Wearing Black to the White Party

by David Stukas

  And just like that, I was off the hook for the time being.

  Dinner that night would have made a person with bipolar disorder feel right at home. On the one side, were Michael and I. Even though it was about as easy as rolling a four-hundred-pound boulder uphill on roller skates, I tried to keep the conversation going. Michael, in his usual state of self-absorption, chattered ceaselessly, expounding on the marvels of Palm Springs’ attractions, but from the smile on his face and the energy that radiated from it, it was clear that he had been trolling around the Sunny Dunes area—a place where dozens of gay hotels stood elbow to elbow. (Michael told me that during the evening, men cruise up and down the area, going from one hotel to another in an endless parade of gay men that left a permanent slick of testosterone on Warm Sands Road. He even told me about an incident he caused two years ago, when he was staying in the area. Michael, always buff and always tanned, strode out onto the streets wearing only a minuscule thong. His presence on the street caused two elderly gay men in Cadillacs to collide head-on at five miles per hour. Michael refers to the incident as “When Queens Collide”—a loving reference to the play by the late, great Charles Ludlam.)

  Rex and Vince represented the dour side of dinner. Rex was a mess of contradictory emotions, looking like he was about to shatter at any moment, while his face emitted long, slow waves of despair like a weary ocean. Vince, who was usually rather chipper, peered at Rex with grave concern.

  Dinner was cleared, and we prepared for the trek over to Leo’s house for the Red Party kickoff. All the vendors, suppliers, and associates of T-Rex Productions were invited, and Michael said it would be one of the biggest parties of the weekend.

  Michael might have been correct in his estimation, but I had the gnawing suspicion that notorious was the word that would describe it best.

  Gay society, while appearing monolithic to the casual observer, is actually complex and fractured—more so than the San Andreas fault. In addition to gym bunnies, flaming queens, and butch types, we now have bears (hairy, supposedly masculine men), cubs (a smaller version of bears), otters (I will hazard a guess here: furry, lithe, playful young things) and of course, the main attendees of the Palm Springs White Party: circuit boys. This group is made up of gay boys who are, for the most part, young, hairless, buff, and several months behind on their electric bills. But with years of partying under their belts and having passed the dreaded age of thirty, those circuit boys who haven’t forsaken weekly body shaves and eight-pack abs and passed into beardom become a new class of gay men: short-circuit boys. Excessive partying and bill-collector dodging have taken a visible toll on these gay men, making them look old before their years and unable to pick up a check at dinner.

  From the looks of the crowd filing into Leo’s party, we had a bumper crop of gay men who looked like they had more than a little resistance in their wiring.

  Michael and I drove up to Leo’s mid-century modern house in Vince’s car, while Rex and Vince followed in Rex’s. (Rex felt that two cars were better in case Michael and I wanted to stay longer.)

  Leo’s house was an Alexander, judging from the architect’s butterfly roof, which seemed poised for flight at any moment. What amazed me about Palm Springs was how well everyone lived here. For an amount of money that wouldn’t even buy a mediocre one-bedroom co-op in New York, people here lived in rambling houses embodying the wacky exuberance of 1950s architecture, complete with pools and stupendous views of the mountains that encircled the town. I’m sure that I was not the first New Yorker to question the wisdom of living in New York, and I’m sure I won’t be the last. The relaxed lifestyle, the sheer numbers of gay inhabitants, and the promise of a secluded lifestyle complete with pool and year-round outdoor living, all made Palm Springs a very seductive place.

  Being a die-hard modernist, I couldn’t wait to see the inside of Leo’s place. I was hoping for orange and lime-green walls with Technicolor sailfish leaping over George Nelson Ball wall clocks and welded-metal wall sculptures.

  No such luck. Leo’s house had been done up in a style I like to call “Archie-Digest.” Take classic pieces from the Regency or Empire period, add tired opaque washes and faux animal-print fabrics and throw in about two thousand tortoiseshell tchotchkes, and you have a look that has to be dusted daily, is guaranteed to make guests feel completely uncomfortable, and can be destroyed in just seconds by a spilled glass of anything liquid. Nothing could be more out of place, but it occurred to me that I might be wrong—perhaps Leo’s furniture went with his hairdo.

  The party was in full swing, with thumping music and hordes of people all dressed in red. From the bar in a corner of the living room, it looked like a red tide bloom had erupted in a shallow sea, leaving desperate fish surfacing and gasping to escape the toxic waters. I saw people in red thongs, red caftans, red Chinese mandarin robes, red leather, red wigs, and one man nude but covered entirely in red paint-on latex, giving him the appearance of a large balloon sculpture. I thought I had seen it all when I spotted a man dressed as a dog, complete with paws, a tail, snout, and floppy ears. He was crawling around the ankles of the partygoers, sniffing their shoes and barking. People laughed at his antics, probably the same way that patrician Romans did as their city was being sacked by the Visigoths.

  I threaded my way through the crowd and made my way toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the pool. Michael had ditched me at the bar to go off with a severe-looking man with a goatee so pointed, you could open cans with it. So I stood there, looking for Marc, when a shock of red hair grabbed my attention and consequently made me the happiest guy alive.

  “Monette!” I shouted through the crowd.

  “Robert!” Monette shouted back.

  We forged our way across the pulsating crowd in slow motion, like two lovers who hadn’t seen each other for decades. The only thing missing was the daisy-covered field.

  “I didn’t want to let you know I was coming,” Monette shouted in my ear. “I wanted to surprise you!”

  “You certainly did. I don’t really know anyone here, and Michael abandoned me faster than a fag-hag in a gay bar at last call.” I was about to tell Monette what was going on at La Casa de Mort when a man came up to me and fastened his lips on mine and dipped me backwards until my head almost touched the floor. I had been dipped!

  It was Marc.

  Monette pointed toward Marc and asked, “Do you know this guy?”

  “I’ve never seen him in my life,” I said.

  “We Palm Springians are very friendly,” Marc reported.

  “What are you waiting for, Robert?” Monette asked in amazement. “Introduce me!”

  “Monette, this is Marc. We met this afternoon.”

  “Glad to meet you, Marc. I’m Monette. Well, well, Robert,” Monette commented, making the situation between Marc and me sound dirtier than it was.

  “I’m just trying to live up to the lesbian joke,” I replied.

  “What joke is that?” she asked.

  “What does a lesbian bring on a first date?”

  “Let me guess, Robert. A U-Haul?”

  “Very good, Monette; you receive two hundred dollars and a year’s supply of Summer’s Eve feminine deodorant spray.”

  “Robert, that joke is older than Steve and Edie.”

  “Marc and I just met,” I started, “but I’m selling all my things and moving to Palm Springs, where we’re going to raise organic Chihuahuas.”

  “I see,” Monette said, pulling thoughtfully at the swirls of her flaming-red mop. “And what was it that brought you two together? The Red Party?”

  “No,” Marc said, jumping headlong into the conversation. “I think it was assault and battery on a vicious queen who deserved it.”

  “Anyone I know? George Wayne? Andre Leon Talley?”

  “No, Colorado Jackson. He’s a party planner and sometimes interior designer.”

  “You’re pulling my five-foot legs,” Monette exclaimed, the disbelief showing clearly o
n her face. “A queen with the name of Colorado Jackson? What does he do—decorate riding stables?”

  “You’re close. You should see the work he’s done. Oh, mercy!” Marc cried with a lisp so heavy, you had to towel yourself off after hearing it. “It makes Leo’s house look pretty tame.”

  “So you assaulted this queen? What did you do? Scratch his eyes out? Loosen the stitches behind his ears and let his face fall back into place?”

  “He was purposely dropping cigarette ashes into my luggage, so I sliced up the bottom of his trendy microfiber shirt,” I confessed.

  “I’m gunna tell,” Monette shrilled.

  “Marc made me do it,” I said, pointing to Marc, who was by now laughing quite hard.

  “No I did-ent!” Marc responded, pointing back at me.

  I looked over at Marc and realized that of all the qualities I prized in my friends, having a quick and sardonic sense of humor weighed in the heaviest. It’s a quality that I got from watching a lot of black-and-white movies as a kid. I couldn’t imagine anything more glamorous or sophisticated than William Powell or Myrna Loy standing around a New York penthouse, slinging one-liners and cocktails with equal gusto at platinum blondes and hard-boiled coppers. Those were days that you couldn’t bring back, but I felt that at least you could relive those times by whizzing off a good retort in their honor.

  “Speaking of the she-devil, there’s Colorado now,” Marc said, pointing out The Evil One.

  True to his reputation, Colorado made his way slowly through the crowd, holding his cigarette out in front of him menacingly enough to make people clear the way for him.

  “You know, the more I think about Colorado, the more I realize that Michael has a lot of the same qualities. But how is it that I can tolerate Michael’s self-centeredness when Colorado makes you want to pull out a gun and do the world a favor?”

  “Probably because while Michael will push people out his way to get somewhere, he doesn’t kick them when they’re down like Colorado would. You also tolerate him because he lets you use his house on Fire Island and he invites you to a lot of parties.”

  “That might have a teensy-weensy bit to do with it,” I acquiesced. “But remember, I saved his life, Monette. That creates a bond that you just can’t break.”

  Marc looked at me with approving astonishment. I bowed as humbly as I could. Marc and I liked each other from the start, but with each little complimentary tidbit that we learned about each other, the closer we grew—and we hadn’t even known each other twenty-four hours yet.

  “Marc, did you see the guy dressed as a dog? Monette, you should’ve seen it. Puppy paws and nose, ears—the whole shebang.”

  “I didn’t have to see it. I was standing there wondering if I was witnessing the fall of Western civilization when I felt something bumping up against my crotch, and I look down and here’s this guy in a dog suit sniffing my vagina and barking. I wanted to kick him, but I’m an animal lover. I swear to the goddess, that bumper sticker is so true.”

  “Which one is that, Monette?” I inquired.

  “The one that says the more I learn about people, the more I love my dog.”

  “But you don’t have a dog,” I reminded her.

  “I’m about to go and get one—just not one like that one you saw here.”

  “I hate to tell you, but that dog is David McLeish, the soap opera star, extreme closet case—and the largest investor in T-Rex Productions,” Marc said.

  Monette and I glanced at each other to see who could have their jaw open the widest.

  I spoke first. “He’s a soap opera star and he dresses like this in public?”

  “Well, first of all, this isn’t exactly public. And second, you didn’t recognize him, did you?”

  “I don’t watch soap operas, Marc,” I answered.

  “Fine, but you didn’t recognize him, did you?” Marc pressed on.

  “No, and I get your point. It would be difficult to recognize anyone in that getup—unless you were a beagle.”

  “It’s amazing that someone would act like this in public yet act so straight for his fans. In fact, it ticks me off. Hey, why don’t we out him?” Monette suggested.

  “No, no, no,” I replied. “You know what happened to Armistead Maupin when he outed Rock Hudson back in the eighties? He got shit from a lot of gays who said Armistead had no right to do that. Not for me.”

  “We call him David-on-a-Leash behind his back,” Marc responded. “He’s invested millions in T-Rex because Rex gives him terrific returns on his money and David doesn’t get involved much in the day-to-day. He puts up a lot of money and doesn’t interfere, and he gets returns like thirty percent.”

  “Very impressive. I’ve got a 401(k) that isn’t doing much—maybe I should invest with you guys.”

  “Sorry, Robert, but the minimum starting investment is five hundred thousand—and I don’t think Rex is taking on any more investors until the Red Party is over. This is our biggest gamble, but if it turns out the way we expect, we will be in the big leagues.”

  As David McLeish came into view again, he was followed by a strikingly handsome man who grabbed David’s leash and jerked him back confidently, causing David to lower his tail and come whimpering up to his “trainer” full of remorse. The trainer was wearing skin-tight pants tucked into knee-high boots, with a white button-down shirt and three open buttons (I counted) to give just a peek of a rock-hard chest. I instantly thought, ringmaster.

  Marc, seeing that Monette and I were watching this spectacle with the intensity of Cher eyeing a comeback vehicle, felt the need to explain further.

  “That’s his trainer, Hans, from Germany,” Marc offered. “He does this full time with David and gets paid quite handsomely.”

  Both Monette and I forgot completely about David and stood staring at Hans. To think that people did things like this and got paid a lot of money for it. I had heard of outlandish occupations that you and I, dear reader, would kill for. I had read about a guy who retouches impressionist masterpieces, a man in England who thatches roofs the way they have been done for hundreds of years and makes enough to take the summer months off and drive an Italian sports car, and now we had Hans, house-trainer to the stars. Where were the college courses like these when I was at Michigan State University? Huh?

  “Uh-oh, here comes more trouble,” Marc warned us. “That’s Darlene Waldron. She owns the largest circuit party concession, Circuit Toys for Party Boys. She hates Rex and the rest of us because we’re giving her some competition. Don’t let her appearance fool you—she waits for you to get your guard down and wham!” Marc exclaimed, pounding an imaginary Rex flat in the palm of his hand.

  “She doesn’t look very intimidating,” I countered.

  “Just watch this. I’ll introduce you,” he said, grabbing Darlene lightly by the arm—and I do mean lightly.

  Darlene spun around as if she had been grabbed from behind by a mugger. A flash of hatred and anger flooded her rosy, china-doll face and disappeared as quickly as a desert rain. Now you see it, now you don’t.

  Marc pulled Darlene toward us. “Darlene, I’d like to introduce you to Robert and Monette.”

  Darlene extended a fragile, lily-white hand and laid it in mine where it remained like a dead sparrow. “Nice to meet you,” she said in a voice so soft, it was difficult to hear above the roar of the party.

  I shook her hand carefully, taking pains not to crush it. As she introduced herself to Monette, I couldn’t help but notice that besides her stature, everything about her was tiny. She wore a petite wristwatch, tiny belt, tiny shoes, a tiny brooch, and she sported a close-cropped hairstyle that made her pointy, henna-red hair seem as if it were in full retreat on her head. I thought it odd that a person so small would work so hard to emphasize her diminutive size; usually it’s the other way around. It was as if she wanted to portray herself as vulnerable.

  “So,” Monette started, “Marc tells me that you own a company that sells circuit party accessorie
s. How interesting! How did you come to be in this business?”

  The way Monette said the word interesting, I almost believed her. But I could tell that Monette didn’t like this woman for some reason and she was putting Darlene on the spot. Darlene seemed to pick up on Monette’s energy, because I could see her body stiffen like a cobra, coiling itself before striking.

  “I was selling variable annuities for a few years,” Darlene began, “but it didn’t give me the excitement I needed. I wanted to do something different, you know. I had some gay friends, and they told me that circuit party items were a big business, so I did some research and I opened Circuit Toys.”

  Monette decided to take one more jab at Darlene. “So, Darlene, did you find that there’s a lot of money to be made selling circuit party accessories?”

  Darlene looked like a cornered rat. “Could you excuse me?” she said, pulling a cellular phone from her suit pocket and dialing hurriedly. “There’s a call I have to make before I forget, sorry. Maybe I’ll catch up with you later.”

  We all watched her walk into the crowd with the unmistakable look of desperation on her face.

  Monette, who seemed satisfied in making Darlene squirm and run away, smiled and shook her head. “I get the feeling that that woman would stab someone and sit down and watch television without even feeling a twinge of guilt. Marc, if she’s one of Rex’s enemies, why in hell is she here?” Monette asked.

  “Because Rex invited her—and a lot of other people who are working the White Party,” Marc answered.

  “Because Rex wanted to keep things light and airy—all the while he’s raising the stakes for everyone, right?”

  “Kind of like that, Monette,” Marc said. “Actually, it’s more of a case of keeping your friends close and your enemies even closer. That’s how Rex has been so successful: he’s got brass balls and he doesn’t like to be the first to blink. He can be pretty fearless.”