Guilty Little Secret

by F M Land

  Marsh got right to the point. “I’m looking for some material for my new album. We’re in the studio now and need some fresh stuff.” He read the reluctance in my eyes. “Fuck, Paul, we’ll do it right this time. You’ll get full title and all the rights to the songs. And I’ll pay mucho dinero. You can name your price.” He sighed. “Shit, kid, you could use some exposure, a big name like me using your stuff.”

  I parked my butt on the back of an armchair. I was flattered, deeply flattered. Marshall LeBon wanted to play my music. My mind raced with bits and pieces of numbers that Marsh might like. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my music diary.

  Flapping his arms about like an impatient penguin, Marsh could barely stand still. He eyed my notebook with a greedy stare. He took a few deep hits of reefer and handed the joint back to me. “What do you have for me?” he asked.

  “A couple of goodies, I think. Jeff and I will play them for you tonight, onstage, when we come up to jam. If you hear anything you like, call my father.”

  “Your father? You are old enough to be your own boss, Paul!”

  Shaking my head, I looked Marsh straight in the eye. “My dad handles my business. That’s the way it is. If you want to use my music on your album, he’s the one you got to deal with.”

  When I returned to my table, it was clear that Terry was miffed. I tried everything to get him to smile, but Terry just sat there and threw sulky looks in my direction.

  “We just talked about business,” I tried to reassure him. “He wants to use some of my stuff on his new album.”

  Terry shrugged and looked away. “You smell like reefer,” was all he said.

  The three of us, Terry, Jeff, and I, took over the stage soon after that. We worked through a number of tunes, old classics mixed with original stuff. I inserted a lot of original songs into our set, signaling to Marsh at the beginning of each original tune. The audience was on their feet dancing and even cheered when they recognized some of my pieces. Near the end of our set, Marsh joined us onstage. We played several LeBon numbers, ending with “You, Me, Too.” Marsh and I grinned at each other at the close of “You, Me, Too.” Big grins.

  All the way home that night and all the next day, Terry refused to speak to me. He watched me with reproachful eyes. I hung out in my bedroom to avoid Terry’s evil looks. As evening approached, I became anxious to patch things up with Ter. I didn’t want to spend the night staring at the ceiling, feeling like shit.

  Summoning up my courage, I marched to Terry and Drew’s closed bedroom door and knocked softly. I held my breath, trying to listen to the conversation on the other side of the door. It was deadly silent in there.

  Drew answered the door. He had on his bathrobe, his thick, plaid one. He stepped aside to let me see Terry’s naked figure lying motionless on top of the bedspread. Drew’s eyes looked intently into mine, sending a wave of terror deep into my bones.

  Shuddering suddenly, I croaked, “Is Ter all right?”

  “Of course! He didn’t sleep at all last night. He’s worried about you and Marshall starting up again.”

  I exhaled loudly. “There’s nothing to worry about. Marsh just needs some tunes for his new album. He didn’t even make a pass at me! Honest!”

  Drew nodded. “I hear you, but Terry there -- well, he likes to worry, you know?”

  “Yeh. Listen, when he wakes up, tell him I’ll be at Ziggy’s. I need some air.” Then I caught the look in Drew’s eye. “No, I’m not going there to look for Marsh! I just want to get out of here for a while. Terry has been acting shitty towards me all day.”

  “I know,” Drew answered sympathetically. “Well, have fun, dear!” He kissed me on the cheek and closed his bedroom door.

  It was early when I entered Ziggy’s, bass guitar in hand, earlier than I usually made my appearance. The place was nearly empty, and no musicians were setting up to play yet. A long-haired man, his blond hair pulled into a waist-length ponytail, sat at my usual table. I hesitated, then noticing the Gay Pride sticker on his guitar case, made a quick decision to join the stranger. I held out my hand.

  “Howdy, I’m Paul. Paul Koster.” I smiled into the stranger’s soft brown eyes.

  The stranger took my hand in both of his, at the same time kicking out a chair for me to sit on. “Hi! I’m Jade.”

  “Jade?” What a fucked-up name, I was thinking.

  “Yeh. Jade Balec. J-a-d-e B-a-l-e-c. Just got off the train at Penn Station.” Jade’s teeshirt had a large pink triangle on it.

  I eyed his guitar case and huge backpack. “Did you walk here from Penn?”

  “Yup. Only about 25 blocks.”

  I wondered about this guy, who seemed so innocent and so hip at the same time. I never knew anyone who would walk from Penn Station to the Village. Suddenly, I felt hungry. Drew and Terry would be fixing dinner soon. They always ate late, in the manner of the French. “Hey, Jade, you hungry? I’m starving.”

  “I stopped and had a couple slices of pizza on my walk down here. I would like a glass of wine, though.”

  I ordered a Reuben sandwich and grapefruit juice for myself and white wine for Jade. Then, without much coaxing, Jade revealed that he had just stepped off the train from Cincinnati, Ohio. Well, not really Cincinnati, but Yellow Springs. Both of Jade’s parents were writers. “Far out!” Jade said “Far out!” a lot. “Far out!” and “Balls!” Jade’s parents told him that, as soon as he graduated from high school, he could do whatever he wanted. And Jade knew what he wanted. He wanted to come to New York, look for Brad, and play music. He’d read about Ziggy’s in the Village Voice, about how you could come to Ziggy’s and play music.

  “Who’s Brad?” I wanted to know.

  “A man.” But the look on Jade’s face revealed that Brad was more than that. Jade’s eyes took on a dreamy cast. “An Antioch student.”

  “Antioch?”

  “Antioch is a college in Yellow Springs.”

  Yellow Springs again. I smiled at Jade knowingly. “Is Brad your lover?”

  “He was, until he dropped out of school last fall.”

  “Is he from New York?”

  Jade nodded. “From some place on Long Island.”

  “You have the address?”

  He shook his head. He had no telephone number, either. In fact, Jade hadn’t heard from him since Brad left school. This Brad business seemed pretty hopeless.

  “Well,” I told him, consolingly, “you’ve come to the right place to play music. Have you signed up yet?”

  Of course he hadn’t. So, I got Jade’s name on the clipboard, right next to mine. And we discussed the music we liked to play. I worked out a playlist for us to use on stage.

  “Come back to my dressing room,” I told him. “Let’s tune up and practice a bit.”

  “Far out! Your dressing room? Are you some kind of star? Paul Koster. Are you related to Davy Koster from Posso? Is that right? Balls!”

  I didn’t answer Jade, just led him backstage to my dressing room. It seemed to me that I could never get out from under the shadow of my father. I started to wonder if maybe Ziggy gave me this room because of my name, not my talent.

  As it turned out, Jade was a gifted guitarist. Maybe not as good as Jeff, but he was pretty amazing. Jade and I played together in the dressing room for a long time. I was having such a blast that I forgot about the time.

  Suddenly there was a knock on the door. It was Ziggy, inquiring when we wanted to go onstage. He smiled at me. Ziggy smiled at me a lot. He knew I brought in a lot of customers. He wanted me to be happy.

  Onstage, I saw how versatile Jade really was, playing off the other musicians. I watched Jade, my mind clicking to some future scene: us playing together in a huge venue full of dancing, cheering fans. Jade, for his part, stood transfixed when I sang falsetto in my breathtaking voice. A perfectly crystal clear falsetto that set one’s teeth on edge.

  Our eyes met, and suddenly I wanted the set to be over. I wanted to talk with Jade some more, pl
ay more tunes with him. But, away from Ziggy’s. Away from under the lights. Away from under the eyes of spectators. I winked at Jade. Jade smiled brightly.

  The set over, we returned to our table and ordered another round of juice and wine. We made small talk, about the tunes we had just performed, about my voice, about Jade’s guitar playing. The whole time, I was frantically trying to think of a place where I could take Jade that night. Drew and Terry’s flat was out. Valhalla was too far away. A hotel, shit, I didn’t know anything about registering for a hotel room. Terry always took care of that.

  And, suddenly, I was thinking about Terry. About how Terry would worry if I didn’t come home that night. About how Terry would be upset if he didn’t meet Jade first.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to clear my head. I wanted to be with Jade that night. I slipped my hand under Jade’s ponytail, across his back. I pressed my mouth to Jade’s ear, drunkenly, although I’d drunk no alcohol at all that evening.

  “Let’s go somewhere and be alone,” I suggested to Jade.

  Jade’s eyes studied mine. Then he nodded. “Far out!”

  “My brother has a house not far from here. Let’s go there.”

  “Don’t you have a place?” Jade wanted to know.

  Shaking my head sadly, I replied, “My parents live in Westchester County. Upstate. I stay with a couple of older guys in the Village. But, I want to play more music with you. We can do that at my brother’s house.”

  That was it. We collected our guitars, and Jade’s backpack, trudged over to Dizzy’s. I thought about calling first but figured we might as well just go over. On the way up to the third floor studio, I led Jade into Dizzy’s kitchen to grab some juice. Dizzy was in the kitchen, humping some woman against the counter. He looked up from the woman’s mouth to glare at us.

  “We’re going upstairs to play music,” I informed him, a bit lamely.

  Dizzy moved his cold gray eyes from my face to Jade’s. “At this hour?” He stared at the Gay Pride sticker on Jade’s guitar case.

  “Yeh.” I opened up the fridge as casually as I could and took out a quart of o.j. “We’ll keep it down, I promise.”

  Dizzy said a few choice words to me in French, about faggots and eating shit. But I didn’t care. In the hallway going up to the third floor, I seized Jade’s free hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

  There were a number of guitars stashed there in that third floor studio. Epiphone, Chavel, EMG, Ibanez, Kramer XL, even a high-end Gibson or two. Jade floated from one instrument to the next, about to lose his mind. He and I played for another hour or so, trying out different sounds. I played some of my tunes for Jade. Jade had several of his own to play for me.

  At one point, as if by signal, we put down our guitars and started making out. I pulled away from Jade’s mouth long enough to spread a large futon on the floor and cover it with a fitted sheet, which I retrieved from a pile of neatly folded sheets in the studio’s closet. My mother was so organized, so French.

  Then, with my tongue lodged in Jade’s throat, I pulled Jade down on top of myself. Jade’s zizi was barely out of his pants when he lost it, all over my neck and chin. We giggled like 12-year-olds.

  When I took out my zizi and offered it to Jade, he produced a rubber out of thin air, like a magician.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “You know.”

  “Fuck, man, I’m clean! I don’t have any diseases!”

  “Balls! You can’t take a chance with AIDS!” Jade told me severely. “You mess around without condoms?”

  “I’ve never used one.” I unwrapped it and looked doubtfully at the small ring of latex.

  Jade grinned at me. “Here, let me help you.” He quickly stroked it down over my zizi, which sprang back to life from his touch. “Now, isn’t that nice?” He lowered his mouth over my glans, pressing his tongue in clever ways against the rubber.

  I groaned with pleasure. I let Jade lead the way, take me there to that peak where everything was fluid, where everything was light, where everything pulsed with an intensity that made me scream. I screamed.

  Afterwards, enclosed in the warmth of my arms, Jade began to rap about Gay Pride and responsible sex. I was too keyed up to sleep after that. I lay there, watching Jade slumber serenely, thinking about AIDS and gay marches. I’d never met a militant gay before. And, there I was, sleeping with one. What would Terry think?

  Terry was, as usual, my last thought before I slept and my first when I awoke. I pressed my morning erection into my bed partner’s back, mumbling, “Ooh, Terry, I love you so much.”

  Jade spun around to face me, his eyes large with doubt. “Sorry, I’m not Terry. I’m Jade. Did you forget?”

  To cover my embarrassment, and to take Jade’s mind off Terry’s name, I began to kiss Jade with a fierce passion. “I was having a great dream,” I told Jade when we came up for air. “It was very hot. You make me very hot!”

  Our lovemaking that morning was more leisurely than the night before. Compared to the fiery moments stolen with Terry, making love with Jade seemed almost peaceful. I liked Jade’s calmness. I told Jade so. Then I told Jade about the apartment on West 11th Street and suggested we check it out together.

  “I’ve got a small amount of money,” Jade said. “Enough for a couple of month’s rent. I’ll have to get a job eventually.”

  I ran my fingers through Jade’s long blonde hair, teasing out tangles. “Listen, you don’t have to worry about money. Okay? This place is a condo. I’ll have my father buy it for us.” I brushed Jade’s hair back off his face with both hands. “I want us to have our own place, huh? Won’t that be great?”

  “Yes,” Jade answered calmly. He gazed into my eyes. He seemed happy, serene but happy.

  The manager of the building on West 11th remembered me from two days before. Actually he remembered Davy Koster and Drew Carelli. He remembered that Dad didn’t much like the condo he’d shown us. Reluctantly, he handed me the key, so Jade and I could inspect it together.

  Just as we were about to step out of the manager’s office, there was a knock on his door, and an older man in his 70’s shuffled in. He looked from me to the manager as if trying to decide whom to address. A look of recognition flickered in his face as his eyes traveled back to me. “Hey, don’t I know you?” he asked excitedly.

  I shrugged and looked at the manager. If the old boy was a crazy, the manager would know.

  The manager barked a short laugh and clapped the older gentleman on his back. “Koster,” he told him. “This is the Koster boy, Paul. His dad, you know, is the famous singer.”

  Nodding so vigorously that he almost lost his balance, the old man grabbed my shirt with gnarled, pincher-like hands. “Your dad was my student at Columbia University, back in the early 60’s. He was in a couple of my French literature classes.”

  “Wow!” was all I could say. I glanced in Jade’s direction to gauge Jade’s reaction to all this.

  “It’s been years since I’ve seen Davy. Used to socialize with him a lot, Neil and I, before he and your mother started a family and disappeared. How is your father?”

  “Great! Just fine. My maman, too. Hey, tell me your name so I can tell him that I met you.”

  The old man took my proffered hand in his. “My name is Harold Rothman. It’s good to meet you, young Koster. Please tell Davy and Drew for me that Neil passed away two nights ago.” He stopped and caught his breath in a hollow sob. “I’ve been too upset to reach out to old friends.” Harold looked extremely sad. “Well,” he said, struggling to brighten up, “are you moving into the building?”

  I started to shrug. But, before I could respond, the building manager clucked his tongue. “I doubt it. His father didn’t like the place when I showed it to him earlier this week.”

  “You’re looking for a place?” Harold’s eyes traveled from me to Jade.

  “Yeh.”

  Harold smiled. “Come up and take a look at my place. I’m moving to my siste
r’s in Queens this weekend. I can’t bear to stay up there alone anymore. Too many memories of Neil.” This time, Harold really lost it. He began to blubber into a fancy silk handkerchief.

  I exchanged a furtive, jubilant look with Jade. What luck! What an incredible stroke of luck!

  Jade mouthed “Far out!’ to me, then reached out to squeeze my shoulder. Together we turned to Harold, Jade throwing an arm across his back, me taking Harold’s free hand in my own.

  Harold’s apartment turned out to be perfect. It was on the top floor of the building and had two large bedrooms and two and a half baths. There was a large terraced patio off the spacious living room. I couldn’t believe it. Jade strolled around, exclaiming over the antique furniture. Harold laughed and told Jade that he’d include most of the furniture in the price.

  I called my father from Harold’s apartment, my hands shaking as I dialed. I smiled at Jade. I was giddy with happiness over my good fortune.

  Dad’s stern words took the edge off my euphoria. “Where the fuck are you, son?” Dad asked when he heard my voice. “Drew and Terry are about ready to call the police!”

  I swallowed a thick wad of saliva before replying. “I was playing music late last night. I spent the night at Dizzy’s.”

  “Dizzy! Shit, we never thought to call Dizzy! Wait ‘til I tell Drew!”

  I waited for my father to repeat my words to Maman, before continuing. “Dad, two wonderful things have happened. I hooked up with this fantastic guitarist.” I smiled over the phone at Jade. “And, I met your old French professor, Harold Rothman, today, and guess what? He has a condo to sell us, in that building that I liked the other day, on West 11th!”

  “Harold? Shit, he must have moved since I last saw him. He lived off MacDougal, last I knew. How is Harold?”

  “Fine, well, not so fine. Neil died the other night.”

  “Oh, no! Where are you? Is Harold there?”

  Things happened pretty quickly after Dad got off the phone with Harold. Within ten minutes, Drew and Terry were there. They spent a good deal of time consoling a very distraught Harold. Neil, it turned out, had died of AIDS. Harold had been diagnosed as HIV positive as well. He was scared to live alone, so he was going to live with his sister. Drew and he spoke in low tones in French from time to time.