AND LOVE ENDURES by Bruce K Beck ©2018
If I had to put a finger on it, or stick a pin in the time line, I’d say my eyes were first opened in Rhodes, of all places. Rodos. Not the Oracle at Delphi, but revelatory enough. This was in May of 1990. The Colossus was long gone, of course, but the island was inviting, indeed. A charming old town with narrow streets and wonderful cooking smells coming from every quarter in the afternoon. A climb up a low rise lined with little artisan shops, up to the Crusader castle on the promontory (a favorite of Mussolini’s).
The entire trip was glorious. The ship docked at wonderful ports in Italy, Egypt, Israel, Turkey, and Greece: some places I always wanted to see, and others I had no idea I needed to see. And all we had to do was work a few performances—Bobby at the piano, of course, and I manning a follow-spot. When Bobby got the call inviting us to join the cruise, he accepted, but without much enthusiasm. I quickly cleared my schedule and started planning my wardrobe. I was stoked. He was indulgent.
Life had grown increasingly joyless in the previous year. I blamed vodka. Mostly. But it was maybe only the fuel and not the flame. Bobby grew more and more negative as I became more and more concerned. So when the call came with the offer of a dream holiday, I thought it was just the shot in the arm we needed. Bobby was indifferent, but he accepted. Bobby said he did it for me, that he wanted me to have the trip. I hated the context, but I loved the opportunity. And so I embraced it.
It was a Theatre League cruise. I don’t know if they still do it or not, but in those days the League would book space on a Cunard ship and sell passage to its members and others who liked to hob-nob with stars. Those fares offset the cost to Cunard of the celebrity freebies. And of course the performers sailed—and performed—without pay for the sheer joy of travel. And the camaraderie, of course. A mini-musical, a one-woman play, a lecture/demonstration with songs, a reading of A. R. Gurney’s LOVE LETTERS, all on our cruise.
The musical featured the West Side Romeo himself, Lanny Kirk. I had met him once or twice through the years. He was an old buddy of Bobby’s. But I had never met his boyfriend, Rob. Not until we all converged on Sorrento. It was a lovely week before we sailed. It was filled with dinners in pretty cafés with a view of the bay, and an excursion to Capri (with the obligatory boat trip into the Blue Grotto at low tide). And a trip to Pompeii, as well. I had been there in my student days and was thrilled to be going back with Bobby this time. At the bread bakery—which looks so vividly functional—I helped the foremost tragedienne of the second half of the Twentieth Century plan a schedule for the workers. She was ready to put her back into it. I was merely enchanted.
There was also a harrowing bus trip along the Amalfi Coast, with merciful stops in picturesque towns clinging to the cliffs above the sea. That afternoon was crowned by a joyous luncheon in Vietri sul Mare in a quaint guesthouse that clung to the rocks like a limpet. Lanny was particularly expansive and funny that afternoon. He was maybe the funniest man I’ve ever known. Which is odd, because on stage he was charming and had that glorious singing voice, of course, but the funniest man on earth? It rarely worked its way into his roles.
A quick example: We were boarding a plane for the trip home when I started to sputter about the lack of luggage space in the overhead bin, or something. Lanny said, “I think you should let go of that. It would make your face a whole lot easier to look at.” I laughed heartily, and Lanny cracked up, too. And he was right.
Our final morning in Sorrento, we boarded a bus for the trip to the harbor in Naples. And on the way, we were treated to a private tour of San Carlo opera house (where La Traviata premiered). It’s one of the finest opera houses in Europe, or anywhere else, for that matter. The perfect gilded jewel box, it also has grand proportions and excellent acoustics, apparently. It’s all we got to see of Naples, but what a sight! And then we boarded the ship and settled in.
I decided on a seasickness patch, not wanting a repeat of my last sailing adventure. The ship’s doctor dispensed them freely. What I didn’t know is that they cause intense drowsiness, in some people anyway. Especially in combination with alcohol. At dinner I had such a hard time staying awake I was afraid my head would sink into the soup. I didn’t manage to eat much dinner, but I slept like a log that night. The next morning, the patch fell off in the shower, and I was relieved. And the next two weeks the Mediterranean was smooth as glass wherever we sailed. I felt great the whole time. Physically.
Lanny and Rob had been together for about five years, I think. I’m not sure how they met. I think Rob was living in California at the time. He was medium-sized, nicely built, and handsome like a 1970’s porn star. He’s just a few years younger than I am. And there’s that smile that gives him those endearing dimples. Rob’s smile is so radiant, it could melt a glacier. I wasn’t certain about him when we first met. Hot, yes. But was the sweetness real? I wondered. Yes, actually. What you see is what you get. Rob is one of those rare people who is entirely present in the moment. And if you’re with him, then he’s yours. For that period of time. But you’d better cherish it, because there might not be another. Plans? Forget it. The past and the future don’t exist. There is only now.
In our first few days on the ship, I went to Lanny and Rob’s stateroom one afternoon while we were at sea. Bobby had asked me to get something or other. The performers were rehearsing. And there Rob and I were, just the two of us. In a stateroom. With beds. In the middle of the Mediterranean. I fetched the papers, or whatever my errand was, and Rob and I laughed about something or other, probably one of the other passengers. And then we were in each other’s arms. And then Rob kissed me. I was shocked. But I kissed him back, of course. We laughed and kissed some more. And then some more. Where, indeed, was it leading? Was this hunky guy really coming on to me? Or was he naturally affectionate? Were we going to tear off our clothes and have at it? Or did Rob just enjoy easy contact with his friends?
I can’t say exactly what I was thinking, but perhaps I couldn’t imagine this hottie taking an interest in li’l ol’ me. Or maybe I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. Or misinterpret his advances. But whatever was going on in my head, I thanked Rob for the papers and headed back to our cabin, trying to arrange my erection so it wouldn’t show in my jeans. Fat chance. Luckily, the papers were large enough to hold casually in front of me.
My head buzzed for a while, of course. How far, I wondered, had Rob intended to go? If indeed he had any intentions at all. Was I rude? No one likes an incomplete pass. Had I been sensible and loyal, or had I just missed out on a lovely moment? Opportunity like that knocks only once, I think. If I really wanted answers to my questions, I’d have to ask Rob, I suppose. And I haven’t seen him in years. Maybe it’s better to just leave it filed away in that quiet place where the sweet memories live. It’s a much nicer file to reopen than the ugly memories, of which there are just as many.
Speaking of where the sweet memories live, our first Eastern port was Alexandria. We traveled overland to Cairo, and Giza, and all of that, of course. Papyrus shop? Check. Cairo Museum? Check. Rob managed to attract the attention of two museum guards. At Rob’s urging I walked back through a section I had already viewed only to pass a guard who winked and growled. Surely these hot guys were not turning tricks in the men’s room in the Cairo Museum, on the same floor as King Tut, in the heartland of homophobia. Or were they? Entrapment? Who the fuck knows? But whatever they were doing, they provided considerable entertainment for these tourists. And so did Tut, of course.
Camel ride up to the Great Pyramid? Check. They dressed us in robes and headgear for the trip, of course. I said to Lanny, “You look good, but it’s more Bernice than burnoose.” I’ve always been proud of that one. Sound-and-light show in the Valley of the Kings? Check. Alexander Scourby’s booming voice (from the grave, yet) rattling what’s left of the Sphinx. And then dinner at Mena House with veiled belly dancers. Check.
Our final day in Alexandria was my favorite. Bobby wanted to stay in and get some work done, so Lanny, Rob, and I headed out to see the city. Right away they found a guy with a little horse-drawn cart who was available for a city tour. The driver was charming, actually, and so was his horse. And we stopped to take pictures of all five of us now and then. He took us through the old quarter, I guess. We made stops at his sister-in-law’s souvenir shop, etc. But we also got to see some small museum/shrines and a fair bit of the real city of Alexandria. I was enchanted. And spending the day with Lanny and Rob was delightful.
We sailed from Alexandria just before sunset. And I’m so glad Bobby and I decided to go on deck to watch the departure. What a harbor! What a port. So vast it makes New York Harbor look like a backwater. Except for Lady Liberty, of course. She’s pretty nifty. And even Alexandria doesn’t have her.
There were other flirtations that trip, of a less wholesome nature. Quickies in the shower after exercise class. A three-way in a bed that was only big enough for one. There was a passenger named Harvey who had a crush on me. He was traveling with his mother and not his boyfriend that trip, so he felt free to court me. Harvey’s mother was great fun—animated, outgoing. Harvey told me his father used to say, “If I had murdered her the first time I wanted to, I’d be out by now!” Harvey was insistent, but I played by the rules. More or less.
I never had a romantic encounter with Lanny, but there was an odd conversation at the end of the cruise, after we had all disembarked at the ancient port of Piraeus and settled into a comfortable bargain hotel in a little resort north of Athens. I hope you’ll permit me a digression, because that hotel afforded me one of my most precious memories:
One morning I stepped into the tub and threw open the window. It was late May, the sun was shining, a slight breeze rustled the trees that were trying to obscure my view of the Aegean, and a house just to the right was covered with bougainvillea and other flowering bushes in exotic colors. I stood in the shower with hot water pouring down my back and drank in the view and the scents of spring and flowers and an ancient sea. And I had a moment of complete happiness. They are, after all, relatively rare.
But, back to my narrative. We all met one morning for a tour of the Acropolis. Of course. What else on a first visit to Athens? That was the tour where we had a wonderful guide, and Bobby said, “Ask her about your shirt.”
Just as we were about to step through the gate that reveals that stunning first view of the Parthenon, I asked our guide, “What does this say?” pointing to the writing on the shirt I had bought in Crete a few days before.
“It says you are waiting for your husband to return from the Trojan Wars,” she said. And sure enough, there was Penelope at her spinning. I decided I could wear that shirt, even in Greece. It seemed loyal and good. And I still own it. And I still chuckle whenever I come across it in my closet.
But a few minutes earlier, as we headed up the hill, Lanny and I happened to be walking together when he said, “Rob and I were talking about you two, and we were trying to decide who’s the top. I said you are.”
I was more surprised to learn that Lanny and Rob had been talking about us at all than that they had been speculating about our sexual roles. I didn’t have a ready answer. Even for myself. So I said, “I don’t think about us that way,” or something equally lame. Lanny told me that he used to like to body-worship muscle guys, before he and Rob got together. And then we were nearing the top of the hill, and that was pretty much the end of the conversation. It didn’t occur to me until much later that I had missed a chance to share something intimate with a deeply delightful, richly complex, and exquisitely talented man.
I knew Lanny was Positive. I knew he had had a few illnesses. He looked a bit gray, but otherwise nearly 100%. I’m guessing that he had reached a point in his life where he wanted to cut through the bullshit and get right to it. Not that he hadn’t always been up-front. But he offered his true self to me while the two of us were walking together on that ancient path. Up to the fucking Parthenon, for Christ’s sake. And I was unable to respond. I was too self-conscious to just laugh, and love him, and invite him into my heart. Which would have been enough. Clever was not required. I guess I had already cleared some screening hurdles, in our weeks together, or he wouldn’t have bothered to speak to me at all. But when he served, I fumbled. Game over. And I will always feel diminished by that failure.
But Rhodes. Yes, Rhodes. This part is really hard to write. But I don’t think my story makes much sense without it. We docked at Rhodes in the middle of our second week, and planned an excursion with two guys on the cruise we had become chummy with. They were a DC doctor and his boyfriend who worked at the State Department. They were fun. We were all looking forward to going ashore.
We took in the sights in the harbor area, and we climbed up the hill and took some pictures, clowning with the statuary. Tourist stuff. The guys wanted to rent motorbikes to explore the island. I had never been able to get Bobby on any sort of bike in our fifteen years together. But to my surprise, he said, “Sure.” Contracts were signed, followed by some quick operating instructions, and then we were on our way. I was driving, of course, and Bobby hopped on behind and put his arms around my middle. Maybe the guys doubled up on one bike, too, or maybe they rode separately. It doesn’t matter. They took the lead, after promising not to go too fast. And we were off.
It really is quite a beautiful island. I would have enjoyed seeing it more if I hadn’t had the responsibility of driving. I’m not saying that the memory of a crack-up in my high school days haunted me, only that I didn’t really like bikes all that much more than Bobby did. And there we were. The guys were driving a bit faster than I would have liked, but I kept up with them. We stopped once or twice to take in the view and then roared off to new vistas.
Bobby seemed restless. That was my first impression. But then as we were speeding along a sort of cliffside road above the beach on the north coast, he became actually fidgety. I asked him to be still. He became even more animated. It took all my concentration to keep us on the road. And at that moment, I realized, somewhere in my consciousness, that Bobby would have been happy to tumble off that cliff to his death. And take me with him.
There, I’ve said it. It seems so unthinkable—then as now—but that was the reality of our lives in those years. Mostly I stuffed it. We finished our tour of Rhodes on another ugly note, however: There was a big piece of wood in the middle of the road that I slowed down for and tried to avoid. But I still hit it, at slow speed, and we spun out just enough for me to get a nasty scrape on one leg. Bobby was uninjured. We walked the bike—also uninjured, fortunately—back to the rental place. The great, solid mass of the ship looked very inviting as we headed back to get ready for dinner.
So, underneath the brightness and warmth of our festive springtime adventure there was a darkness that seemed cold and inescapable. When it caught my attention, that is. Much of the time I felt as light and joyous as we all deserved to feel. But the darkness had begun to creep in the year before, at least. It was mostly about vodka. Lord knows, I was doing my best to keep up with Bobby. No mean feat.
But I had relative youth on my side. And Bobby, twenty years my senior, had outgrown the luxury of being able to punish his body with impunity. Vodka began to show—in his face, in his mood, in his soul. It hadn’t begun to show in his work. Yet. I think. That would come later. I may not be the best judge of these things, considering my proximity to the problem. And my participation in it. But I’ll give the telling of it my best shot.
After we returned from the Mediterranean trip, it was as if Bobby dropped all pretense of happiness. He had promised me the holiday, and now that it was done, he could let go. He said as much. It was horrible to watch his sense of defeat. And he wanted it to be my fault. He had his reasons, of course. Nothing happens in a vacuum.