The mid-40s are that time in a gay man's life when his major paradigm shifts from sexy to Sansabelts. But when Barry Grooms's partner of twenty years is killed on Barry's forty-fifth birthday, his world doesn't so much evolve as it does explode.<br><br>After navigating through the surreal conveyor belt of friends and family, he can't eat another casserole or swallow much more advice on what constitutes grief. Still numb, he leaves his homestore and design business in the care of others as he escapes to Key West, then New York. There he gets a thankless new job working for a crazy lady in a poncho, then has too many drinks with a narcissistic Broadway actor. Next it's a nude exercise class that redefines flop sweat, and from there he's on to a relationship with a man twenty years his junior.<br><br>Yet no matter how great the retreat from the man he used to be, life's gravity spins Barry back to the small town where he grew up for one more ironic twist that teaches him how to say goodbye with grace.

The Cool Part of His Pillow

If all variables cooperate, Jarod can come from the Clark Street station to Times Square in thirty minutes, and vice versa.


While bonding time is minimal, we have fun generating the sticky adhesive. Jarod makes me feel desirable. For him, it’s less about the act and more about the anticipation. I don’t know when or if Andy and I indulged like this. Sex often felt a box needing a neat checkmark in it. If we did put an egg timer on the buildup, it’s because we always had to be somewhere or be asleep for the next twelve-hour day. Jarod will lie in his own fluids. Andy and I sought quick cleanup and closure—”I love you, now hurry.”


Condoms haven’t been a concern for a long time. Cleanliness, not safety, dictated when Andy and I used them. I recall him grabbing one from a drawer so vintage it had hardened: “Look. A poker chip with a reservoir tip.”


Chapter 80