And then, one day, there was Stanford Dane—and eventually there was Abraham.
With Stanford everything was different, nothing unfolded according to the set plan, and, amazingly enough, Mrs. Childress purred through the whole process.
Dane came to Asheville at the height of an arts festival in which the new live drama theater was being launched. He came with a trumpet fanfare, striding in on a red carpet, as the guest stage director from Savannah, Charleston, and Baltimore. Our mayor had seen a production of his in Baltimore and had begged him, histrionically, I'm sure, on bended knee to deign to deliver the first play in our new playhouse.
The great man of the American theater, Stanford Dane, arrived at the doorstep of the Swannanoa Boarding House for lodging during the preparation for this three-month festival running of his play. He hadn't intended to board at the Swannanoa, and the flattery of my being the reason he did became part of the unnatural hold he eventually was to have over me. For the entirety of our relationship I lived under the misconception that somewhere under that controlling, consuming nature of his that he cared for me.
I didn't notice him standing there, at the top of the stairs to the front porch as engrossed as I was in what I was furiously writing, trying to capture all that happened the previous night and the thoughts and emotions that it had evoked from me. It was Sunday. Mrs. Childress didn't make us work the special services on Sunday, and she herself spent most of that day in prayer and praise up at the Baptist church at the top of the street. So, itching to try to capture—and to come to grips with the previous night's event, I had taken my paper and pens to the front porch of the boarding house and was sitting at the table out there, deep in thought and in making a short, dramatic scene of it.
The previous evening, a Saturday, a man had arrived, almost hesitating as he mounted the stairs of the porch to the front door, at twilight. I was in the dining room, clearing up the last of the linen from supper and spied him through the window. He immediately arrested my attention because of the incongruity of him. He was finely dressed, as if he worked in one of the banks or attorney's offices here, but he filled his clothes out to capacity—at least in the chest and arms—like he was a man accustomed to heavy-lifting, repetitive work. He was of pale complexion, though, so it would not have been work in the outdoors—and his hair, although curly and a light brown, was unruly about his head, as if he knew little of the grooming that went with the cut and quality of his clothes. He wasn't old, but he must have been a good ten years older than I was. And I clearly could see him through the dining room window that wrapped around in a bay at the side of the front porch right next to the entry door. He had a sad expression on his face, which, though handsome enough, was marred by the squint of his eyes. The hand that was raised to the door knocker was rough and gnarled—another incongruity with the quality of his clothing.
In my writing of it, I spent considerable time on this entry into the scene, wanting to convey the mystery of him from the very beginning—the incongruities I instantly latched onto. Scrutinizing people as possible characters in my works had become second nature to me.
The mystery of it only deepened when Mrs. Childress responded to his heavy knock and I heard him ask in a deep, raspy voice, "By any chance does a young man named Charles Bairr live and work here?"
"Yes he does. And is it about his work that you come here?" Mrs. Childress asked.
There was a pause, and then the man answered, "Yes, I guess it would be—unless you would just let me speak with—"
"That would be fifty cents for the room for no more than two hours, and a dollar fifty basic for Charles's attentions—and seventy-five cents more for each time there is a . . . finish," Mrs. Childress answered in an authoritative voice. Two dollars and seventy-five cents on nonreturnable deposit. I don't think she had heard the man's incomplete sentence. But I had, and I immediately thought that he must be shy and that in his hesitancy, I would have to work extra hard to get my needed chalk mark out of him—Mrs. Childress did not like to entertain claims of return on deposit for incompletion of the basic expense. Most of the men were easy. They customarily were only there for immediate relief and then, almost in embarrassment at their own preferences, were dressed and away with nary a comment on the experience or my performance—or the fulfillment of the contract.
I was to find that Stephen Bander was there for relief but none that he could name or that I could provide.
The man said nothing further at that point. He just took out his wallet and doled three dollars into Mrs. Childress's talons. Having looked into his wallet as he did so, Mrs. Childress gave the small smile that I knew indicated that she hoped he would become a regular visitor because he clearly had the means to do so. She became especially friendly to him because he made no indication of expecting twenty-five cents returned to him on the deposit—nor did Mrs. Childress volunteer to give him change. With Mrs. Childress, money moved in only one direction comfortably.
She led him into the foyer. The door closed behind them and I heard my name bellowed out by Mrs. Childress. I had stopped picking up the dinner linen at his mention of my name—most of my clients not wanting to know my name any more than they wanted to reveal their real name to me. Upon Mrs. Childress's summons, I walked out into the foyer, expecting the man to say something to her or to me why he had asked for me by name. But he just stood there, staring at me. I sensed even then his indecision on whether to bolt out of the door or not. But he didn't.
The man shuffled along behind us, down a corridor to the very private room, with its own full bath, including a large claw-footed bathtub—quite a luxury in those days—at the back of the bedroom wing. Mrs. Childress had found that a favorite of her new-service clientele was to be bathed—and more—in a porcelain bathtub. And Saturday night was a particularly popular time for this, the men being able to see to two of their basic weekly needs at the same time. I often thought that during that period I must have been the cleanest young man in Asheville. As we walked in the purposely darkened hallway, the man looked down at his feet, and although his physique was magnificent, as I could clearly tell, he was hunched over as an old man with many burdening sins.
When we were alone, he walked over to the nightstand and placed something on it that I assumed, upon getting a glimpse of it, was an envelope—hopefully with money in it. Then he returned across the room, as far away from the bedstead as he could get, and sat in a chair facing the bed. I started to undress.
"You needn't do that," he whispered. "I just want to look at you and perhaps talk a bit."
"We must fuck or I will not be paid my share," I answered, while I continued undressing, taking my shirt off my shoulders. I knew that I needed to put him into arousal or this would not be a good day for me. Mrs. Childress demanded seventy-five cents for the first ejaculation upon nonrefundable deposit, but I only got my share of that seventy-five cents if there was an ejaculation.
"Well, if you must—if we must. I suppose I would like to see what you have become. My name is Stephen, Stephen Bander," he said. And he gave me a searching look as if that might mean something to me, which it didn't.
"I am Charlie," I answered, as I undid the belt to my trousers. For some reason I did not want to give him more—they rarely asked and I never wanted to allow them into the personal corner of my life. I never lied by giving a false name; this was not a large town. I left it up to them to cling to that false protection if they wished. In this case, my reticence was nonsensical, of course, as I had already heard him enunciate my name.
I spent considerable time at the table on the porch the next morning trying to get that part of the scene just right.
