Billy Weaver deserves an award.
Billy Weaver deserves an award.
At 4200 meters the air is thin, cold and the landscape surreal. In a middle of nowhere town there is a line of simple lodgings with identical rooms; 6 beds per room, no shower, only a toilet, wash basin and a simple wood burning stove in the middle of a the dinning area. The lodgings are utilitarian. Tour groups stop here for the night, drop off those with wanderlust who have found their way to the Altiplano, feed them a simple meal and then hustles them up at 5am for a sunrise at the geyser. It is below zero and there is still daylight.
I found myself in a strange group of travelers; 4 independents and a French pair. We get along well enough, convivial but none of us will miss each other when we part ways. We are huddle around the communal dinning table with hot tea in our hands, hoping to warm up a degree or two. There are still two empty rooms and 12 blankets unspoken for. I suggest a creative relocation of those blankets if no one shows up.
There is a 4WD on the horizon, and another. They pull up at the front and we watch the wanderlusts unload themselves. The first group bounce out of the car with such energy and togetherness you are slightly envious you are not with them. They look like fun! The guide tosses sleeping bags down from the roof of the car with merrymaking in game play. If any group is gonna stay up all night, it will be them. The other group feels disjointed. Three or four of them feels like they belong together but the other two are cast in the wrong play, yet they don’t seem to have found camaraderie in the shared outcast status either.
Billy Weaver is one of them. I saw him and I knew there is something.
The wood burning stove is lit, we’ve all eaten and the boundary of the groups blur. Billy breaks away from his and joins in. I am standing by the stove in another conversation when I overheard,
“My wife and I have a very liberal marriage. I have carte blanc to do what I want. Having permission has taken the bachelor out of me. I am not interested.”
“Do you think you will feel the same when you’ve been married for ten years?!” I insert my question unprompted.
“That is a big question. I don’t even know about tomorrow. I’m not very good with future planning.”
Those are our first words to each other. Billy Weaver does not know my name. We’ve never exchanged hello.
The rest of the group peppers Billy Weaver with the usual questions and my attention fades back to the stove.
Billy Weaver catches my eye and asks where to after the tour of the surreal and for how long. I tell him.
“Me too. Lets party.” He pulls out a crumpled piece of paper and a few of us write our info on it. Soon, half of the party relocates outside, in minus temperature, to stand around a camp fire and drink. The other half stay by the wood-burning stove and solve riddles. I chose the stove and riddles; Billy Weaver and the French pair went for minus temperature and whisky.
Billy Weaver and I saw each other on and off the next day through the various stops. The French pair are both tennis instructors and had meet Billy Weaver a little while back in a different town. Passing the bottle around a campfire always guarantees a story for the morning. That night, one of the French pair got so drunk, he slept in the hallway and Billy Weaver had to pick him up off the ground, take off his shoes and put him to bed. The details of the night kept us entertained all day.
24 hours later I am in the Capitol. I scroll through my notes and considered emailing Billy Weaver. Not necessarily to party but someone to hang out with and maybe have dinner. Nah. I have other things to do, interviews, work and other friends to meet.
The next day brings the arrival of the French pair to my hostel and right next door to my room.
“Billy emailed us. Lets make a plan with him tonight and we can all go out.” Juilen tells me over breakfast.
“Sure.”
Not sure if its because I am a woman, or just seem more responsible, but the French boys laid the task of finding Billy Weaver and the night’s festivity with me.
“So glad you emailed. I lost the piece of paper when my clothes went through the laundry.” Billy Weaver replies.
There is a dinner plan in place, except the French pair insists on being fashionably late and get a head start on drinking in their room.
Billy Weaver is at the steak house with a cherub faced Austrian. Lukas is tall and handsome, with a shy smile that lights up the room. He fell out of a poster for Austrian mountaineers. His smile is so beautiful; I can’t stop taking pictures of him.
We invite a solo traveler, Ben from Belgium to join us. It seemed right at the time. The evening’s entertainment is watching Lukas order the restaurant special, a 1200g steak and eat it in 8 minutes and 20 seconds, breaking the existing record.
Billy Weaver and Lukas are strangely abstaining.
“Are you not drinking because you guys are climbing tomorrow?”
“Not especially. But I won’t go real hard tonight. What are you drinking?”
“Jameson.”
Billy Weaver hails down the bartender and orders a Jameson as well. He then reaches for my bottle of water with an intimacy that we’ve never shared and drink from it.
We both are experientialists. Route 36, an underground cocaine bar sounds interesting. I am not fussed about cocaine, but the journalist in me wants to go, to see what is all about. The French pair is law abiding and resists the idea. Ben actively wants cocaine and is eager. This is not Lukas’s game and he heads home. There is not enough energy to carry off an underground club so we pile into a single cab for a bar across town. I ended up on Rui’s lap, facing Billy Weaver. He said something to me unimportant, except there was a twinkle in his eye that my spidy sense registered.
The bar is an industrial Stanely Kubrick fantasy. We squeeze around a small table, Billy Weaver and I order the same drink, Havana Club 7 years, on the rocks.
“Are you two a couple?” Ben asks point blank.
“No. We just meet traveling.” Billy Weaver clarifies.
“But we should take care of business in the bathroom before the night ends.” I jokingly said.
“Why the bathroom when we can do it in my bed?” Billy retorts.
We tell tall tales through the night and I could feel Billy Weaver’s leg against mine under the table. He would reach for my water, or my Havana Club and drink from it with ownership.
We pile back into the cab again. This time I am on Billy Weaver’s lap. First stop, Ben. Another block later, Billy Weaver. The French pair has no idea where we are or where we live so I hand over the business card for our hostel, close the cab door with Billy standing on the street corner in curious puzzlement.
Billy Weaver sends me an email minutes later but I didn’t see until next morning. “I might be crazy but I could swear you were getting out of the cab with me.”
Reply. “Ha! I was very unclear about the whole thing. Plus I still remember the first conversation we had.”
Billy Weaver: “When do you leave?”
Reply. “Not sure yet. I might still be here when you get back from the climb.”
Have you ever seen glaciers melt, crack and giant pieces of it fall off, changing its shape? Calving it is called. It’s loud. Unexpected. In a split second. The truth is, the glacier has been melting, sweating in the changing climate for a long while. It lets go a drip at a time until it is ready to shed something larger.
We are no different.
All next day I wonder if I had a reasonable excuse to stay a few days more to wait for Billy Weaver. There are museums I could visit. I could get a hold of a local gallery director who I know from the international art fair circuit and visit his gallery. There is a contemporary art museum, and I could always do more shooting. Another workday could be a good thing as well. Billy Weaver and I could go check out Route 36 and there could be a story in that. The list goes on. Except none of the work justifications hide the primal desire; I want Billy Weaver. I didn’t know I did.
Before there was a Billy Weaver, I had come to a decision. No more unavailable men. No more men who have nothing to offer me. Enough. No more. Except this decision was as un-witnessed as New Year resolutions; the invisible drip drip off a corner of a giant glacier.
I bought a bus ticket for the next day.
“Did you ditch the Capitol yet?” Billy Weaver’s unwavering interest transmitted via email.
“I did. Do you fancy a five hour bus ride?” My fingers hit the keyboard and typed out a reply quicker than I could scrutinize myself any further. The tiny amount of pride I had gained for sticking to my schedule and resolution melted into nothing.
“I’ll come check it out.”
Billy Weaver is willing to get on a five-hour bus to spend the night with me, and then return on another five-hour bus. This is different than it has ever been before. I untangled myself from my own judgment because there is something more here, beyond desire. I can’t quiet see it, but I can sense it.
A long day of trekking, a hot shower later, Billy Weaver knocks. Right on cue. He is dressed in a light blue pinstriped button down shirt, the top buttons undone. I can see his homemade necklace of climbing rope and wedding ring against his throat. He is sexy.
“Were you about to give up on me?” Billy Weaver shuts the door and kisses me. He taste of metal and sweat.
We buy a bottle of wine and sit in the common room by the fire, waiting for a table at the restaurant above. I ask a lot of questions but he has few for me. It’s okay. He doesn’t need to know me or learn me. This is not that.
“Why me and why now?” This is the only question I can’t figure out and he does a poor job explaining it.
“I’m not doing anything wrong. My wife and I are just very liberal and open minded.”
“Will she ask?”
“Yes. She will. And I will answer honestly, omitting the details of course.”
“You should know something….you are not my first, but you are the last.” I solemnly declare my resolution, binding myself to this invisible contract.
Billy Weaver is beautiful. No, I don’t think you understand. Let me say this one more time. Billy Weaver is beautiful. Yes. That is what I mean. Billy Weaver is perfect. I have had few as perfect as he.
“I hate that you have neighbors.”
“I don’t care. I’m leaving in the morning. Make me scream.”
“Shh….not yet.”
Later, Billy Weaver moves off the twin bed onto the other twin bed in the room and we sleep, apart.
I can sense the milky daylight behind the blue curtains; I dig through the covers and find Billy Weaver.
“What time is it?”
“6:45.” I kiss him and reach down. “We don’t have to. But it would be a waste not to.”
“I did all the work last night.”
“I still can’t breathe at this altitude but I’ll try.”
One of my secret pleasures is watching a naked man have a drink of water after he just finish having sex with me. There is enough distance for objectivity and still admire him. I watch him naked, still erect, awash in the blue light, taking a long drink. He is beautiful.
“Are you sticking by your decision?”
“Yes. You are my last. And it was perfect, as it should be.”
Billy Weaver raises a fist up in the air triumphantly.
The first hour of my 11 hour bus ride, I thought about Billy Weaver, the first time I saw him, the sense of knowing something without specificity and everything else after. I feel good, different. There isn’t the sense of addiction that is usually present after a night like this.
I get off the bus during a rest stop for the bathroom. I wash my hands, splash some water on my face and caught a sight of myself in the mirror. I look different. Did you hear it? That loud cracking sound? A chunk of the glacier broke off and the landscape is not the same.
Billy Weaver deserves an award…or at least, a few pages in the book of Charlie.
*all names have been changed to protect the innocent.
