Kit
I spent almost a whole season in the same hundred-mile radius in Washington last fall. That was the longest stretch of time spent in the same area.
I never lingered long.
Except for Washington. Specifically, Port Townsend. I would leave every few days, but a couple days later, my van would be right back parked somewhere.
It was there that I met Marvin and John. Marvin was a big, burly man with a bald head and a scar on his top lip that left him with a permanent snarl, and John was the soft pianist who loved him.
Marvin was ex-Marine. You could see it in the way he got up at exactly the same time every day. In the way he kept his shoes lined up just so, or the way he straightened his spine when John said his name.
He was rough in all the ways one would notice, and absolute putty in John's long, slender hands.
They were like oil and water. They shouldn't mix. They didn't mix. And that was the beauty of it. They each stayed exactly who they were but flowed together anyway. John was the splash of iridescent to Marvin's clear world.
I found myself going back over and over again. It was brutally wonderful to see their world, even just from the outside looking in.
It started when my van needed gas, I needed food, and my wallet needed money. I was too embarrassed to call home for help. Again. My van was running on fumes and desperate vibes. I like to think Fiona made it into the gas station parking lot because I was behind the wheel cheering her on.
I parked, hoo-rahhed, then had to get my shit together and figure it out. Figuring it out led to me walking the streets until I stumbled on a shop called Locks & Keys. I almost walked by, like I walked past the rest of the shops on that street, but the big HELP WANTED sign had me pausing, backing up, and peeking in the window.
What I saw first was a middle-aged man with sandy blonde hair, head tipped back laughing. Then I saw his hand that wasn't in a sling on the shoulder of a mountain of a man.
The mountain was sitting on a bench that seemed too small for a man his size. He was playing the piano. If the man behind him was any indication, his head shakes and laughs were enough to deduce that the piano player wasn't very good.
There were several pianos in various shapes and sizes in the shop. And a wall of nothing but doorknobs and locks behind a counter.
Sandy man leaned down and smacked a kiss on the head of the other man, which had him leaning his head back for a proper, upside-down kiss. That's how they found me. Palm flat on the glass, looking in like one of those cartoon characters with heart eyes popping out of his head.
It broke my heart and built it back together with every interaction I had with them.
John had surgery on his wrist, and Marvin had a bad back. They needed help while they both recovered.
I was that help.
I use ‘help’ very, very loosely.
I don't even know why they kept me on, if I'm totally honest. I'm the type of man that could confuse a screwdriver and wrench. And I did. Marvin was baffled, John endlessly amused.
“Do young kids know anything anymore?”
He asked it in a very serious, no bullshit way that had me chuckling with John.
Marvin spent two weeks showing me the differences between tools and how to use them. I even now know what a castle nut and cotter key is, thank you.
But more than that, they showed me what true love looks like between two men. Not that love between men is any different—and that was the whole point.
It's tender. It's whole and big and full. It can be loud, even in the silence, and quiet when eyes meet across a table of people laughing.
John told me how he had loved Marvin his whole life. Marvin didn't choose him in that way until they were both in their 40s, Marvin had a marriage, two kids, and a divorce under his belt.
John had been ready to spend his life in love with a man that loved him platonically because, “I was bound to feel pain. I got to choose the pain I felt, and there wasn't a life that I would choose to live without him in it.” He chose his hard. John stood next to Marvin as his best man at his wedding. He held the babies the man he loved made with his wife. He chose to love Marvin in the purest, most selfless way, until one day, Marvin looked at him back and saw him.
Marvin rolled his eyes when he walked in to see me sobbing in a tissue and John smiling, rocking us on their front porch swing patting my shoulder.
I finally left, looking at them waving at me from the rear-view mirror, and didn't go back.
It hurt too much.
