More Tales of the City

by Armistead Maupin

  Jon laughed, then winked at Michael. “What makes you think you’ve got a lover?”

  Heroic Couplets

  BURKE’S FIRST WEEK BACK IN SAN FRANCISCO OFFERED no new clues to the cause of his amnesia. One night, after a particularly nasty red rose scene at the Washington Square Bar & Grill, Mary Ann made up her mind to propose a new plan of attack.

  “You know,” she said casually, as she crawled into bed with Burke, “maybe we’ve been handling this whole business in the wrong way.”

  He grinned at her. “You wanna start carrying barf bags?”

  “Burke, be serious!”

  “Right.”

  “The thing is, we’ve been avoiding roses and walkways—at least, we’ve been trying to—and as long as we do that, we’re gonna keep avoiding the cause of your amnesia.”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  She frowned. “You don’t mean that. I know you don’t.”

  He shrugged. “Go on. Finish.”

  “Well, I just think we should be … dealing with it, that’s all.”

  “What shall I do? Camp out in a rose garden?”

  “Well, yes … something like that.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Look, Burke: there’s a place down south of Market called the San Francisco Flower Mart. It’s where the retailers get their flowers.”

  “At five o’clock in the morning, no doubt.”

  “Three.”

  “Ouch.”

  “We could stay up all night and find a place with onion soup, like they used to do at that flower market in Paris. We could make it into a real adven—”

  “Now you’ve flipped out.”

  “Don’t you see, Burke? If we exposed you to a lot of roses, thousands of them, we might be able to—I don’t know—short-circuit whatever it is that’s freaking you.”

  “Terrific.”

  “It wouldn’t be like a surprise or anything. You’d know about it in advance. You could prepare yourself. And I’d be with you the whole time. Doesn’t that sound reasonable?”

  He stared at her in disbelief. “And just when do you propose we pull off this caper?”

  “Well …”

  “Tonight, right?”

  She nodded.

  He flung back the covers and leaped out of bed.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to my apartment.”

  “Burke, I didn’t mean—”

  “I have to change, don’t I? Will jeans do … or do I need a tuxedo for Les Halles?”

  “Come back here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” she grinned, “if I’m going to deflower you, you can at least return the favor.”

  It was midnight now. Downstairs, on the second floor of 28 Barbary Lane, Michael and Jon were in bed watching a rerun of The Honeymooners.

  “I love the tube,” sighed Michael, passing Jon their communal dish of Rocky Road ice cream. “I loved this program almost as much as I loved Little Lulu comics.”

  Jon smiled. “Remember Little Itch?”

  “Sure. And Tubby! My father built me a playhouse just like Tubby’s, complete with a No Girls Allowed sign.”

  “Maybe that’s what turned you queer.”

  “Nah. I know who did that. That guy on ice in L.A.”

  “Who?”

  “Walt Disney. The Mickey Mouse Club.”

  “The Mickey Mouse Club turned you queer?”

  “Well …” Michael took a long drag on the hash pipe and handed it to Jon. “You either got off on Annette’s tits or you didn’t. If you did, you were straight. If you didn’t you had only one alternative.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “Spin and Marty. God, I used to agonize over that show!”

  Jon smiled wistfully. “I’d almost forgotten about that.”

  “That’s because you identified with Spin. Those of us who identified with Marty will never, ever, forget it.”

  “What makes you think I identified with Spin?”

  “Because you were cool even when you were eight years old. You’ve never known what it feels like to be a wimp. You won all the prizes at summer camp, and the other kids were electing you to some-fucking-thing-or-another every time you turned around. Am I right?”

  Jon ignored the question. “You ate all the ice cream,” he said.

  “I knew I was right.”

  The doctor simply smiled at him.

  To Market, to Market

  A BLUE AND YELLOW ARMADA OF CHRONICLE DELIVERY trucks was the only sign of life on Fifth Street when Mary Ann checked her wristwatch just after 3 A.M.

  “It’s eerie,” she said, settling back in the cab again, “but kind of glamorous at the same time. I feel like Audrey Hepburn in Charade.”

  Burke nodded in silence.

  “You aren’t nervous, are you?”

  “I think the word is numb.”

  “We can turn back, Burke, if you really think—”

  “No. I wanna do it.” His eyes were glazed with steely determination, but Mary Ann could sense the terror beneath. “Burke, you have nothing to fear but—”

  He put his hand to her lips. “Don’t say it.”

  Just then, the cab stopped at Brannan Street, where a row of pastel florist vans marked the entrance to the San Francisco Flower Mart. Burke paid the driver, while Mary Ann waited anxiously on the curb.

  The market was a series of interlocking buildings, fragrant white caverns ablaze with fluorescent light. The pungent odor of cut stems tingled in Mary Ann’s nose even before they entered the largest building.

  “Burke … do you want me to go in first?”

  “No. I’m ready.”

  “Remember, we can leave whenever—”

  “I know. Let’s go.”

  The mammoth floral hangar was bustling with tired-eyed retailers. Nodding to each other in the intimate language of night people, they pawed through mountains of blooms to find exactly the right gladiola, the right cyclamen, the right tinted daisy or potted palm.

  Mary Ann felt awkward and conspicuous, like a space traveler on another planet. She took Burke’s arm. “Do you think they can tell the Flower People from the Non-Flower People?”

  “Beats me.”

  “I haven’t seen any roses yet.”

  “Who’s looking?”

  They moved from table to table, chatting briefly with the pleasant, Norman Rockwell-looking people who stood wrapping flowers in newspapers.

  “Do you have roses?” Mary Ann asked at last.

  “Over there,” smiled a dumpling-shaped woman in a green smock. “The table against the wall. This is wholesale, though.”

  Burke grinned uneasily as they walked away. “They can tell, can’t they?”

  “Burke … I want you to let me know if—”

  “It’s O.K., sweetheart. I promise.”

  The roses were crammed by the thousands into large green metal cans. Seeing them, Mary Ann unconsciously tightened her grip on Burke’s arm.

  Burke seemed to grow paler. “It’s all right,” he assured her. “Let’s go closer.”

  Next to the table, half a dozen retailers were surveying the selection of roses. Mary Ann tried to concentrate on the people, suddenly realizing that Burke’s discomfort had brought her to the brink of sympathetic nausea.

  The customer closest to them was a hawk-faced man in his early forties. He was wearing a pale blue leisure suit, and the flesh above his brow was covered with neat little rows of tufted scabs. Mary Ann flinched and turned away.

  Burke, she suddenly realized, was white as chalk.

  “C’mon,” she said forcefully. “This isn’t fair to you.”

  “No … wait …”

  “We can’t, Burke!”

  “But …”

  “C’mon!”

  Out in the parking lot, he threw up behind a coral-colored van that said ROSE-O-RAMA. Mary Ann stood by silently in the shadows, racked with guilt.

  When Burke return
ed, he managed a smile. “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “It was a crummy idea. And we should have left earlier.”

  “I would have, but … Did you see that guy next to us?”

  “With the hair transplant?”

  He nodded. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I could have sworn he recognized me.”

  “Burke, are you sure?”

  “No, but … it was like I startled him, like he knew me from somewhere. I thought if I waited around long enough, he might—”

  “Wait here!”

  Her heart pounding, Mary Ann ignored the puzzled gazes of the flower sellers and raced back into the building, back to the table with the roses.

  But the man with the transplant was gone.

  It was 3:35 when they left the market. At that moment, back at Barbary Lane, Jon stirred in his sleep, then woke to the sound of Michael’s voice.

  “Jon … help me … something’s wrong.”

  “You’re dreaming, sport. It’s O.K.”

  “No … it’s not. I can’t move, Jon.”

  The doctor propped himself up on his elbow and looked into Michael’s face. His eyes were open, blinking. “Sure you can,” said Jon. “You just reached for me.”

  “No … it’s my legs. I can’t move my goddamn legs!”

  The Emergency Room

  WHEN MARY ANN AND BURKE RETURNED TO 28 Barbary Lane, Jon heard their footsteps on the stairway and motioned them into Michael’s apartment.

  “Michael’s sick,” he explained tersely, leading them into the bedroom, where an illuminated plastic goose cast a yellow glow on the motionless figure in bed. Then the doctor knelt down next to his patient.

  “Mary Ann and Burke are here.”

  “They’re … you woke them up?”

  Mary Ann took a step forward from the doorway. “We’ve been out at the … Mouse, what’s the matter?”

  Michael hiked himself up on his elbows. “We’re working on that. My leg’s … gone to sleep.”

  Jon tapped on his leg with a hemostat—the hemostat that Michael used as a roach clip. “Feel that?”

  “Nope,” said Michael, as the clamp moved up his calf. “Nope … nope …” Finally, when it reached midthigh, he said, “There.”

  “Good.”

  “Good, my ass! What’s the matter with me?”

  “I think it’s only temporary, Michael. I’m gonna take you to the hospital.”

  “I’m in labor, right? C’mon, you can tell me.”

  Jon smiled. “Don’t talk, babe. We’ll have you out of here soon.”

  “Will you stop playing Chad Everett and tell me what the fuck—”

  “I don’t know, Michael. I don’t know what it is.”

  Jon arranged for an ambulance, which arrived fifteen minutes later. He and Burke and Mary Ann rode in the back with Michael, making small talk most of the way to St. Sebastian’s Hospital. It was anything but natural, and Mary Ann felt painfully inadequate in the crisis.

  “Mouse,” she said softly as they passed Lafayette Park, “if you give me your parents’ number, I’ll call them when we get to the hospital.”

  He hesitated before replying. “No … I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Mouse, don’t you think they should …?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Jon leaned over and stroked Michael’s hair. “Michael, I think your family deserves to—”

  “This is my family,” said Michael.

  Mary Ann and Burke sat mute in the waiting room while Jon accompanied Michael into the emergency room. Twenty minutes later, he reported back to them.

  “They’re going to do a spinal,” he said.

  Mary Ann fidgeted with the McCall’s in her lap. “Jon … I don’t know what that means.”

  “A lumbar picture. They check for elevation of the protein level and … diminishment of the white cells in the …” The doctor was barely looking at his friends. “They think it’s Guillain-Barré.”

  This time Burke stepped in. “Jon … a translation?”

  “Sorry. Remember those people who were paralyzed by the swine flu shots?”

  Burke shook his head.

  “I do,” said Mary Ann.

  “Well, that was the Guillain-Barré syndrome. I mean, the syndrome caused the paralysis.”

  Mary Ann frowned. “But … I don’t think Michael ever had a swine flu shot.”

  “That’s just one cause. They don’t know what causes it, really.”

  “But … what does it do?”

  “It’s an ascending paralysis. It starts in the feet and legs usually, and it … well, it climbs.” He looked down at his hands, tapping his fingertips gently against each other. “Lots of times it goes away completely.”

  “Jon, he’s not …?”

  “The only real danger is to the respiratory system. If the paralysis becomes advanced enough to impede breathing, they have to perform a tracheotomy in order to …” He brought his hands up to his face and pressed his fingertips against his eyes. For a moment, Mary Ann thought he might cry, but his face retained the same masklike expression. “That poor little fucker,” he said softly.

  Mary Ann resisted the urge to touch him, to stroke him. He looked like a man about to explode. “Jon, he won’t …? Did the doctors …?”

  “Fucking doctors!”

  “What … did they tell you?”

  “Nothing! Not a goddamn thing!” The rage in his voice made Mary Ann flinch, so he reached out and squeezed her shoulder apologetically. “I think he could die, Mary Ann. We’ve gotta get ready for that.”

  Inside Pinus

  THE LONG DRIVE UP TO PINUS CAME TO AN ABRUPT END at an imposing steel security gate. Helena Parrish stopped the Mercedes and spoke into an intercom. “A cheeseburger, an order of fries and a chocolate shake—and step on it.”

  Laughter. A young man’s laughter. “Mrs. Parrish … you’re back!”

  “Six whole hours. You miss me, Bluegrass?”

  “The Pope Catholic?”

  “You’re sweet. Open up, Blue. We’ve got the new girl with us.”

  “You bet!”

  The gate swung open. Helena smiled at Frannie as she maneuvered the car along yet another tree-lined road. “You’re gonna like Bluegrass,” she winked. “Under normal circumstances, he’s assigned to me, but … well, I like you, Frannie. I’d like you to have him.”

  “Helena! I couldn’t!”

  “No … please. I’d like you to. Really.”

  “You’re a dear.”

  “Pish.”

  “Goodness, I feel just … I feel so marvelous.”

  The hostess smiled. “We’re inside now. You can jane, if you like.”

  “What?”

  “Scream. We call it janing here—as in ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane.’ It’s sort of a Tarzan yell for women—like primal screaming, but a lot more fun. Go ahead, give it a whirl.”

  Frannie felt inhibited. “Oh, Helena!”

  “Go on! You’re at Pinus now.”

  “Now? In the car?”

  “Now and any other time you please, darling.”

  Frannie grinned sheepishly, then stuck her head out the window and made a noise that sounded like: “Eeeeeiiiiii!”

  “Nice,” said Helena unexcitedly, “but you’re not janing, darling.”

  “Well, how do you …?”

  “Like this.”

  The hostess extended her swanlike neck and opened her mouth to the fullest. “Aaaahhhhaaaahhhheeeeaaaahhhh!”

  Somewhere in the depths of the pine forest an identical sound reverberated.

  “An echo!” exclaimed Frannie.

  “No,” smiled Helena. “Sybil Manigault. She’s into nature.”

  The hostess parked the car next to the reception building, a rambling, chalet-style structure with leaded glass windows. Lady Banksia roses trailed along the dark wooden eaves.

  Frannie clucked her tongue admiringly. “Lovely … absolutely lovely.”

 
“The cottages are of the same design. They’re all Julia Morgan—perhaps her greatest triumph.”

  “Incredible! Edgar was intrigued by Julia Morgan’s architecture, but I never heard a word about this.”

  “Naturally. There was a clause in Morgan’s contract with Pinus that forbade publicity. Originally, the founders had hired Bernard Maybeck as architect, but he backed out when he discovered … well, you know.”

  Helena led Frannie into the spacious lodge, allowing the newcomer to soak up the atmosphere in silence: the parchment-shaded lamps, the dusty-rose velvet upholstery, the copper pots brimming with wild-flowers.

  “I feel funny without luggage,” said Frannie.

  “Why? Everything you need is here. Two days from now it’ll kill you to part with your kaftan.”

  “Where is everybody?”

  Helena chuckled. “Hiding, probably.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, it’s silly, really. Technically, you’re not sixty until tomorrow at—what? Seven-thirty or so? The other girls are a little wary of talking to initiates until after you’re … one of us.”

  “Then … what do I do until then?”

  Helena slid a willowy arm across her shoulder. “First of all, darling, I think you should take another vitamin Q. Then I suggest you ask Birdsong.”

  “Who?”

  Helena winked. “Follow me.”

  Three minutes later, the hostess flung open the door of Frannie’s cottage. A young man sitting on the edge of the bed jumped to his feet. He was about twenty-four, Frannie guessed, with a lean body, curly black hair and astoundingly blue eyes. He was wearing a dusty-rose terry cloth jumpsuit, unzipped to the waist.

  And he was clearly flustered. “Mrs. Parrish, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “That’s all right, Birdsong. You didn’t know we were coming. This is Mrs. Halcyon.”

  Birdsong nodded shyly. “Hullo.”

  “How do you do?”

  “Birdsong is your houseboy,” explained Helena. “He can fill you in on everything. Meanwhile, I must get ready for your little do tomorrow, so … ta-ta!” She made a lightning-quick exit. Frannie was left standing there, smiling nervously at Birdsong.