More Tales of the City

by Armistead Maupin

  “So how did you hear it? The poem.”

  “They were chanting it. Over and over again.”

  “How many people?”

  “I don’t know. They were whispering, sort of … as if someone nearby could hear.”

  Mary Ann looked down at the index card, then fingered the little key around her neck. Did any of this fit together? Was she exorcising Burke’s demons or simply helping to create new ones?

  “You dreamed this last night?”

  He nodded. “So what now, my love?”

  “I’m … not sure.”

  “I think we should talk to the man with the transplant.”

  “No. Please. Not yet. Let’s give it a little longer, Burke.”

  He agreed to that begrudgingly. Mary Ann was about to restate her argument, when a familiar figure moved into her line of vision.

  “Burke, we’ve gotta go.”

  “I haven’t finished my coffee yet.”

  “Please, Burke, leave some money!”

  He complied, looking peeved. He pushed his chair back noisily and stood up.

  Mary Ann took his arm and propelled him down Grant Avenue, only seconds before Millie the Flower Lady descended upon her regular customers with a basketful of roses.

  Penance

  ON THE DAY AFTER HIS DINNER DATE WITH MONA, Brian sailed smoothly through his shift at Perry’s. He felt comfortable about Mona now, confident he had stumbled onto something more real, more fulfilling—and infinitely more sensual—than he had ever known before.

  He also felt guilty as hell about Lady Eleven.

  How could he have forgotten her so easily? He had seen her—yes, that was the only word for it—for almost a month now. Every night for a month. She had blessed their relationship with predictability, if nothing else. Surely that counted for something?

  He had planned, of course, on phasing her out eventually. The fantasy aspects of their liaison had all but vanished, and he had recently found it impossible to achieve orgasm with her without thinking of someone else. Still, he had treated her shabbily; he had broken their unwritten pact on the strength of a little Maui Zowie and a simpatico bird in the hand.

  So that night at midnight he sat penitently in his chair by the window and watched the eleventh floor of the Superman Building.

  Her window, however, remained dark.

  She’s punishing me, he thought. She’s making me suffer for my transgressions. Or perhaps—just perhaps—she’s in torment herself, torturing herself needlessly over her failure to hold my interest.

  But then, at 12:07, her light came on, and Brian detected a slight stirring of her curtains. He stood up excitedly, lifting his binoculars to his eyes. The curtains opened.

  It was Lady Eleven, all right, but her appearance had changed radically. She was no longer wearing the floppy terry cloth robe. She was dressed in what appeared to be a gray wool suit. Her hair was bound up in a light little bun, and her features—even at that distance—seemed severe and judgmental.

  She raised her own binoculars and studied Brian for moment.

  He suddenly felt silly, wearing only his bathrobe. He wondered if she had planned it that way.

  She left her window for several minutes, returning with a large piece of poster paper. She laid it on a table by the window and scribbled something on it. Then she held it up to the window.

  It said: DROP HER.

  Brian felt the blood rising to his face. Anger, confusion and guilt warred within him. He stared out across the moonlit city at the sign that accused him, then skulked into the kitchen in search of a large paper bag.

  He found one, tore it open and scrawled on it with a Magic Marker.

  His reply was: SHE’S JUST A FRIEND.

  He held the paper up to the window for half a minute while she studied it with her binoculars. When he finally put it down. Lady Eleven was standing with her arms folded, shaking her head.

  Brian muttered “Goddammit” under his breath and retaliated by writing I SWEAR on the paper bag. He held it up again, shaking the paper for emphasis. Lady Eleven kept her stance for several more seconds, then bent over her poster paper again.

  This time she wrote: TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES.

  Enraged, Brian shook his head emphatically.

  Lady Eleven shook the poster.

  Brian shook his head.

  Lady Eleven scribbled on the poster again and held it up. To TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES she had added, IF YOU LOVE ME.

  For one angry moment, Brian considered closing the curtains and curling up in bed with his scratch ‘n sniff Hustler centerfold. He didn’t need this kind of bullshit. There were loads of girls who loved his ass without such degrading demands.

  Why this one, then? Why should he demean himself before this anonymous, neurotic, compulsive weirdo?

  He knew the answer, of course:

  Because she needed him. Because there was something more pathetically humbling about writing “If you love me” to a stranger than stripping naked before a stranger. Because she was desperate and no one else could save her.

  So he unknotted the cord of his bathrobe.

  Lady Eleven lifted her binoculars again as Brian let the bathrobe drop. She watched him—smiling?—until his hard-on was visible. Then she began to unbutton her suit.

  When they both were naked, the ritual began again, more feverish and committed than ever.

  From the purple haze of his passion, Brian heard someone knocking on his door.

  Then a voice: “Brian, it’s Mona. I just scored some you-know-what. What say we share a few lines?”

  Frozen like a satyr on a Pompeian frieze, he waited in silence until the intruder had gone.

  Then he turned back to his lover again.

  Riddle at Dawn

  FOR THE THIRD TIME THAT WEEK, MARY ANN SLEPT AT Burke’s apartment. Something—a noise, a bad dream, or the last cry of the trout she’d cooked for dinner—woke her just before dawn. She propped her head on her elbow and willed Burke awake.

  He blinked at her. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

  “It must be in the country somewhere.”

  “What?”

  “The Sacred Rock.”

  “For God’s sake! Get some sleep, will you?”

  “In five minutes. Just say it one more time.”

  Burke groaned. Then he recited the verse like a sixth-grader spitting out the Gettysburg Address under duress:

  High upon the Sacred Rock

  The Rose Incarnate shines,

  Upon the Mountain of the Flood

  At the Meeting of the Lines.

  “See?” said Mary Ann. “The terrain is hilly.”

  “Clever girl.”

  She dug her fingers into his side. “What’s the name of that mountain in the Bible?”

  “Calvary.”

  “No, silly. The one that Noah’s ark landed on. The Mountain of the Flood, get it?”

  “Ararat.”

  She chewed meditatively on her forefinger. “I wonder if anything is named that. Around here, I mean.”

  “You got me.”

  Mary Ann threw back the covers and scrambled out of bed.

  “What the hell are you doing?” asked Burke.

  “Checking the phone book.”

  “Come to bed, goddammit!”

  “It won’t take a second.” She found the directory on the floor and leafed through it hurriedly. “Arante … Araquistain … Ararat! Ararat Armenian Restaurant, 1000 Clement Street! Look, Burke!”

  “So?”

  “There could be some connection.” She wrinkled her nose, piqued by his total lack of enthusiasm. “Don’t you want to figure this out, Burke?”

  His smile was meant to goad her. “All right, Angie Dickinson. What’s Rose Incarnate, then? A belly dancer at the restaurant?”

  “It could be, smartass.”

  “And the Meeting of the Lines?”

  “I don’t like your attitude.”

  “Then you don’t wanna hear
my theory, I guess?”

  “You’ve got one?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then let’s hear it.”

  “It’ll cost ya.”

  “No way.”

  He pressed his fingertips to his forehead histrionically. “Ohhh … it’s going. I’m afraid I’m losing it. It’s only a dim, dim …”

  “Oh, all riiight!” She grinned at him and crawled back into bed. There was an air of urgency and intrigue to their love-making that made it the best in weeks.

  Afterward, Burke heated some milk in the kitchen. They drank from the same steaming mug, sitting up in bed.

  “So what’s your theory?” asked Mary Ann.

  Burke took a sip before answering. “I think it could have something to do with cocaine.”

  “Cocaine?” She was still very Cleveland about that drug.

  “Yeah. A line of coke, see? The Meeting of the Lines.”

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t like that one, huh?”

  “But why would anyone be chanting about that?”

  He shrugged “People chant about everything in Northern California. Some cult might have—”

  “You think it was a cult?” The thought had already occurred to her, but she’d been terrified of broaching the subject. Burke had grown increasingly sensitive about his veiled past.

  “I don’t know,” he replied.

  “Yes you do. You think it was a cult.”

  “I don’t think anything,” he snapped. “I’m guessing. I’m guessing about my own goddamn life, which is not the easiest thing in the world to do.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  He pulled her closer. “I didn’t mean to growl.”

  “I know.”

  “Let’s get some sleep, O.K.?”

  “O.K. Burke?”

  “Yeah?”

  “In the dream … do you remember if you … Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

  “C’mon. What is it?”

  “I was wondering … do you remember if you were chanting?”

  “No.”

  “You weren’t?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t remember.”

  For the first time ever, she wasn’t sure that she believed him.

  Michael’s Theory

  MARY ANN LEFT BURKE’S APARTMENT AFTER BREAKFAST. She was uneasy, she told him, about her status at Halcyon Communications. She had to make a few phone calls to remind the hierarchy of her need for a new position. This unexpected vacation couldn’t last forever.

  She was telling only half the truth.

  After a quick call to Mildred (who assured her that the board would elect a new president next week), she dialed the number of the Ararat Armenian Restaurant and asked if a Burke Andrew had ever worked there.

  They had never heard of him, the manager told her.

  It had been a dumb idea, of course, but that stupid poem and the man with the transplant and the messy ordeal with Burke and the roses had begun to make her genuinely nervous.

  Burke himself seemed on edge these days. His irritability, moreover, seemed to increase as Mary Ann delved deeper into the riddle of his past. Had he remembered enough, she wondered, to be frightened of the final revelation?

  Was he telling her all he knew?

  She needed an ally, she realized, an impartial third party who could help her sort out the pieces of the puzzle.

  “Anybody home?”

  Michael grinned at her from his hospital bed. “Just me and Merv.”

  “Oh … yeah.” She went to the bed, kissed Michael on the cheek and feigned interest in the television. “Eva Gabor still looks so young,“she said lamely.

  “That’s because of the clothespins.”

  “What?”

  “She’s got clothespins.” Using both hands, he pinched the scalp behind his temples. “Here … and here. They fit under her Eva Gabor wigs.”

  Mary Ann giggled. “Oh, Mouse … I’ve missed you.” She sat on the edge of the bed and fussed with his hair. “You’re getting all shaggy,” she said.

  He turned off the television with a remote switch. “How’s ol’ Mystery Meat?” he asked.

  Mary Ann groaned softly. “It’s getting more bizarre every day.” She told him about the dream poem, about the subtle shift in Burke’s behavior, about her growing fear that Burke had begun to resent her amateur sleuthing.

  Michael’s eyes were dancing. “Tell me the poem again.”

  She repeated it. “What do you think?”

  “It sure smacks of a cult.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “Well, it would explain a lot. The amnesia, for instance. Maybe they had him deprogrammed or something. Maybe his parents had him deprogrammed. Like a Moonie.”

  “Oh, Mouse!” That possibility had never even occurred to her.

  “It’s possible.”

  “Do you think they would do that? Without telling him, I mean?”

  He shrugged, smiling. “My parents would love to deprogram me. Hmmm … I wonder what that entails? Maybe they lock you in a padded cell full of Muzak and zap your genitals with an electric shock every time you respond positively to a Bette Davis movie.”

  “Mouse, have you heard from your parents?”

  “I guess you could call it that. My mother wrote to say that my ‘sin against the Lord’ was killing my father, and my father wrote to say that it was killing my mother.” He smiled wanly. “They’re terribly worried about each other.”

  Later that afternoon, Jon showed up at St. Sebastian’s.

  “Guess who’s gonna be checking into the maternity ward pretty soon.”

  “Who?” asked Mary Ann and Michael in unison.

  “DeDe Day. She’s almost a week overdue. With twins, no less.”

  Mary Ann frowned. “That’s kind of sad.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, with no father, I mean.”

  Jon shrugged it off. Beauchamp Day had been no loss to the institution of fatherhood. “I saw that guy in the parking lot,” he said, changing the subject.

  “Who?”

  “The guy who runs the flower shop. I don’t blame you for being spooked.”

  “Why?” Mary Ann felt the hair on her forearm prickling.

  “Well, he looked at me like I’d just caught him raping a nun or something.”

  “What was he doing?”

  Jon shrugged. “Nothing that I could see. He was loading a cooler into the trunk of his car.”

  “A cooler?”

  “You know … Styrofoam. Like for beer.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Michael, “didn’t my gynecologist promise to get me loaded today?”

  Jon laughed, then made sure the door was closed. He handed Michael a joint of Mrs. Madrigal’s finest Home Grown. “You two can smoke it,” he said, “but keep the door shut, and wait till I’m out of the building.”

  Mary Ann didn’t even hear him.

  A Styrofoam cooler?

  Father Knows Best

  MONA WAS WASHING DISHES WITH A VENGEANCE when Mrs. Madrigal walked into the kitchen.

  “Are you upset with me, dear?”

  Mona frowned. “No. Of course not.”.

  “You’re upset with somebody. Is it Brian?”

  Silence.

  “I thought you said you had a lovely dinner with him.”

  “He is totally fucked up,” Mona said flatly.

  Mrs. Madrigal picked up a towel and began drying dishes next to her daughter. “I know,” she deadpanned. “I thought he’d make a splendid son-in-law—with or without the sacrament of marriage. You need a friend, Mona.”

  “I don’t need this one.”

  “What did he do, for heaven’s sake?”

  Mona turned off the tap, dried her hands and slumped into a chair. “We did have a nice dinner. It was wonderful, O.K.? So I went back to see him the next night. It was late, I guess, but not that late, and he could’ve at least shouted through the door or something, if—�
�� She cut herself off.

  “If what?” asked Mrs. Madrigal.

  “If he had somebody with him.”

  “Ah.”

  Mona turned away, fuming.

  “How do you know he was even there,” asked Mrs. Madrigal.

  “He was there. I saw him going up the stairs less than ten minutes before.”

  “Was he with someone then?”

  “No, but he could’ve … I don’t know. Let’s just drop it, O.K.?”

  Mrs. Madrigal smiled benignly at her daughter, then pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. She laid her hand gently on Mona’s knee. “You know that sign you hate so much, the one outside Abbey Rents?”

  “Yeah,” said Mona sullenly. “Sickroom and Party Supplies.”

  “Well, that’s it, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “Life, dear.” She gave Mona’s knee a squeeze. “We have to put up with the sickrooms if we want the parties.”

  Mona rolled her eyes. “That’s so simplistic.”

  “No, dear,” smiled Mrs. Madrigal. “Just simple.”

  Mona’s snit subsided. Later that afternoon, she and Mrs. Madrigal strolled arm in arm to Molinari’s Delicatessen, where they bought salami and cheese and a carton of pickled mushrooms. They picnicked in Washington Square, watching Chinese grandmothers perform martial arts exercises on the grass.

  Finally, Mona took the plunge. “I have something to tell you,” she said blandly.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “It’s kind of … sickroom.”

  Mrs. Madrigal smiled. “Go ahead.”

  “My mother’s coming to town.”

  Mrs. Madrigal’s smile faded.

  “The lovely Betty Ramsey,” explained Mona. “I believe you’ve met her.”

  “Mona … why?”

  “I don’t know exactly.” She reached out and took Mrs. Madrigal’s hand. “I’m sorry. Really. I begged her not to come. She said I owed it to her and told me I was making a terrible mistake. I did everything I could to stop her.”

  “Did you tell her about me, Mona?”

  “No! I swear!”

  “Well, what’s this ‘terrible mistake’ business?”