Working Title: “Slow Boat, Bitter End”

A Rony Boston Mystery by RJ Stewart

RUTHIE AFFIRMED that she and Henry met in Greece. She was there not as a student but as a missionary attached to a Christian organization that focused on Europe. She said her views have changed since she was a girl in her early twenties, principally because the people of Greece, kindly and humane, offered her more than she thought she could offer them. Greeks love food, the outdoors, and a good party, she told us. They are passionate about a lot of things, especially their families. They support each other always. Often, they live together in a single building, the parents and grandparents on the ground floor and the sons and daughters and their spouses layered above them. She said:

They didn’t need me to tell them how to live. I thought I needed them, but I could not stay. I returned to my home in Ohio after a year. But Henry and I stayed in touch, and we got married a year later. He was very smart, and I love his hair.

While Henry nodded subtly, Ruthie went on. Henry was a professor at a community college, they lived in a Victorian-style home in Dayton, they traveled a good deal but rarely abroad because their children and grandchildren, who all lived in the States, came first.

Gungor grew impatient, eager to get to his dinner and perhaps a little disappointed in Ruthie’s saga of normality. He turned to the first of the men I had decided was gay.

And you my friend…?

He said his name was Tad. He wore white shorts and a lime green linen shirt; the top two buttons open to reveal a lightly haired chest and a gold chain necklace. Tad seemed to me to be a good-looking man. In his mid-forties I guessed. Well-trimmed hair, thick and dark, streaked with blond, professionally done, not by a “barber” but the work of a hairdresser, no doubt. This is the guy who could model swimwear in Esquire. Tad said he and (here was the spoiler) his partner lived in New York, but they spent winters in Palm Springs.

He was the perfect cliché of a gay man; my bias informed me. What was going to be the name of his partner? Geoffrey? So, following the reasoning I had applied to Ruthie, I wondered: Did the parents of these two gay fellows, bear responsibility for their homosexuality? Could they have selected names such as Junior? Or Biff? Or Bubba? Or Billy Bob? And thereby spared them the life of a gay man?

I suddenly disdained the snarky attitude creeping into my thoughts. Why should I deserve to harbor bias and prejudgments about a gay person? If this voyage was arranged to help me discover the failings of my marriage, perhaps I could learn something from two men who, for whatever reason, are attracted to each other. Maybe, I scolded myself, it is time to question rather than answer all things mysterious to me.

And with that I turned to Griselda and smiled. She returned my smile, but with a certain air about her that suggested she knew exactly what I had been thinking, and I read her expression as suggesting not so much disapproval as condolence.

Tad continued with his self-introduction. He said he and Geoffrey (aha! I was right!) had decided they had reached “the age of travel” and had planned for one major trip and two minor ones each year. He said:

Our businesses have matured, and we have excellent managers in each of them, so we have decided to spend time with each other while we let business take care of itself. Last year it was Spain and southern France and this year it is Turkey. We have Croatia and Montenegro on the list, too.

And what of your minor trips, Ruthie asked, evidently not wanting to yield the floor entirely. Henry looked at her disapprovingly. Gungor smiled as usual.

Oh, in the States. We are coastal people, New York and California, so the interior of the U.S. is largely unfamiliar to us. In the spring we went to Nebraska to see the Sandhill cranes, and at Christmas we will be going to Taos for a Feliz Navidad!

He said the Spanish words for Merry Christmas with an affectation I found childish, like a little boy talking to his approving uncle. But mostly I was annoyed because his plans with his partner were exactly what my Ex- and I had planned for our later years. Of course, those years never happened. They were derailed by the distance that had insidiously grown between us, which, I should add, opened the door to her availability for a more rewarding romance, and which an admirer noticed, and which she welcomed. Additionally annoying was the obvious fact that these two gay men enjoyed resources I’d never have. Even this voyage had depleted a foolish amount of my savings, especially considering I had neither a job nor my Ex-’s income. I was ill-prepared for the future. To simply pick up and travel, three or more trips a year, reminded me of friends I had in Manhattan who, when they gathered for cocktails, would soon ask what travel plans were in store. Then they would discuss with competitive pride the exotic lands in their future. Africa! Cambodia! Peru! My usual reply, (a trip to my parents’ home in Colorado), was shamefully inadequate. Admittedly, I had decided my time had come, and here I was on a very slow boat in the Aegean. Time to treat myself! Time to repay me! Time for who knows what?