by Brad Fraser
I was partying every night of the week. Randy and I were insatiable when it came to accruing experiences, fucking people—he women and me mostly men—and drinking. We’d both been indifferent to drugs when we met, but at a friend’s urging I ended up doing acid one night at Flashback and had a great time doing it. It wasn’t long before I persuaded Randy to try it too. We danced, laughed our heads off and alienated almost everyone we met with our abrasiveness.
We were still high long after the club closed and we ended up driving to Borden Park, across from the exhibition grounds, a place I knew as a child, and climbing the back of the bandshell, venturing right out to the edge high above the ground. We sat there, legs dangling over nothingness, talking quietly, luxuriating in one another’s presence, feeling what we both knew was a unique sort of love.
There came a time in my early club-going life when I learned an important lesson. If you take drugs to have a good time, when you can’t find drugs you have a really shitty time. For a few months Randy and I wanted to do acid, or MDA, or anything really, whenever we went out. And on those nights when we couldn’t find drugs, we had a shitty time. Eventually we found a happy medium, limiting the drug nights to a couple of times of month. We spent late nights and early mornings restlessly roaming the city in whatever car he had at the time looking for fun, looking for distractions, looking for adventure while Springsteen sang “Racing in the Street” on Randy’s eight-track.
One day I walked into the Classic Bookshop in Edmonton Centre on my lunch break and there in “New Releases” were two shelves filled with a book that froze me on the spot and set my heart racing. It had a simple, elegant black cover with a high-contrast white font that read Gay Plays: The First Collection. I bought it immediately. I still have that copy, hard-thumbed and much loved. I don’t necessarily feel the same way about the individual plays in this brilliant anthology as I did then, but each of those scripts informed my philosophy on the art and the craft of writing a play and let me know I was part of a much larger movement. But more than that, they let me know gay people had a right to tell their stories as much as anyone else and could perhaps even make money at it.
Cam was reading Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet, and I snatched it out of his hands the second he finished it. I’d always loved old films, and this brilliant book gave me an inkling of what gay history was and how it was often wiped out. I remember being particularly affected by seeing just how terribly gay people were depicted in popular media. We were either poofs, friendly eunuchs or, most common of all, villainous or evil. Russo’s book offered me a way of understanding how the majority looked at us and gave me something to react against and respond to in my life and in my art for the rest of my days.
Also, I was often an asshole.
Vain without being attractive, narcissistic without having proven much, needy while often offering little in return, I loved to shock people by saying truly outlandish racist, misogynistic, homophobic, anti-everything things that made them laugh or cringe, sometimes both at the same time. The only thing that saved me from complete social rejection was the fact that when I was funny I was very funny and my targets were so wide-ranging and equally distributed that only the densest people would not get the edge of satire that informed my barbs. I was using prejudice to criticize prejudice in a way only a queer person who grew up in poverty could get away with.
Like most assholes I was secretly scared someone might see through me and find out just how low my self-esteem was, particularly when it came to my appearance and my attractiveness to other people. I was still battling those belittling voices of my childhood.
I decided to join a gym, hoping to address my terrible posture and body image, even if it couldn’t address my dental issues. While my initial workouts were embarrassing I eventually got the hang of it and came to enjoy what I was doing.
Sadly, I eventually got too busy at the theatre to work out four times a week. When I finally returned to the gym, I found it had closed for good the day before.
* * *
—
I only did two shows in the 1980/81 season at Walterdale, but they both required more effort than everything I’d done in the previous season.
Zastrozzi was my introduction to the work of Toronto playwright George F. Walker. This dark, funny and very stylish play concerns a naive young man’s attempt to escape the vengeance of the master criminal of Europe. It’s expansive, challenging and has a great deal of style. I was cast as Verezzi, the god-obsessed near-idiot who is the object of the protagonist’s obsession.
The show opened and we all had fun doing it. There was a small flash of controversy when during a couple of shows I left my underwear off for the sex scene in the first act. This was an act of defiance, because when the idea of fleeting nudity had been discussed in rehearsal the board somehow got word of it and sent back an edict refusing permission. My moment of protest only ended up making me wish I’d been blessed with one of those dicks that, even when it’s cold and you’re scared, still reads at the back of the house.
PART THREE
MUTANTS
AFTER A PROTRACTED REWRITE of Mutants—a title that came to me late in the writing and reflected my comic-book-outsider interest in Marvel’s X-Men and those who are born unlike their parents—I decided to present the script to the board at Walterdale.
Stephen Heatley, to whom I’d been assistant director for Michel Tremblay’s Les Belles Soeurs during the previous season, and who was named dramaturge on my show, responded positively a couple of weeks later. Vivien also thought it was much better than the previous draft, which they’d read months earlier, but that it still had far too much going on. No one else responded.
My roommate Phil, who had also gotten a job at the telephone company, and I decided it was time to go our separate ways, as he’d met the woman who would become his first wife. I roommate-surfed for a while, usually taking the extra bedroom in a friend’s two-bedroom apartment for as long as was convenient to my host.
One night as I was primping in the bathroom before leaving for work, I heard the local news announcer say “…police bust at a local gay bathhouse…” I moved into the living room and stared at the television. There was footage of men being pulled from Pisces Spa in their towels and thrown into waiting paddy wagons. One of the men was Kinky, who yelled at the camera defiantly. I got a cold feeling in my stomach, realizing I could’ve easily been among them.
The complaint that launched the raid had apparently come from within the gay community—from a concerned citizen whose partner was stepping out on him. There had been bathhouse raids in Toronto four months earlier. There, almost all the 289 men charged as found-ins eventually had the charges dropped or dismissed. In Edmonton many men were ruined after they were advised, again by someone in the community, to plead guilty. In both cities men’s lives were devastated because the cops and politicians didn’t approve of their sex lives.
The long-term result of the police actions in both cities was to make their gay communities much more vocal and organized.
* * *
—
The phone rang one day and it was Vivien. A few other board members had finally read my play.
I said, “What did they think?”
Vivien said, “Oh, Brad, my darling, the response wasn’t so great.”
I was off balance. “Not so great?”
Vivien said, “They—well, they want to cancel the show.”
I sat in a chair heavily. “What?”
Vivien informed me that six people had read the script, and while two of them had “enjoyed” it—I could hear by the italics in her voice that “enjoyed” meant accepted—the other four had been shocked by what they read and were now insisting the show be replaced with the usual night of one-acts.
I said, “What did you think of the play?”
There was a dry pause before she said, “It’s diffi
cult, Brad. I can’t say I liked it and I can’t say I disliked it. It’s powerful. Challenging. I have to see what you do with it. I support your right to do it one hundred percent. I wouldn’t’ve asked you otherwise.”
“Thank you.”
Vivien added, “I need you to fight for this, Brad. I need you to make them see your vision the way I have.”
An emergency meeting of the entire board had been called for the next week. I was twenty-one years old and I was going into a meeting of university professors, teachers, professionals of all types, older, richer, better educated than me, many of whom wanted to kill the play I’d been focused on for a year.
Walking into that Walterdale meeting, I straightened my spine and rolled my shoulders back. Honestly, there was a side of me that loved incredible conflict against unfair odds. In these situations I got adrenalized—my mind became sharp and focused. Whatever might happen, I was not going to give up without a real fight.
Vivien chaired the meeting and kept everyone on point.
At first the objections were tentative: “the language is so vulgar,” “it has no sense of hope,” “I’m not sure all the theatrical conceits are working.” Someone said that Jett, the gay character, was unnecessary, some said clichéd; some clearly didn’t want any gay characters on their stage at all, despite earlier productions of Boys in the Band and Tea and Sympathy, both of which dealt with homosexuality.
I said, “Look, just over a year ago I was asked by the artistic director of this theatre to write a play. I was given no guidance and no directives, so I wrote the play I wanted to write. I showed that play to the artistic director, got feedback from the dramaturge, made it available to the board at each juncture—although none of them read it—and behaved in a most professional manner. Now I’ve found out you want to cancel it. This is surprising to me and upsetting but I’ve done a lot of work and if you cancel my play I’ll sue you.” This was of course a bluff; I had neither the means nor the know-how to go down the lawyer road.
A lot of surprised faces stared back at me.
Judy Unwin, the AD before Vivien, stood up and said, “Brad has worked with us for years. He is as much a part of this theatre as any of us. We can’t censor this boy. We can’t.”
It was a wonderful eleventh-hour appeal. The board then voted and I won, barely. The show would go ahead. I stood up, thanked them and left.
Outside the theatre I leaned against the wall, gulping in air, trying to slow my racing heart. I got myself together and flew down Whyte Avenue to my bus stop, triumphant.
Now to ensure I didn’t fuck up.
* * *
—
Around this time I picked up a copy of Omni magazine and read a small squib in the news roundup about a rare cancer that appeared to be affecting gay men in certain parts of New York. I thought it was odd but didn’t give it much more thought.
Friday nights at Flashback were quieter because they were gayer. The hordes of hets who flooded the place on Saturday were usually someplace else on Fridays, which meant the club was cruisier, so I always went. By this time I knew most of the employees and drag queens by name and greeted them as I checked the place out.
Then I saw the guy on the dance floor.
He was a medium-height, beefy, muscular man in his early thirties with thick dark hair and eyebrows, a perfect bulging ass and a generous basket. Stunning, intimidating, he resembled porn star Peter North more than a little bit. When the song ended he came off the dance floor and headed for the bar. I was always way too intimidated to speak to a guy I found hot, but this man was not shy. He gave me a bright smile and extended a thick-fingered hand. “Hi, I’m Benny,” he said with a slight Texan twang that made him seem both exotic and familiar.
“I’m Brad.”
“Can I buy you a beer?”
“You sure can.”
We spent the rest of the night huddled together, talking.
He used my name just enough to invite trust but never so much as to arouse suspicion. He worked for a steel company and travelled all over the continent meeting with clients. He seemed the most perfect man I’d ever met. Even though many club-goers knew him and stopped to say hello or nodded greetings from across the room, that night I felt I was the only focus of his interest. By the time he got around to telling me he had a long-time, much younger lover at home, I would’ve forgiven him anything. He was also clear about the fact they had an open relationship.
He was the first man to fuck me. I was reluctant, as a few had tried before and I’d found it painful, but he knew what he was doing, how to get me to relax and open up. When he finally worked that fat dick into me I was amazed how good it felt. He started slow then went hard, bringing me to the first prostate orgasm I’d ever experienced. It left me shaking and out of breath. In all the many times I encountered Benny in the future, this was the only time he topped me.
I now understood why so many men were eager to get fucked. I would suggest it for all men regardless of their sexual persuasion. First of all, your prostate is located where it is for a reason. Secondly, the act of opening up sexually rather than being the penetrating partner can be quite freeing. And finally, between the right two people and under the right circumstances, it can be a hell of a lot of fun.
Benny dropped me at my apartment the next morning, giving me a wet kiss in the car, indifferent to the people walking by. I asked him if I’d see him again. He said he’d call me when he next came through town.
Knowing the relationship had no future, I put my broken heart behind me rather quickly. I had a show to open.
* * *
—
While the insecurities I felt at the time were acute, no one at the auditions for Mutants saw any indication. I came across as a confident, controlled director.
Hilda was playing caustic rebel Abra, which surprised no one since I’d written the part specifically for her, while the rest of the cast varied from people I’d worked with to people who had never been in a play before. A few days later, shortly after the first reading of the play in my apartment, the actor playing Jim, the lead, dropped out.
As luck would have it, Randy had just returned to town after an extended sojourn with his relatives in the north. It had been a few months since we’d seen one another and we made up for it by partying that night. Flashback, acid, endless beer and music, then we staggered out of the club into the desolation of downtown Edmonton at 4 a.m. Too high to drive, we wandered the empty streets and alleys.
In one of those alleys we found a fire-escape ladder at the rear of a four-storey brick building and climbed to the top, laughing but slightly freaked out as well. From the roof of the building we could see the bland, flat city spreading to the west, a spidery web of lights. The rest was obscured by the concrete-and-glass towers around us. I asked Randy if he wanted to play Jim in my play. He said he did. Then he leaned against me as we sat on the ledge of the roof with our legs dangling over, just like we’d done at the Borden Park bandshell months earlier. It felt great to be back together.
It was a good thing we had that moment, because the next three months would test every relationship I had.
* * *
—
My idea of direction at that time was telling the actors exactly where to move, what to say and how to say it. Given the varied experience and talent level of the cast, this was probably not a bad thing, although certainly it is not what I’d do now.
I became obsessed with the show. After rehearsal and the usual beers with Randy, I’d go home and think about what we’d be doing the next day. The script was radically overwritten and the time it was taking me to block the play—to designate where actors should move on the stage—was overwhelming. On more than one night I dreamed of solutions to blocking problems I’d been wrestling with during rehearsal.
Early in the process I took the entire cast and crew to Flashback.
They were all very excited. For most straight people a trip to a gay bar is like a trip to an amusement park.
This outing was the catalyst for art to begin imitating life, when the cast members began to morph into the people they were playing. The straight actor playing the main character’s brain-damaged best friend came out as gay almost immediately upon arriving. All kinds of sexual shenanigans were going on between the cast and some of the crew. Randy broke a couple of hearts.
Even at that young age when temptation was the most urgent, I knew better than to fuck with people I worked with in the relatively powerful position of director. I’ve stuck to that rule ever since.
I also learned, as rehearsals became more intense, that my role and what I was required to do didn’t really allow me to bond with the performers in the same way I was accustomed to as another actor. I was the guy in control. I was an outsider.
People got emotional. People got hysterical. And then people got truly miserable when a killer pukey/coughy/shitty flu struck us during the penultimate week of rehearsal, just before getting onstage to integrate the technical elements. After calling in sick to my day job at least once a week for the last two months because I was either too exhausted or hungover to go in, I now had to take an entire week off because I really was sick. My assistant director, a very skilled actor who’d been in Zastrozzi, stepped in to work sensitively with the actors at the exact moment they were all considering a rebellion against my control.
I couldn’t bear to sit with the audience on opening night. Instead I listened at the door in the lobby until an usher shooed me up to the rehearsal hall, where I paced and listened to the show over the intercom. My words sounded tinny and fake through this device. Even the laughter—far more than I was expecting—sounded false.
