I Knew That He Would Break My Heart

A St. Louis Story of the 1970s

'Duchesse de Brabant'

It’s not as though I didn’t know from the beginning that he would break my heart. Somehow I knew, and I gave it to him anyway. What kind of fool was I? Maybe just the regular kind, looking for something, not sure what, looking for it from someone else, not sure why, since no one else had ever yet come through with it, whatever it was, and the looking had been going on for a while already.

So no blaming him. Not that I want to blame him. Along with the pain – and it’s true, there was plenty of pain – he gave me memories too, the like of which you can’t buy, not even for fortunes. So no blaming him because I was a fool. Fool for love. That wouldn’t make sense; wouldn’t be fair.

This is how it happened:

One night in the 1970s, as I went about my usual gay bar business – smoking, drinking, being a little high, cruising, lusting, feeling a bit inadequate – I spotted him across the smoke-filled room, smoking, drinking, no doubt being a little high too. The sort of things that thousands and thousands of gay boys did night after night in the 1970s, before Grindr took the in-person out of looking for love. I admit it, I wasn’t there just to drink, smoke and lust. I had my heart set on love along with them. Fool indeed.

I smiled at him and he smiled back, or vice versa, I don’t remember which of us smiled first. And which doesn’t matter anyway, since we both smiled, and that’s the thing that counts. Smiled one of those smiles that really ought to come with a warning label: May be hazardous to your heart.

Smiles led to words, seductive and witty. His hand made its way to my shoulder; my arm, around his waist. Kisses followed. Then, “Your place or mine?”

Which place that first night doesn’t much matter, since in the weeks before the heartbreak happened, we made it to both, time after time.

I once went to a place in Paris where the kings and queens of France are buried, or parts of them anyway. I remember a little glass-fronted niche, containing a magnificent crystal goblet, holding the heart of King Louis XVII – taken out of his chest and forever on view for all to see. I think I have an inkling of how he might feel. If I’d had the goblet, I could have filled such a niche myself. Eventually.

But at the start, there’s not a crystal goblet precious enough to hold the heart I offered. Or the one he offered either, for a while.

I remember how his hand felt as he slipped it into mine when we left the bar. How soft the skin and firm the grip. Walking hand in hand, even out of gay bars, still seemed bold and risky then. His self-assurance made it seem safe, routine. I had a fleeting hope that we might be holding hands with each other forevermore. I wanted to believe it. I almost did. For a while. Such misguided hopes are so often the downfalls of new lovers’ hearts.

An early rose bloomed at the front steps of his apartment building – one of those old brick buildings on McPherson, with wide stoops for evening sitting, built to house some of the millions coming to St. Louis for the 1904 World’s Fair, they said - think Meet Me in St. Louis. One of those old pink roses that smell sweet as Paradise; 'Duchesse de Brabant', perhaps, the one Teddy Roosevelt wore in his lapel when he came to dedicate the Fair. A name to prompt gay repartee between us later on. Or some other, as sweetly fragrant.

He stopped to smell the rose, and pulled me over – we still held hands – to smell it too. It had been a long time since I had smelled a rose with mindfulness, a term not yet then in common use; never before on a spring night with a handsome, sexy man guiding me to it. As I smelled the rose in the moonlight, he moved his hand to my butt, and my heart pounded. Then another kiss.

Roses and kisses on a moonlit night. Not, perhaps, the expected interlude between the tricking and the sex for smoking, drinking gay boys in the 1970s, even if maybe a little high. But there you are.

And there we were, drifting in a paradise of moonlight and sweet roses. For a while. It’s those memories that I still thank him for, so many decades after both of us have gone on to other people, other places, some sweet, some not: I speculate that he too has had such a going on, though for us, going on together ended long ago. And yet, for that little while …

Mornings waking up together, after splendid nights, even when not a little high. Holding hands, even in daylight, walking down Euclid to brunch at Balaban’s. Sharing shirts and secrets (and insecurities) when we knew that we were, neither of us, simply this week’s trick. Making promises that we, both of us, truly meant to keep, when making them.

It’s true, of course, that life isn’t all sweet roses and moonlight, or even mostly so. Only a fool would argue otherwise. But sometimes it can be – for a while. And what a fool who denies it ever can be.

He and I had our good times together, made the sweet memories, then moved on before the less good times had time to overpower them. Yes, my heart was broken – can I really say he broke it? – as I knew it would be at the start. But I recovered, went on to love again, to find true love that’s lasted decades, sometimes with moonlight and roses, sometimes not so much – but still lasted. And when I think back about him now, I remember the heartbreak, yes, but also remember the 'Duchesse de Brabant' on that spring night, and the dew when I stopped to smell it again in the morning light, and the dew is still on the rose, and the fragrance sweet. Memories that not even fortunes can guarantee.