A Field Guide to Male Intimacy.

Follow @Mazana17

 

When my car’s battery died on a bitterly cold January day, my father refused to come to my apartment in south Minneapolis to give me a jump.

He drives a Tesla and claimed (not quite accurately) that using it to power a regular car would cause it to short-circuit. “Plus, it’s nasty outside,” he said, “and, as you know, your father is a wuss.”

Luckily my stepfather, Kevin, agreed to help. He is bald, clean-shaven, slender, friendly and handy. An agricultural engineer, he has a master’s degree in weed science and subscribes to journals such as “Wheat Life.” He always knows what time it is. “I’ll be there in 15 minutes,” he said. He arrived at my apartment in 15 minutes.

I thought this would be my chance, finally, to impress him. The winter before, I had called him in distress when my car had blown a tire. I didn’t know how to change it, and he had to do it for me, kneeling in the cold on the side of a busy street.

He had also, at various points, fixed leaks in my kitchen and helped me assemble (that is, he assembled) a desk from Ikea. Around him I felt inept, and although we are polite to each other (kind, even), my sense is that he views me as his wife’s hapless son, part of the bargain of marrying her.

I did know how to jump a car, however, and now made a demonstration of setting the cables in place. “The red clamp’s on the positive terminal,” I said with authority.

Kevin fixed the corresponding clamps to his truck’s battery and said, “Let’s give it a go.”

I prayed that the jump would work and that my competence would be established evermore. Outside my window, Kevin gave a rather solemn thumbs-up.

I turned the key. The engine sputtered, didn’t engage. I tried again. Nothing.

“Looks like you’ll need a new battery,” Kevin said.

He and my mother met seven years ago through a dating service called It’s Just Lunch. They discovered common interests in hiking and wine. They went on trips to vineyards, first in rural Minnesota, then to Napa Valley and the Oregon coast. On their hikes, they wore clothes with many pockets and zippers. In the evenings, they visited wineries. Within a year, they were engaged.

I was relieved when they married. My mother had spent the previous several years in a muddle. A decade before, without warning, my father had informed her that he was gay, and their marriage dissolved. The future she had expected (simply, to be with him) also dissolved. In its place was nothing.

I was 16 at the time, and for my last two years of high school, we lived alone. For her, it was an era of bathrobes, insomnia, Sleepytime tea, Kleenex, rationalization (“everything happens for a reason”), reheated leftovers and worry.

Kevin appeared as a steady arm.

My relationship with him has evolved slowly and sometimes awkwardly. We’re members of the same gym and sometimes see each other in the locker room. If we’re both naked, we make a point of speaking, as if doing so will shield us from the mild embarrassment of our nudity, from the Oedipal drama once removed. Our talk is stilted, crisp: “Hey! How are you?” “Good.” “Good!” “O.K. Good to see you.” “Yes!” (Exclamations are mine.) But in truth, this is how we always are. If we’re out to dinner or happen to meet in the grocery store, we still act as if we’re naked in the locker room.

Now, I wondered how we might get my car to a repair shop to have the battery replaced. Kevin made it known we would be changing it ourselves.

From the back of his truck he took out his toolbox. “Yup, it’s always with me,” he said. The heads of wrenches and screwdrivers shone inside as if they had never been used. No, it was as if they had been used often but cleaned extremely well.

We took off our gloves and set to work. The temperature was below zero. Snot froze in our noses. Our breath huffed up above us.

Kevin loosened the bolts that held the battery in place. So we wouldn’t lose them, I placed the nuts in a ceramic coffee mug that had been in my car. This was my job, to hold the mug. Our hands quickly became achy with numbness. When Kevin could no longer feel his fingers, he suggested we warm up in his truck.

The truck’s interior, like Kevin’s toolbox, was spotless. In the years he’d owned it, he had made zero imprint upon the inside of the truck. But then I thought: No, tidiness was his mark. He is an orderly man and maintains his truck to his fullest expression. The radio was tuned to the Vikings-Seahawks playoff game. Teddy Bridgewater threw an incomplete pass. The Vikings, as ever, punted.

“Not looking good,” I said. “I mean, not sounding good. Ha.”

“Nope,” Kevin said.

Thus, our conversation reached its terminus.

My phone buzzed in my pocket — my father. His message said: “Picture’s ready. Plz pick up.”

We had recently spent two hours in a picture frame shop consulting each other on how best to frame an illustration of a Dutch trade ship. (“See, Son, you don’t want the frame to overpower the picture. And the backing should have a little color to it, but again, you don’t want it to overwhelm.”)

My father and I could have a picture framed artfully, but we couldn’t replace a car battery. If left to our own devices, those devices would break and would stay broken until we paid people to fix them. My inheritance was a moderate streak of dandyism and a set of deficient motor skills. As I typed him a reminder that I was momentarily without transportation, my phone’s screen went black. Its battery, too, had died.

The battery store, a rectangular building with a pair of chimneys on top, resembled a battery. When my eyeglasses defogged, I saw batteries of all sizes gleaming on the shelves. I carried my dead battery in my hands feeling a little silly about it, as if I were taking my own half-eaten croissant into a pastry shop.

The Vikings game was on the radio here, too. Six clerks stood around a counter, looking upward toward a ceiling speaker. One of them mentioned how many rushing yards the Vikings’ running back had accumulated during the season. Another mentioned how many he had two years ago. A third added how close he was to breaking the season record.

They were playing a game of their own, as men often do: a game of information, to see who knew the most. Eventually one of the clerks saw us and approached.

I explained, holding my dead battery, that I needed a new battery. The clerk led us to a shelf and showed us three that looked the same. He explained how they weren’t. All I understood was that their prices were different. Kevin suggested I get the second-cheapest one — just as I would have done, applying the wine theory I use in restaurants.

As I paid, the Vikings missed a field goal that would have won the game, so they lost. Many knowledgeable Minnesotans had predicted this, and in predicting it had secretly hoped it would happen, which made the loss, in a backward way, a win. The clerk looked up at the speaker. “Just like ‘98,” he said.

“The Atlanta Falcons,” Kevin said. “Gary Anderson.”

“First field goal he missed all year.”

I understood the game’s rules but couldn’t participate. I was a spectator of my gender.

As we installed the new battery, the dynamic between Kevin and me didn’t shift. I stood beside him, holding the mug of nuts and screws. Now and then he pointed, directing me to shine a flashlight under the hood. He worked quickly, seldom speaking. He spoke so little, in fact, that he never spoke. But our quiet was relaxed; we were united by our task.

When Kevin’s fingers went numb, he handed me the wrench. Without a word, he nodded his head. My hands were cold as well, nearly useless. But I saw it was important to him that I finish the work on my own car. My brain told my fist to close around the wrench and not let go, lest my incompetence reveal itself. Soon the new battery was in place.

I stepped into my car. Outside my window, Kevin gave a rather solemn thumbs-up. He didn’t smile when the engine started, but by not smiling, he did.

“You’re all set,” he said.

We removed our gloves and shook hands. Our hands were chilly and blocky, but we had put them to good use. Through them, we had communed and communicated. And our handshake, I sensed, had completed our conversation in the secret language of male intimacy, a language in which I am still struggling to gain fluency.

 For more News and Entertainments, follow Us at our Social Network :

Follow @Mazana17