoever you want to catch and hold in … your eyes, your dark, bright eyes.''
''Jim, '' the actor said very, very quietly now, in this dream.
''Artie, I've gotten this started now, and I don't think I'll be able to … start up again, if I stop… And I can't. I have to… I have to tell you… That I love, so very much how you can create an intensity of purpose so strong it can be felt a city block, a half mile, or a few leagues, if not farther away. And all of that doesn't even go into how much I love the way you can … move down a flight of stairs, or across a ball room or a barroom as silently and swiftly, and seemingly lazily, as a wildcat, when you decide to, when you need to… when I need you to…
I love the way you use your incredibly, powerfully eloquent hands to make a whole room, a whole theatre, a whole town square full of gents or rubes, of swells or society grand dames, nearly swoon with a gesture … of pure desolation or determination …of out-and-out despondency or… desire… I love the way you can pull a quote from Shakespeare, or Marlowe, or Caesar's Gallic Wars, or Herodotus' … or Homer, or … more writers than I could list in a month of Sundays, as if out of thin air and have it be just the one that fits that moment… I love the way you made an impetuous, rigid, damn fool of a Regular Army regs-quoting martinet begin to ease up and act like a human being… And l love … the way you embrace a friend… and just… fill up all their empty spaces and lonely corners and hidden places with your own fierce, fiery warmth.
And I love that you've trusted me enough for … all this time to tell me about your ima, and when she got sick and died because she'd been nursing half the kids in the tenements around where you lived, and that she wanted you to be a rabbi, but you wanted to be a cantor, and you … were barred from being either one… And I'm grateful and I love that you trusted me enough to tell me you were named for an uncle who was still in Grodek, and a cousin who was in living in the City before your grandparents, your ima and your Aunt Miri arrived, so you were named Adamech Elisha Auriel… Gorniak, when you were circumcised…
I love all those things, and I love you, Artemus Alastair Lachlan Gordon, And Artemus, I … I need you to … hold still now… Just, you know, hold still… there's something … there's something I need… I want to do… please, don't… say a damn word, right now… okay? I can't… do this if you're talking… ''
Artie opened his mouth to answer and then something that Jim in the dream could see in his dark, bright eyes, shifted and understood what Jim was asking. The older man drew a deep breath, giving Jim one of his trademark world-weary sighs.
Jim put one hand on each of Artemus's strong shoulders and trying not to break the mood with his own nervous laughter or bad jokes, slid across the chaise he was sleeping on, close and still closer to his partner. Their eyes were locked now, until Jim cocked his head to one side and inched his way to press his mouth against Artemus's.
The whole mirror dream was feeling more and more real, and Jim thought briefly, while tasting the actor's honeyed-wine mouth, that he should be worried about that. This was something he'd never imagined doing, Jim started to think, and then he knew he was wrong about that, too. Because now Jim knew he'd felt this longing when they first met, without recognizing or understanding it. He'd felt it whenever he walked past as the actor agent was intently studying/observing someone, anyone… With all the strength and all the hunger and all the longing of that memory and so many others now crowding his thoughts, Jim held on, held close and held fast while he kissed Artemus as deeply as he knew how.
Drawing a shaky breath, Jim only broke the kiss because his dreaming mind was alive with fear that the older man would be repulsed, no matter what Artemus said. But Artie said nothing at all for such a long moment after the younger man drew away from their kiss that Jim began to be afraid all over again. The actor was just drawing a deep breath, the soldier-agent guessed, to lambaste him, but good! This started out as just a strange, perhaps a partly left over hallucination sort of dream. Now it was drifting, no, now it was flowing swiftly in the direction of a genuine nightmare. And still Jim West wasn't sure whether or not he truly wanted to look away, much less wake up.
'' Artie, ''Jim finally said very quietly. ''Artemus, 'm sorry…well there it is, out in the open… Your partner… your no doubt soon to be former partner's … an… invert… I'm … an invert… who just happens to have tripped headfirst, heart first, rather, over the realization that he … that I … love you, Artemus. Well, all right, all right! There's your cue to run the other way, or shout, or curse me out, or knock me on my backside! I shouldn't have … ever… said … or done … any of that…you couldn't, you wouldn't ever… want anything of the kind from… from me! Ah G-d, I'm an idiot!
No, no, I'm worse than an idiot! I'm … a bloody fool! I am. Because right now, right this minute; I still want you to hold…I need you to hold me… Artemus, again, close… And that … scares th' blue blazes out of me, Artie. But it doesn't scare me nearly as much as you, going quiet … like you just did. So, no matter what you need to say… to me, now… Say something, please, Artemus.''