Travelling Home Ch. 01

Chapter 1: Stockholm

[June 2010]

The first time I realized that my dad wasn't always right, I was eight years old. He told me that bullies always back down when challenged, and I found out that just wasn't so, or at least not when the challenger is about a head shorter than said bully and happens to be the shiest kid in third grade. Still, when I look back at that morning -- or maybe it was afternoon, not all the details are clear any more -- I'm kinda proud of the little guy lying flat on his back in the middle of the school playground and gingerly wiping his bloody nose and upper lip with the cuff of his sleeve. It was the first time I stood up for myself, showed everybody that I would not be pushed around, that I, Jordan Petersen, was a force, albeit not an overwhelming one, to be reckoned with.

I wasn't the only new kid in third grade that year. That was the nature of the American Community Schools in Athens. They were there to educate the children of soldiers and other American expats, who were posted in Greece for a period of time, so kids came and went all the time. For some reason, though, I was immediately tagged as an outsider. Maybe it was because I didn't speak English very well, or that I'd lived in Athens most of my life. I'd barely even heard of London or Tokyo, let alone of Patrick Henry Village. I'd never seen a game of football or baseball, not that I could remember, and at first I would respond in Greek when somebody spoke to me, not realizing that not everybody in the world switches between the two languages like I did with my mom and older sister (though never with my dad). I don't even know why my parents decided to yank me out of Greek school and send me to ACS in third grade; I think mostly because my Greek mom knew how happy it would make my American dad, who'd left everything familiar behind to be with her, to have a more American son.

Until the day of the incident, David Ives had more or less ignored me. Most kids had, at least until our teacher noticed that I was squinting to see the blackboard, told my parents, and I showed up that fateful day wearing glasses. A couple of kids made fun of me, then it seemed like they all did, even the ones that wore glasses themselves. At first the teasing didn't bother me, at least not much more than being ignored did, but by the time David picked on me, I'd had just about enough.

David was the biggest kid in third grade, a natural leader. I think his dad worked for a bank, rather than the military, and David could say hello in four or five languages. I don't think he was really a bully, at least not in the sense that he picked on the weaker kids, or stole their lunch money or anything. It's just that he knew his size was part of his advantage, and he wasn't averse to using it. When he teased me, I shoved him, both hands on his chest, barely pushing him one step backward, and he shoved me back, knocking me on my ass. He turned away, already having lost interest in me, not expecting me to come back at him. To this day I don't know why I did it; maybe it came from reading too many of my sister's comic books, and wanting to be a hero for once, like Superman or Captain America. I jumped to my feet and shoved him again, making him stumble forward. So he turned around and cold-cocked me.

I imagine that by the middle of fifth grade David must have been relieved to see the last of me. By that point, he was almost two heads taller than me, and we got into scuffles at least two or three times a month. For some reason, I'd concentrated all my resentment on him, all those hot feelings that I didn't know how to deal with otherwise, about being an outsider, about not being good at sports or even understanding the rules, about being shy and being made fun of for everything from my Greek accent to my glasses to the lumpy wool scarf that my grandmother had knitted for me and that my mom made me wear to school every day in the winter. When he'd see me approaching to pick a fight, he'd get a bored look on his face, almost like beating me up was just another school assignment he needed to take care of. One of the last times we fought, he even reached down to pick me up and set me on my feet and he patted me on the shoulder, as if to show me that it was nothing personal on his side. I like to think that what I saw in his eyes that day was reluctant admiration, instead of the firm conviction that he was dealing with a nut job.

One day David didn't show up. It wasn't uncommon for kids to leave in the middle of the school year, but we generally had a going-away party for them, and we'd have cake, and talk about the next place their dad was being sent to, and somebody would say that they'd been there, or had a pen-pal or something, and that it would be fun. Kids didn't just vanish from one day to the next like David did. Later somebody said that his father had died, and that his mom had taken him back to the States.

Sixth grade I begged my parents to send me back to Greek school, so that I could be with my friends from the neighborhood, and they did. There I found that, once again, I didn't quite fit in. Maybe it was the three years in a different school system, maybe it was my American name at a time when Americans weren't really liked in Greece, maybe it was something else entirely. Most probably, it was just me. I wasn't exactly unhappy, but I always felt that I had to compensate for the fact that I was somehow different than the others. Standing out, even in a good way, made me feel uncomfortable.

I haven't thought of David Ives in almost forty years, at least not as anything other than one small, though oddly significant, part of my childhood. It's certainly strange to be thinking of him now, as I stand against a wall in a ballroom in the Stockholm Sheraton, a strategic one-step distance from one of the open bars. I hate the inevitable networking events that follow the mind-numbing hours of power point presentations that pose as professional conferences, but since the company is paying for my attendance, I feel duty-bound to hang around and give anybody who wants to network with me the opportunity to do so. I've managed the last three of these events without exchanging a single business card.

At least there are two compensations this time. For one, there's a big bowl of wasabi nuts on the bar that I've more or less appropriated for my own consumption. I love wasabi nuts and can rarely find them, so this is a really a treat.

And there's The Guy.

I first noticed him this morning, while the conference coordinator was welcoming us to the event, pointing out the fire exits and asking us to set our mobiles on meeting mode. I was sitting in the first seat to the right of the center aisle, in the second to last row, and The Guy was several rows in front of me, in the first seat on the left side of the aisle. He was sitting sideways, his legs in the aisle, his back to his neighbor, so I could see his profile. He was furiously thumbing his BlackBerry, scowling at it, dark eyebrows knit together over a longish straight nose, mouth pursed. He was directly in my line of sight, so that I didn't even have to turn my head to check on him every so often. I liked the way a hank of wavy dark brown hair flopped over his forehead, how he combed his long fingers through it to push it back, how he gnawed at his bottom lip as he continued to pay more attention to his BlackBerry than to the speakers throughout the day. If somebody asks him tomorrow what the conference was about, I doubt he'll be able to tell them more than the title. I know that's all I'll remember, except for him.

I shift my position slightly, so that I can observe The Guy standing with a group of four or five men and women, leaning his elbow against one of the tall round tables placed around the room. For the first time I see him smiling, and I realize why David Ives has been on my mind. The Guy looks like what David might have grown up to look like, and it's odd that it would be his smile that allowed me to make the connection, because David Ives never smiled at me, not once in three years. The Guy scans the room as he raises a beer bottle to his lips, and he catches me staring, our gazes locking for an instant, before I turn away, heat climbing to my cheeks.

"Yordan?" I hear a voice next to me, the initial J pronounced the Swedish way.

"Jordan," I correct automatically, relieved to recognize a colleague from my company.

"Magnus," he points to himself, as if not really expecting me to remember. Just like me, Magnus doesn't appear to be a born networker or a natural extrovert, and we spend a happy half hour together bitching about downsizing and expense cutting initiatives, and assuring one another that the IT (his) and Accounting (mine) divisions are the only ones in our company that really know what they're doing. I try not to check too often on The Guy's whereabouts, but I'm aware of the moment he leaves the room, and I kind of wilt.

After Magnus takes his leave, and the bartender's glare makes it obvious that he doesn't intend to refill the decimated bowl of wasabi nuts just for me, I decide it's about time I headed home, as well. Even though it's after seven, we've got a full three hours of daylight left. Maybe I'll go for a run, shake out the cobwebs.

Unfortunately, instead of the sun I was expecting, I walk out of the hotel into a downpour. I own three umbrellas, but I never seem to get lucky with having one actually with me when necessary. It's two blocks to the Central Station, where I can catch the subway to my home, but I'm wearing one of my nicer suits, so I hug the side of the building, trying to make up my mind whether to go for it.

"Do I know you?"

I don't realize the question is aimed at me, until it's repeated, with a simultaneous light touch on my elbow. It's The Guy. Standing next to him, I see that he's maybe an inch shorter than my own 5'11" and his eyes are almost the exact same dark blue-gray as the sky over Stockholm right now.

"I don't think so."

"Because you've been staring at me." He has an American accent, as most Swedes do, but there's a tinge of something else underneath that hints at a different nationality.

I fumble for an answer, opening and closing my mouth like a guppy, and he smiles, full lips curving upward, a small dimple forming in his left cheek.

"Would you like a cigarette?" he offers, holding out a pack of red Marlboros, and I take one, even though I quit smoking a couple of years ago.

"Thanks," I mumble as he lights it for me, and I inhale deeply, and I'm not sure if the sudden dizzy spell is due to the nicotine hit or to how his eyes crinkle at the corners when his smile deepens.

[1981-1985]

"You just know," Benny intoned in a voice made squeaky by his effort not to exhale, and he handed me the fat joint.

"But how?"

I was aware that Benny was interpreting my urgency as conservative Jordan trying to ensure that he would never give out that vibe that caused others to know, but actually just the opposite was true. I wanted people to stop assuming that I was Benny's straight friend, so that it wasn't always me having to do all the work. All Benny could do was shrug, and hold out his hand for me to give him the joint back.

I ran into Benny Siegel my first day at Dartmouth and my second day in America. I arrived a day before the Freshman Trips, and was exploring the still mostly empty dorm, when Benny walked out of the communal bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, water still dripping from his hair onto his shoulders. Olive-skinned and brown-eyed, he looked Greek. He looked like home.

"Hey, 'shman" he nodded at me. "Did you just get here?"

He pronounced it 'hee-uh' and I was later to learn that he used expressions like "you don' gotta" and "yous guys" and "capiche", as if he'd just stepped out of a Godfather movie. He'd actually grown up in Old Westbury and attended Phillips Exeter, although at the time I didn't know the privileged background those things denoted. I just assumed Benny was like me, middle-class and relying on work-study and scholarships to attend an Ivy League college.

That afternoon Benny drove us both to West Lebanon in his decrepit rusting Mustang, and he laughed hysterically when I expressed the opinion that the local Kmart was a shopping paradise. After that, he appointed himself my guide to Dartmouth, the US, and to life in general.

It was Benny, who got me to join the track team. I was envious of the athletic duffel bag he carried, of the team clothes, of the specialized running shoes, of all those signs of belonging that always seemed to elude me. My Greek school hadn't had an athletics program, but I loved running and had always done well at the various informal races. I knew that I was probably a better middle distance runner than anything, but I knew nothing about racing strategy, and at first lacked the discipline to train. I almost gave up several times, but Benny called me a pussy and alternately bullied, cajoled and shamed me to keep on going. I made all-Ivy and all-American by my sophomore fall, and there're a lot of things I owe Benny for, but I think leading me into a sport, where I was part of a unit and yet could still do my own thing, is the biggest.

One Sunday morning, my sophomore and Benny's junior spring we were running the Storrs Pond loop, heading back, when Benny twisted his ankle. A big meet was coming up, so we decided not to push his luck. We stopped, stretched a little, then started to walk back. Benny threw his arm around my shoulders, leaning against me and favoring his ankle, hamming it up, and we collapsed laughing on the side of the path, lazily swatting at the zillions of midges, having nowhere we needed to be. We were shooting the breeze about something or other, when suddenly Benny leaned over and kissed me on the lips. I stared at him, my heart thumping slowly, almost painfully, and he stared back, color rising to his cheeks. "I'm sorry," he finally blurted out, at the exact time that I squeezed my eyes shut, put my hands on his shoulders and kissed him back.

At first, Benny and I were each other's guides in this new world, but by the following spring he'd pulled ahead again, knowing things that I could only guess at. We shared an apartment, although not bedrooms, until he graduated.

Benny and I are still best friends, even though there've been more than a few hiccups in all these years, and he now boasts that he fucked every gay guy in the Ivy League, and lived to tell the tale; I don't think it's funny, because the AIDS epidemic was ripping through the gay community, killing young men in their prime, and we knew nothing about it yet. And even if we'd known, we probably would have thought that nothing bad could ever happen to us. Both Benny and I, especially I, should have known better.

[June 2010]

Even after college and grad school, I never figured how a conservatively dressed, introverted accountant can reliably ping on someone's gaydar, when necessary. And my own gaydar is by no means an accurate instrument. In fact, it's generally the wiser choice to ignore my instincts about another man unless there are obvious other clues, like us meeting in a gay club and him groping me.

Standing in front of the Sheraton with The Guy lighting my cigarette, I'm not sure if that quick flick of the eyes as he steps back is one of interest or just curiosity, if the husky bedroom voice is due to too many cigarettes or an effort at seduction, if the way he leant in as he was lighting my cigarette was simply him shielding the flame of his lighter against a breeze I didn't notice.

"David," he introduces himself, pronouncing it the Central European way, with a long a, and I blink. David?

"Jordan," I respond cautiously, but he gives no sign of recognition, and I tell myself to stop being stupid. It's just a coincidence, and not a very big one at that. There must be hundreds, thousands of Davids with dark brown wavy hair and blue-gray eyes, and so many years later I probably don't really remember David Ives' face or eye color with any degree of accuracy anyway. Besides, it's hard to imagine the adult David Ives being shorter than me.

"So. Why were you staring at me?" he insists.

"When?" I ask, trying to ignore my gut, which tends to react to my hopes more than to reality. And even if he is gay and flirting a little to pass the time, it doesn't mean he's really interested. Guys don't come on to me in the middle of the street. Never have.

"During the presentations. And afterwards, during drinks."

"I wasn't," I say, blowing out a stream of smoke nonchalantly, and he laughs.

"Okay, well then, neither was I."

"You were?" I ask, surprise robbing me of what miniscule amounts of cool I may have displayed until that point.

"I just said I wasn't," he replies, his mouth still curving upward, and I have to drag my eyes away from those full lips. He's just playing. God knows I'm not much to look at. Light brown hair, which I keep short in an effort to tame the cowlicks and lately, to keep the gray from being too evident. Brown eyes, long nose with the distinctive Petersen bump. I still run, so I'm trim. About the most I can say for me is that I look groomed and pleasant, and I like to think that, graying hair notwithstanding, I don't look middle-aged, despite the fact that, at forty-six, that's exactly what I am.

I turn to face the street, savoring the taste of the cigarette. The rain looks like it's easing up; another few minutes and I can probably head for the station without completely ruining my suit.

"Would you like to have a drink with me?" he asks.

I flick a quick glance at him; he's facing out towards the street, as well, not looking at me.

"Tonight?"

He nods. "I'm flying out early tomorrow. I was only here for the conference and to touch base with a few business contacts."

The sharp stab of disappointment surprises me. A second ago I was ready to walk away myself, and it's not like I anticipated ever meeting him again, even if he lived in Stockholm; it's not a large city, but it's not that small, either. Still, now that external forces are imposing deadlines on me, I want to resist them.

"Where are you staying?"

He jerks his head backwards, indicating the Sheraton.

"Does your room have a minibar?"

This isn't me, this direct, bold person, but he doesn't know that. He smiles easily.

"Let's go check," he suggests, stubbing out his cigarette in the tall ashtray and striding towards the hotel entrance. I follow two steps behind him, my mouth dry and my stomach coiling with nerves. I feel more alive than I have in years.

When we reach his room, I expect him to pounce on me, and I'm psyching myself to pounce on him in case he doesn't make the first move, but he murmurs a brief apology and slips into the bathroom, and I'm left standing awkwardly in the middle of the bedroom, trying to ignore the two large beds, the small pile of gym clothes on an armchair that makes the whole setting oddly intimate, like I'm stealing a glimpse of his personal life, my own reflection in the mirror over the desk. His laptop bag is propped against the chair, the nametag indicating that he's a platinum member of the same hotel loyalty club as me, only I lost platinum privileges last year, when I finally received a more fixed assignment. I flip the nametag over, ridiculing myself for needing the final proof that this isn't David Ives. His last name is Hamvas. Hungarian then.

I walk over to the window and look out. The gray clouds are dissipating slightly, and where the sky is visible, it's tinged orange and red. I like Stockholm. I don't love it, but I like it well enough. And tonight even more so.

I turn around at the slight noise behind me. He's taking off his coat and at first it looks like he's about to toss it on the armchair, where his gym clothes are. He hesitates, and with a sheepish look my way, he hangs the coat neatly in the closet. It's the first time he's looked anything but completely self-assured with me, completing this little task that shows that he's thinking about tomorrow, not only tonight, but I may have imagined it, because he's smiling confidently again as he briskly unbuttons and rolls up his cuffs, displaying strong forearms with a light dusting of dark hair.