The evening ended with an invitation. If Ferguson wasn’t busy tomorrow afternoon, he could come over to Albert’s place at around four-thirty for a friendly game of one-on-one on his “private court” across the street from his building on the rue Descartes. Ferguson told Albert that he hadn’t played in months and was bound to be rusty, but yes, he said, he would love to.
Thus Albert Dufresne entered Ferguson’s life. Thus the man who would come to be known alternately as Al Bear and Mr. Bear joined the regiment as Ferguson’s comrade-in-arms for the next battle in the never-ending Bore War against the Pains of Human Existence, for unlike the two-way Aubrey Hull, who was contentedly married to his one-way Fiona and an adoring father to his two young offspring, the single, one-way Al Bear, whose innermost inclinations tilted toward the Aubreys of this world rather than the Fionas, was available for full-time combat duty, and because he lived in the same city as Ferguson, full-time meant nearly every day, at least for the time the battle lasted.
The unexpected developments of their first afternoon together, beginning with the rough, contentious games of one-on-one as the out-of-practice ex — Commando-in-Chief crashed the boards against the nimble, ex — point guard Mr. Bear, their bodies banging against each other as they tussled for loose balls and tried to block shots, three close games with twenty or thirty fouls in each one of them and the laughable twist that white-boy Ferguson could outjump black-boy Dufresne, and although Ferguson wound up losing all three games because his outside shot was horrendously off, it was clear that they were more or less evenly matched, and once Ferguson rounded into form again, Albert would have to play his hardest to keep up with him.
Climbing over the chain-link fence afterward, both of them exhausted, breathing hard, drenched in salty, sticky sweat, and then walking across the street and going up to Albert’s third-floor apartment. The order and cleanliness of the two rooms, the wall of four hundred books in the larger one with the bed and the armoire in it, the desk and the Remington typewriter in the smaller room with the pages of Albert’s novel in progress piled up in a neat stack, the light coming through the windows in the tidy, sit-down kitchen with its wooden table and four wooden chairs, and more light coming through the windows in the white tiled bathroom. Not the kinds of showers one took in America, but the handheld showers of France, standing or sitting in the tub and spraying oneself with what Ferguson called telephone nozzles, and because Ferguson was the guest, Albert kindly offered him first crack at washing up, so into the bathroom Ferguson went, where he kicked off his sneakers, removed his damp and smelly socks, shorts, and T-shirt, turned on the water, and stepped into the deep, squarish tub. An all-over dousing with the telephone nozzle held up in his right hand and water splashing down on his head, and with the noise of the water in his ears and his eyes closed to protect them from the hot liquid darts, he did not hear Albert knock on the door and did not see him enter the bathroom a moment later.
A hand was touching him on the back of his neck. Ferguson dropped his arm, let go of the showerhead, and opened his eyes.
Albert still had his shorts on, but everything else had come off.
I assume you’re okay with this, he said to Ferguson, as the hand traveled down Ferguson’s back and settled on his ass.
More than okay, Ferguson said. If it hadn’t happened, I would have walked out of here one sad and disappointed customer.
Albert put his other hand around Ferguson’s waist and pulled his body toward him. You’re such a marvelous boy, Archie, he said, and I certainly wouldn’t want you to walk out of here disappointed. In fact, it would be much better for both of us if you stayed, don’t you think?
The afternoon turned into the evening, the evening turned into the night, the night turned into the morning, and the morning turned into another afternoon. As far as Ferguson was concerned, this was it, the once-in-a-lifetime big-bang love, and for the next two hundred and fifty-six days he lived in another country, a place that was neither France nor America nor anywhere else, a new country that had no name, no borders, and no cities or towns, a country with a population of two.
That wasn’t to say that Mr. Bear was an easy person to get along with or that Ferguson didn’t go through some rough patches during those eight-plus months of sex, camaraderie, and conflict, for the baggage his new friend carried was indeed a heavy burden on him, and no matter how young or brilliant or sure of himself Albert appeared to be when he stepped out into the world, his soul was old and weary, and old and weary souls could be bitter at times, and angry at times, most especially against the souls of the ones who did not feel that same bitterness and anger. Loving as Albert was on most days, frequently with a tenderness and a warmth that overwhelmed Ferguson and made him think there was no better person in the world than the warm and tender man lying beside him in bed, Albert was also proud and competitive and given to making harsh moral judgments about others, and it didn’t help that the young one’s book was going to be published while the older one was still working on his, and it didn’t help that Ferguson’s boyish sense of humor was often at odds with Albert’s sour righteousness, the giddy splurges of madcap ideas that would come rushing out of him in moments of postcoital happiness, such as the suggestion that they shave off all the hair on their bodies, buy wigs and women’s clothes, and then go out to a restaurant or a party and see if they could pull off the gag by passing as real women. Ar-shee, Ferguson said, imitating Celestine’s pronunciation of his name, and wouldn’t it be interesting if I could actually be a she for one night? Albert’s irritable response: Don’t be stupid, he said. You’re a man. Be proud of being a man and forget about this drag-queen nonsense. If you want to change who you are, try being a black person for a day or two and see what happens to you then. Or else, after a particularly rewarding session in bed, Ferguson’s proposal that they get into the business of posing naked together for gay porno magazines, full-color feature spreads of the two of them kissing and giving each other blow jobs and fucking each other in the ass with close-ups of the cum spurting out of their cocks, wouldn’t that be a blast, Ferguson said, and just think of the money they could make.