The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens

by John Rechy

  “You’re going to the Academy Awards with me.”

  “Cool.” He brightened up.

  “Yes, and at the Academy Awards there’ll be a kidnapping.”

  He sat up. “Am I, like, in danger? What L. Ron advises is to stay away from danger.”

  “You’re not in danger. A kidnapping attempt will be made, exactly like in the script.”

  “Uh, by who? Like on who?”

  Tarah reached for the newspaper picture she had kept. Blake leaned over to look at the photograph.

  Tarah pointed to the Mystery Cowboy everyone was looking for.

  4

  A declaration.

  “Lyle, I’m going to go back home to Rio Escondido.”

  Raul sat up from the pile of blankets he’d slept on last night and said that. Next to him, on her own pile, Buzzy woke with a start, her red hair pointing up in strands like sparks of fire.

  On his bed—he’d considered letting Raul and Buzzy sleep in it while he slept on the floor but then that had seemed too uncomfortable for him—Lyle shook his head, orienting himself to the words spoken. When he did, he nodded, Yes, approving.

  “But only until I straighten things out that went all wrong there, when I was hiding and stuff like that—and get my aunt off my back,” he muttered, “and then I’m going to come back and be a movie star, come out publicly, and let everyone know who I am.”

  “Shit,” said Buzzy, “big fuckin’ deal, coming out. Shit, dude, I came out when I came out of my mamma’s womb.” She clamped her hands on her hair, which, when she removed them, sprang up again.

  “Congratulations, Raul,” Lyle said, trying to match Raul’s seriousness.

  Buzzy peered out the window, the first thing she did on waking—to make sure no one had found her.

  “I owe it to other people like myself,” Raul was going on, standing bravely in his shorts. “There’s a lot of actors who stay in the closet, hurting themselves and others and becoming Scientologists, and I won’t be one of them,” he extended his proud declaration.

  “Christ, dude,” Buzzy offered, “what kind of bullshit you layin’ on?”

  “Makes a lot of sense to me,” Lyle said, to assert how earnestly he was taking Raul’s declaration.

  “Before I go, Lyle—and Buzzy, you can come with me if you want—”

  “To that hick town in Texas, man? Fuck, just hearing you tell about it bores the fuck outta me.”

  Raul continued as if there had been no interruption: “Before I go, Lyle, I want to tell you that I love you, like I always did, at school.” He rushed the next words: “But don’t worry, I don’t expect you to love me back,” he said bravely.

  “Hey! Now we’re gettin’ somewhere,” Buzzy sat back down on her pile of blankets, leaned on one elbow, and watched as if she was at the movies.

  “I do love you,” Lyle said, truthfully. He did, he loved this kid who had followed him around, who had then faced those weird evangelists, and who had bravely made his way out of Texas and was, equally bravely, now going back, and who longed to do something wonderful.

  “I believe you, but I know you don’t love me the way I do you.” But he looked at Lyle with pleading eyes.

  Buzzy turned and looked up and said to Lyle, “The dude means he’d like to fuck and he knows you won’t.”

  “All right, Buzzy, you shut the fuck up, I mean it,” Raul said to the girl. “This is between me and Lyle.”

  “Fuck you, then,” Buzzy said, and lay back as if asleep or dead.

  Lyle had understood Raul, of course. It didn’t matter, that they loved each other in different ways.

  Raul gathered his belongings about the room.

  “I guess that means I gotta go, too,” Buzzy said. She rose, searching for her measly belongings scattered about everywhere.

  “You can stay, Buzzy,” Lyle offered.

  “Shit no, cowboy.” She smiled a jagged smile. “There’d be a lot of gossip about the two of us.”

  “You got enough money to get back?” Lyle asked.

  “We got plenty of money,” Buzzy said. “We stole a lot from that Scala son of a bitch before he caught us at it.”

  “Buzzy!” Raul tried to shut her up, too late.

  Lyle laughed, no way he would recriminate them for taking money from that mean shit who’d busted in. If they’d asked him, he would have helped them get it.

  In a moment Buzzy was packed and waiting. “So?” she asked Raul.

  “So let’s go.” Raul let Buzzy go ahead of him. “Good-bye, Lyle.”

  “Good luck, Raul.” That seemed so inadequate. “And—uh—say hello to everyone for me!”

  5

  An expected unexpected.

  In Rio Escondido, Sylvia Love Clemens did not even rub her eyes to check whether what she saw was imagined. Only Clarita did—at her frequent post at the window—and she rubbed her eyes again to banish any reality there might be to what she saw—

  Lyle Clemens the First was at the door.

  Coolly, Sylvia, who had had only two “tiding-over” drinks that early afternoon, turned to Clarita and said, “I told you he would come back soon.”

  “Dios mío!—he has,” Clarita surrendered to the fact that Sylvia Love had gone to the door, opened it, turned back to announce the astonishing fact—and had now let Lyle the First in.

  6

  A critical quandary.

  Clarita could not believe how in control Sylvia Love Clemens remained when she faced Lyle the First, who had walked out on her years ago, who had never seen his son, never even known that he was born. She watched in fascination, aching for her and praying for mercy on them all.

  “Hello, hon,” the cowboy drawled, and he handed Sylvia a bouquet of flowers. White roses!

  “Lyle, you’re back,” Sylvia said, as if he had just gone out earlier and had now returned for dinner. She sniffed the flowers delicately and laid them carefully on the small table in the hallway, next to Lyle the Second’s latest letter.

  “Yeah, darlin’, I am—” He swept his wide hat gallantly before her as he bowed.

  God would forgive her, Clarita prayed, for being amazed at how handsome the son of a bitch still was. You’d think he’d have let himself go, drunk himself awful, developed a stomach. No, he was almost as trim as he had been, mounted on those damned boots. His hair was brushed with gray, true, and there were lines on his face, which was still tanned, but his smile was just as wide, and—yes, God forgive her for noticing this—he was as “sexy”—that was Sylvia’s word, not hers—as ever.

  Whether Sylvia was noting this or not, Clarita was not sure, because she just smiled, her most charming smile.

  “Goddammit if you’re not more beautiful than ever,” Lyle said.

  Oh, but that wasn’t true, Clarita thought sadly. The liquor and the pain had drained Sylvia’s face, made it drawn, but—oh, wait! Look! A sudden miracle!—the Holy Mother had extended mercy to Sylvia in these moments, because—it might have been the twilight, or the smile that had returned—Sylvia Love, looked radiant, mysteriously so, as if Lyle the First had restored her; Dios mío, if she didn’t look, in those moments, like the young woman he had promised to marry.

  “May I?” Lyle the First asked, indicating the couch on which Sylvia was now seated, calmly.

  “Of course,” Sylvia said. “How rude of me. I simply assumed, well, Lyle, that you’re back and don’t have to ask.”

  “Hon,” his voice gained in confidence, “Ah swear to Jeezus that it is great bein’ back, seein’ ya so goddam pretty—not changed a bit.”

  “Thank you for your compliments, Lyle,” Sylvia said. She thought: He’s as handsome as ever. She looked at his hands, the hands she had longed to be held by, night after night after he had left, looked at the body that had thrust into her, and with each thrust, pushed more love into her, she had thought, love, all love—and so she had responded to this man who had sworn to adore her, forever, to love her. He was here again, next to her, and she felt—She fe
lt for him just as she had before he had left.

  He held her hand. “My sweetheart, always my sweetheart,” he said, and glanced up at Clarita.

  Smiling at me, trying to enlist me, too. Clarita shook her head and glowered her blackest. She wasn’t about to budge; she would stay until the flames of hell were extinguished, because she wanted to make sure that son of a bitch didn’t bewitch her Sylvia again. She remained out of their sights, but assuring that she could watch, under the hall stairway.

  “A drink?” Sylvia asked.

  “Why, yes, a little bourbon.”

  “That was always your drink,” Sylvia said. “Now it’s mine.” She didn’t have to travel to get it, because there it was beside her. She poured herself another and poured him one.

  “I take it back, you’re not as pretty as you used to be—”

  What was the cabrón up to? Of course, she guessed it before he finished:

  “—you’re more beautiful than ever.” He touched her face, lightly.

  “Lyle—”

  Clarita heard what Sylvia had put into that name, all the love she had felt, the love she had told herself had turned into anger. Now it was there again, stripped of everything except what had remained, no matter how ragged, all along—her love for him.

  “I never changed, toward you,” Lyle the First said.

  Now the lies. Clarita didn’t want to listen, didn’t—

  “I know you didn’t, Lyle,” Sylvia said. He was so close to her, so close, so very close. In a moment he would reach for her, embrace her, kiss her, the way she had dreamt would happen, again, had counted on, until hope almost ran out, but never entirely, never, the expectation that he would come back always there.

  He touched her hair, letting his fingers run down her neck, and then—

  Toward her breasts, the breasts he loved to make love to, talk to, even—once—sing to. I’ll let him, and he’ll come back, and he’ll love me for all the lost years, yes, and—

  His hand slid down. “My darlin’ sweet, my darlin’ sweet—”

  Clarita almost screamed at Sylvia, Have you forgotten what he did? Have you forgotten the pain? That he doesn’t even know he has a son. She didn’t scream that out. She watched in horror as she saw Sylvia lean toward the cowboy, toward Lyle the First.

  Sylvia sighed. She longed for him to embrace her, assure her, beg her to take him back, just ask her to take him back, even just say that he was back and would stay—and he would, and she would—“Take your filthy hands off me, you fucking son-of-a-bitch!” She slapped his hand away with all her force, and stood up.

  He jumped up, startled.

  Clarita’s heart burst with love and pain, and triumph. She no longer needed to hide. She stood there, with her hands crossed over her bosom.

  “You think you can come and sweet-talk me and think that everything will be like it was? You bastard, bastard!” She pounded on his chest.

  He did not stop her. “Say whatever the hell you want to me, do whatever the hell you want,” he said, “but don’t tell me to go away, ’cause I’m here to see my child.”

  Sylvia inhaled. “Your child! You paid me to get rid of it, remember?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t, I always knew. I know he was born.” For once, he seemed sincere: “I’ve grown lonely, older, want to see him, want to—”

  “You’ll never see him, be with him. Nothing!” Sylvia said.

  “You can’t keep me from seeing him,” Lyle the First challenged.

  “Your son is dead, Lyle,” Sylvia said.

  Ay, Dios mío, why, this now? But Clarita understood, it was her revenge.

  “You’re lying.”

  “Am I?” Sylvia taunted.

  “Did he look like me?”

  Does he believe her? Clarita marveled. He was now standing solemnly before her, quiet. Jesus and the Holy Mother would forgive her for thinking this, but if anyone deserved torturing, it was the cowboy for what he had done to Sylvia.

  Sylvia struck, “No, he didn’t look like you. He was dark, not tall, very handsome. Like his real father.”

  That’s where she was going. Clarita had exhausted the names of the saints she was invoking to see them all out of this, safely. Please God, what would Lyle the Second want? Jesus, you who knew about mothers—did he?—help me out.

  The cowboy had reeled. “What the hell do ya mean, his real father?”

  “I only tried to make you believe I was pregnant by you. I wasn’t. I had already known that I was pregnant, by—”

  Reaching for something—a broom, anything—Clarita prepared to advance on the cowboy, who stood menacingly before Sylvia. If he attempted to strike her Sylvia, she would pounce on him, make him regret he’d been born. She would—But she needn’t have worried.

  The cowboy retreated. He said quietly, “When I see him I’ll know right away—”

  He would—Lyle was the image of him, despite the difference in the color of their hair, the eyes, Clarita saw. But Lyle the Second was kind, the kindest. Still, hadn’t Sylvia told her that the cowboy, too, had been kind, loving? Men were a mystery, weren’t they? That’s why young girls had to flee to the hills when—Again? Where was she? Oh, yes, not back in Chihuahua, but back within this critical situation that involved her beloved Sylvia and Lyle the First.

  “But you won’t see him, ever!” Sylvia shouted at Lyle the First.

  He whispered, as if only to remind himself, “I did see him once with you Sylvia, years ago. I drove by when you were both walking along the street, caught just a glimpse. I even thought you saw me, but that you weren’t sure it was me. I didn’t have the courage to stop then, talk to you.”

  What surprises life contained! Clarita felt a spark of compassion—a spark, no more—for the son of a bitch.

  Lyle the First turned to Clarita: “Clarita, tell me. Where is he? I know he’s alive.”

  Clarita prayed to God that she would do what was right, what Lyle would want: Please, let me know what to say! What to do!

  7

  A crucial decision.

  Clarita let her eyes wander—making sure that Lyle the First would follow her gaze when it landed—onto the table where Sylvia had placed the roses, where she placed Lyle’s letters.

  When she saw him move toward it, Sylvia rushed there, about to grab the letter, but the cowboy grasped it away first. With one hand keeping Sylvia away from tearing it from him, he looked down at the address on it.

  “Son of a bitch!” Sylvia shouted.

  Lyle the First sighed. “I know you’ll never believe me, Sylvia, but I truly came back hoping I could make it all up to you. And him.”

  Sylvia shook her head. “You’d never be able to make up what you’ve done to me!”

  Clarita prayed, Don’t let her start crying or the son of a bitch will embrace her and kiss her when she’s most vulnerable and she’ll let him come back and I’ll have to kill him.

  “May I try to make it up to you?” Lyle the First reached out to hold Sylvia.

  Sylvia pulled back. “I would kill you before I let you come back into my life,” she said.

  He bowed and swept his hat before him, but this time it was as if the gesture itself had grown tired, weighted down by the years, whatever they had been like for him.

  He’s growing old, too, Clarita thought. She saw it now that the impression of him from the past was fading. She saw him stoop, slightly.

  He stood at the door—oh, he seemed truly sad, very sad—and he said:

  “Just believe me, my Sylvia, that I never stopped lovin’ you, no one ever took your place—”

  “—and I’m sure there’ve been many!” Sylvia thrust at him.

  “Maybe so, but I’ve loved only you, always will, my beautiful Sylvia. Please believe me.”

  Dios mío, why have you given us all these strange mysteries? Clarita marveled, because, oh, Lord, he seemed sincere and even she believed him, at that moment, but, immediately after, she didn’t know what she felt, her emotions jumb
led, fighting each other when, after the cowboy had left again, after the sound of his boots had faded—and Sylvia seemed to lean toward the diminishing sound—Sylvia slumped into her chair and she answered his parting words aloud:

  “Yes, I do believe you.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  1

  The pending matter of Maria’s broken heart.

  Lyle, Lyle, I knew I’d find you! I knew I would, even if I had to go to the end of the earth.”

  “Maria!” Lyle’s heart opened as he stood by the fountain, the way he usually paused, on his way into his apartment or on his way to his travels about the city from morning to night, when the world of daylight changed.

  Lyle scooped her up in his arms, spun her around. Her dark hair swirled about her face as she laughed joyously. He kissed her over and over at every turn. She kissed him back, or tried to, her kisses landing all over his face and head because he was spinning her around so gleefully. He put her down, eased her away so he could look at her, and stared in wonder, and felt terrific that he had been entirely true to her, in his heart, where it mattered.

  “I begged Clarita to tell me where you are, although at first she swore she wouldn’t, but I pleaded—”

  “Maria, I wrote you, you have my address.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” she seemed disappointed that it had been so easy to find him. Undissuaded, she extended her difficulties in reaching him. “You must never tell your mother, ever, that Clarita gave me your address because she’ll crucify her, I just know it; and, oh, Lyle, Lyle, Lyle, I ran away from my father. I don’t care that he’ll be furious—is that strange for a father to feel that way?—of course, he must have already discovered it—and, well, Lyle, here I am—isn’t it strange?—and I want to make love to you right away, this moment, because my heart has been breaking from being away from you.”

  “Right away!” Lyle said, and put his arms around her, the finger of one hand already tugging at his belt. Walking backwards so that he could continue to see her, gaze at her in awe of her beauty and to assure himself that she was here, with him, he led her back to his apartment, pushing away a disturbing thought that gnawed at his mind.