The two men laughed.
“I don’t know who those schmucks think they’re fooling keeping separate apartments. You can hear their mishegoss whenever they get up to it. When I was in the service we had some fellas like them: straight laced and hard as nails on the outside. Guys with the pictures of femmes fatale of the big screen and so on. But they didn’t fool anyone. Once they were safely away from home, they were off to the races. You know that’s why New York and San Francisco are, um, were knee deep in faygelehs, right? All these fellas come home and they’ve got a choice: go home to Podunk and step back in the closet, or stay in the port town and make a new life. They chose wisely, I think.”
“So you think it’s okay to be homosexual?”
“I don’t care one way or the other. Never did, so long as their attentions weren’t on me. I had a few make goo-goo eyes at me; that I didn’t care for. But live and let live, I say. And now, what difference does any of it make? People are going to expend energy on carnality come what may, and use the available outlets-or inlets. Whichever. I’ll tell you, the best thing about getting old was that my libido, which controlled me all my post-adolescent life, finally died. Too bad it came right along with all this mess. I never got to enjoy my belated Age of Reason. And the hell with Viagra. Viagra’s only good if you’ve got a young honey waiting in your bed. No pill in the world could make me want to shtup the pill I’m married to.” Dabney snickered. “Yeah, easy for you to laugh. That woman is no picnic.” After a reflective pause, Abe looked up and, rubbing his knees, said, “I need to take my constitutional. Want to join me?”
Dabney helped Abe up off the wall and the two men strolled the roof. After two circuits of their building, Abe suggested they walk to the end of the row, assuring his companion he could make it over the walls. Dabney was in no mood to carry Abe back home. He liked the old geezer but would just as soon spare himself the piggyback routine. When they reached the north end of the line, Abe needed to sit down again. There was a rusty folding chair near the two oxidized bicycles permanently bonded to a metal guardrail. With their tires rotted away and everything glazed in a multihued orange patina, they looked more like modern art than defunct transportation. Abe was huffing and puffing like he’d run the marathon. Twice.
Dabney looked at Abe, who sat there panting, hands gripping his quaking knees. Though the geezer’s face looked all right-partly because it was enshrouded in beard-his hands were cadaverous, the skin like yellowed tracing paper speckled with liver spots. His fingertips came to disturbing points, the skin so close to the bone it barely masked it. A drop hit Dabney’s nose and he wiped it away with annoyance.
A drop?
A drop!
Annoyance transformed to rapture, his eyes shooting up from the old man to the sky above, which was thick with dark gray clouds. Another drop plopped right in his eye and Dabney’s grin was so broad he feared his face might halve itself. More drops began to pelt the two men. Abe stopped rubbing and looked up in disbelief. Within the minute a downpour was dousing the two men, who clasped each other around the biceps and jigged. After a few waltzing rotations Abe broke free and began to unbutton his shirt. “Modesty be damned,” he cried.
“Damn straight,” agreed Dabney.
Both men peeled off their clinging duds and basked in the refreshing deluge.
“We have to tell the others!” Abe said, eyes wide.
“I’ll do it. I can get to the building faster than you, old timer.”
Dabney raced across the rooftops doing the low hurdles in record time, the water streaming down his naked body. When he reached the stairwell he threw open the door only to be greeted by a scream. He stepped back and there stood Ellen and Alan, both clutching stacked containers to collect water.
“I’m sorry,” Ellen said. “I didn’t mean to scream. You just surprised me. I’m not used to having a naked man greet me on the roof.”
“S’alright,” Dabney said, stepping out of the way.
They quickly arranged the assortment of pots and cans, which joined the garbage cans, buckets, plastic drawers, and file boxes already there, then stripped nude and joined Dabney in the aqueous bacchanal. Alan handed Dabney a bar of soap.
“You don’t miss a trick,” he said, accepting it gladly.
Dave appeared at the door, followed by Karl, who had escorted Ruth upstairs. Straightaway everyone was naked, except Ruth, who looked away in embarrassment.
“Where’s Abe?” she moaned.
“Oh shit,” Dabney snorted, midlather. “I’ll go get him.” Trailing suds, Dabney tore ass across the roofs. When he got there, Abe was sitting in a concavity full of water, like a shallow tub, kicking his feet like a toddler in a wading pool. Dabney tossed the soap into the basin and soon Abe was lathering up, his eyes closed in euphoria.
“You forget the simplest of pleasures when you’re denied everything,” Abe said. “Bathing. Being wet. It’s marvelous.”
“Ruth was wondering where you were. She’s up on our roof.”
“Is she naked?” Abe gasped, his beatitude shaken.
“No.”
“Oh thank God. No one needs to see that, least of all me.”
“It would be kind of a buzzkill.”
Four rooftops over, the tempest orgy continued. For the first time in months laughter was the dominant sound-that and the roar of torrential rainfall. Karl and Dave had erections, but neither thought of sex. They were just pleasure boners from the sheer joy of being wet. The cloudburst was luscious. Karl and Dave were splashing each other with bucketsful of water. Their bodies, virtually hairless except for rain-matted pubes and armpit patches, glistened in the diffuse light. Ellen looked at Alan’s hairy body, his thin chest carpeted in wet black fur. Even dissipated, his was a man’s body. The others were boys’, not that that was a bad thing. Even Dave looked enticing. Eddie was the one who really frightened and offended her.
She was delighted he wasn’t present, but his absence was peculiar. Still, her answer for now: who cares? His loss.
Safely on the other side of the stairwell housing, Ruth tilted her head up and let the cataract wash over her cataracts. She’d been scheduled to have phacoemulsification the week after martial law was declared. Now she was stuck with cloudy vision of a cloudy sky. She pulled some matted strands of hair away from her eyes, her fingers straying up her forehead, which seemed to go all the way to the back of her head. Maybe it was better she couldn’t see that well. In her mind she could still picture herself as she was. Abe, too.
“Hey,” Abe said, making Ruth flinch.
“Oh, you scared me.” Even with muzzy vision she could see he was starkers. “Ucch, Abraham. Even you?”
“Even me what?”
“With the nakedness. Isn’t it bad enough those youngsters are doing it? And the colored? From them I expect it, but you? Oy, there’s no fool like an old fool.”
“Even in the rain you manage to rain on a parade. Uncanny. Suit yourself.”
Abe joined the others as they clasped hands and gamboled around.
“This feels so… pagan,” Karl cried with glee.
The others agreed and Karl basked in the moment. Big Manfred would vomit if he ever saw his son cavorting like this: naked, turgid, wanton. After a while the rain subsided to a light drizzle and various moans of disappointment rose from the group. The air actually smelled fresh. Dabney trotted over to his customary perch, lay on his belly in a deep puddle, and peered down. The horde hemming in his wrecked van was soggier than usual, but otherwise unaffected by the rain. They stumbled and jostled same as ever. Seeing his van always made his stomach ache. Dabney looked away, not wanting to dampen his spirits. A rainbow spread over the buildings to the west.