by John Rechy
Mick dressed neatly—sport jacket, open shirt, slacks.
It was a bad time to be on the freeway—peak traffic—but he had to take it to get to Encino. Suddenly he and his perfectly kept 1965 Mustang—tan, in superb condition, like him—were in a traffic jam. One of the daily disasters that occur in Los Angeles—a stalled car—was paralyzing the freeway. Gawkers in opposing lanes created twin tie-ups as they slowed down to pay homage to this particular disaster. Mick felt moons of sweat under his arms, beads of moisture matting the curly hair at his forehead. It would be at least twenty minutes before this tangle unknotted.
Encino is a rich purgatory to which the not-quite-classy rich surrender, abdicating Bel Air and Beverly Hills. Even when large and resplendent, the houses are anxious in their shaky newness; determinedly imitation Spanish, imitation colonial, imitations of imitations.
Mick parked before a large two-storey house. It had a balcony from which carefully draped bougainvillea hung like purple-beaded necklaces. And arched stained-glass windows forming figures—muscular angels? The doorbell sounded the first four notes of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 5.
“Hi, Mick, I'm Sandra.”
Mick was astonished that Bob's wife had come to the door herself; he had expected a butler. They must have servants in this huge house. “Really glad to meet you,” Mick emphasized.
Sandra was almost as good-looking as her pictures. She was wearing tight white slacks—and an equally tight, thick white turtle-neck, long-sleeved sweater. In this heat! She had dark brown hair, straight except for a swirl inward at her shoulders. Sensational shape!—the sweater was pushed out just right by her assertive breasts, held by a brassiere, to be that firm, Mick was sure. In her forties? She would have looked younger if it hadn't been for the deep-brown, creasing tan.
“Come in, Mick.” Her swaying hips led him in. She looked like one of those not-quite-stars in the old, late-night movies.
Inside, Mick was assaulted simultaneously by cold air and a rage of colors. Hued light thrusting erratically through dyed window panes tangled and wrestled with the battling colors of the furniture—soft, velvety, whorehouse “Victorian” chairs, lamps, sofas, drapes; paintings—mostly of seascapes and landscapes, and muscular horses—contained in rococo goldleafed frames. Josie would love this house, Mick thought approvingly.
One of the walls of the room was glass, which parted to connect with a portion of the garden. Mick felt a welcome breath of precious warmth coming from outside; he moved toward it. But Sandra pressed a button and the glass panels began to slide together to chop off the vagrant warmth.
Beyond the invisible wall was an enormous free-form pool. Something floated in it. A ball. Did they have children? No, it was a head. The head of Bob Newman wearing a yellow rubber cap. Before the glass panels joined, Sandra called out through the narrowing partition, “Mick Vale's here!” The head floated the length of the pool. Beyond view from behind the glass wall, it disappeared.
“Drink, honeybunch?” Sandra asked Mick.
“No!” Mick said in horror, both at the suggestion and the odd endearment, which might be overheard. Like many other bodybuilders, Mick had a drink now and again; had even gotten drunk after winning the Mr. America. He smoked a little grass, too. And that one time— … He pushed the thought away. It shoved back. That time he'd done cocaine. He looked around, as if Newman's powerful spirit would grasp his floating secret. His secret! Why did he have to think about that, now?—now, when he was here to do all he had to do to augment his chances at the Mr. Universal. His body could stand on its own. Other factors were now at play—like this invitation.
“Don't panic,” Sandra said. “We have a drink now and then.” She made herself one. A martini! She plunged three stuffed olives into the glass, and then added another, the liquid spilling. She licked the rim of the glass. “Pretending it's a Marrr-garrr-ita,” she growled the R’s.
“You're late!” Newman's voice boomed. Bob was again impeccably dressed; he wore a scarf about his neck.
“Traffic snarl,” Mick said. He would begin to shiver unless they lowered the air-conditioner.
“Just one of the prices we pay for living in Mecca,” said Bob. He made himself a huge jingling martini with only one olive.
He'd better be on his toes, Mick reminded himself, noting that Bob had not offered him a drink.
Newman's extended hand directed Mick to sit in a certain chair. Soft, round, wine velvet, it swallowed his huge body. Mick tried to prop himself a little higher, feeling himself sinking to the floor, having to spread his thighs, curl his feet. Then the suction stopped. Still, he felt devoured by the carnivorous chair. Sandra kept looking at him. “Hungry?” She licked her lips.
“Very,” Mick said, remembering Newman had said they ate early.
“Just a jiff.” Sandra left the room.
To check on the servants, preparing dinner. Mick quickly pulled his eyes away from her swaying hips and faced Bob.
Newman sat on a chair that did not give at all. It elevated him at least one foot over Mick. Newman shook his head. “Drugs and machines—they're the curses of the modern world,” he fired. “They will ruin God's natural creation. Remember—the bodybuilder is the artist of his body, and the body is the sanctuary— …”—he pondered the word he wanted—“… of the soul.”
“Oh, bodybuilding is an art,” Mick certainly agreed.
“Drugs and machines! Deaths, destroyed livers, soaring blood pressure, baldness, shrunken testicles!” Newman raged.
Until he unleashed the last two horrors, Mick wasn't sure whether Bob was talking about steroids or machines. Mick didn't believe the frightening stories about steroids, injected or taken orally in dosages of up to more than fifty times the amounts used for conventional medical purposes—postoperative recuperation; they were given also to cattle, to produce more salable meat. But what did doctors know about the body! Nothing. A bodybuilder knew about bodies.
“Sanctuary?” Newman still pondered the word that described the container of the soul. “Repository?”
Mick wished desperately he could think of the word. He felt constantly tested. And in a major way. How? Certainly Newman knew all the champions took steroids; he was the one who referred them—"for checkups”—to doctors who provided them. Now Mick was grateful for the enveloping velvet of the hungry chair; his body was pulling some warmth from it.
“Show me a beautiful weight-constructed body fed with Newman food supplements, and I'll show you a beautiful soul; and if not, I'll destroy them both!”
Mick winced.
The unmistakable odor of hamburgers and onions wafted into the room.
Newman's cunning bird-of-prey eyes fixed on Mick. “You use steroids, Mick.” The pause before the name turned his words as easily into an assertion as a question.
“Never!” Mick screamed. He cleared his throat. “They destroy the body.”
“And?”
“Huh?” Mick was puzzled. Did Bob mean, So what if they do? “Unless it's— …”he floundered.
“What else! And what else do they destroy?” Newman pursued.
With enormous relief—which expunged some of the lingering apprehension over his having lied about the steroids—Mick understood. “The soul,” he sighed.
“Right!” Newman approved. He leaned over as if to exchange a confidence. “But you'd be amazed, Mick, at how many bodybuilders take them, shoot them up in their arms, even in their buttocks!” He mimed the shooting up in the buttocks. “Now I'm a tolerant man,” He leaned back, crossed his hands on his lap. “I know several top bodybuilders—most, perhaps—even my own—have experimented with steroids at one time or another. Even machines— …”
Oh, thank you, God!
“It is in the nature of the bodybuilder to try everything; he's a pioneer, pushing the frontiers of— … of— … pushing the frontiers. But if they continue— …” Newman leaned closer, more intimately. “That Joe Jones has been on steroids for years and years; several s
hots a day!”
So! The Black Sultan is out of favor, was Mick's first thought, in relief. No Negro had ever won the Mr. Universal. But the Black Sultan, as he was called, had a wide faithful following; several rival magazines were implying that the Mr. Universal Contest was racist, and some of the others, too. “Word has been reaching me that he's off them now,” Newman said. “Pure.” He pondered his word. “The Mr. Universal is the greatest title bestowed on the perfect man.”
“I know,” Mick said quietly. Just the title—Mr. Universal! —made his heart pound.
“Did you know Chuck Harris is entering the Universal?”
“Yes—you encouraged him,” Mick answered. He wished he could pull back that tinge of resentment: He tried. “He was one of my heroes.” He couldn't help adding, “When I was a kid.” Memories of the revered bodybuilder tangled.
“Do you know Ward Elder?” Newman proceeded.
One of the best bodies in the city—which meant the world. Sure, Mick knew him, cursorily—but, like everyone else, knew more about him. Right after he won Mr. America, he became notorious, hiring out as a callboy to men. Then Herbert Lichtenstein claimed to have seen someone shoving his cock into Ward's ass—in the shower of Harry's Gym! Late, when they thought everyone else was gone—but Herbert had remained for a few extra reps. The man with Ward was at first reputed to be Bo Sanders, but as the rumor twisted in that malicious world, several other names emerged, spreading selected indictment—and Bo's blurred. That was the year Herbert won the Mr. Universal.
“Ward's entering the Universal, too,” Newman said.
Impossible!
“Oh, he's changed his ways,” Newman said in a somber voice, “searched his soul. Deeply. Joined a Christian group. Born again! Introduced me to his girlfriend— …”
Ward Elder training secretly somewhere—and with all kinds of creeps praying for him—if that was true. Was it colder now, or was he just reacting to the chilling news? Newman was clearly announcing his narrowed choices. The Gorilla—Mick had assumed that; the Black Sultan, back in the fold because of outside pressure? Chuck Harris—why? Now Ward Elder! And himself. Who else? Bo looked awfully good today, delts round, arms— … But he wasn't ready. Still, Newman worked in mysterious ways. Mick felt increasingly on unspecified probation. He rubbed his hands for warmth.
“Cold?” Newman accused.
“Just cool,” Mick said.
“Sandra and I heard this man on television, specialist on aging, famous scientist at UCLA,” Newman explained; “said the way to increase the lifespan is to lower body temperature. He's done it with rats. So we keep the house cool and our temperatures low…. Temple!”
“What?” It was all coming too fast.
“The temple of the soul—that's what the body is! The body is the temple of the soul,” Newman said. “Words and ideas, they just keep bouncing in my head like tennis balls.” He leaned back, very satisfied with himself. Then he was deeply serious: “And that's what Ward Elder found out, the hard way—that the body is the sanctuary— …”
“The temple!” Mick said.
“The temple of the soul, yes.” Newman paused. “Ward found it out the hard way.”
The hard way, all right, Mick thought, letting everyone who had the money suck his three-incher—and everyone knows that's all he's got—when it's hard—and fuck his gluteus maximus—and all of it for free if it was another muscleman. Sure, hard! So now he's conned Newman—with all that bullshit about religion and getting married. Probably just wants to up his hustle price, and the Universal title would sure do it. Born again, right! Born-again hustler!
“Ward's a man of God now,” Newman pronounced. He raised his hand in a mighty gesture of forgiveness. “I forgive him.”
What about forgiving Cal Slauson—banished because he tried to organize a union of bodybuilders? Mick's anger surged. Cal— … Oh, wait, better not—better not forgive him. Oh God, the way that guy was—is—built! Funny the way people stopped existing, almost, when they were out of competition…. Cal's lat spread, and— … Fucking asshole, Mick wanted to shout at Newman. We're the champions, not you!
“Ward's past is sealed.” Newman zipped his lips. Then he unzipped them. “Now you take Oklahoma and Jon Dodd!” he blurted. He closed his eyes, as if a great pain had struck him.
A great pain did strike Mick. “Who?” he said in a tiny voice. So that's why I'm here!
“The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of the gay porno movies—that's what they call them!” Newman's pain deepened darkly. He soothed it with the last of the giant martini: the soaked olive. “Oklahoma was not his real name, of course—Morris Epstein, of the Jewish faith; and Jon Dodd was really Jonathan Manueles, before he dyed his hair that ugly yellow. They could have been Robert Newman champions! Instead they became prostitutes. Ho-mo-sex-u-al pros-ti-tutes!” he cursed each syllable. “Those parties they ‘catered’!” His eyes fixed on Mick.
Mick prepared his confession: All Oklahoma said was it was a party, and we'd all be paid a couple of hundred bucks, even tips, just to hang around with body-cultists, maybe serve a few drinks, and they were not all men, there were just as many women, and I was inexperienced, Bob, new in the city, and neither Oklahoma nor Dodd told me we were— … He cleared his throat, revised his confession: I was real innocent, Bob, and— …
“And do you know they're still at it!—although Oklahoma is past forty and the other one at least that old—still blaspheming the palace of the soul— … Sanctuary?”
“Temple,” Mick said wearily. And again reshaped his confession: I guess you could say I had lost my way along life's road, Bob; I was bewildered; I took the job without knowing. When they told me to take off my clothes— … When they told me to take off my clothes, I— … How would he get past the fact that he had? Six naked bodybuilders serving drinks and people pretending to spill them accidentally on us and a voice kept saying, “Let's not waste a drop of this delicious— …”
“After all I did for them. Oklahoma even bragged he didn't use my products.”
Neither would I if you didn't give them to me! “Ingratitude, Bob,” Mick said. “That's all it is.” Oh, please, was that all about Oklahoma and Dodd? “You must run into that a lot—ingratitude—a man in your position and of your generous nature.”
Newman sighed under the weight of it all. He nodded solemnly.
“Josie—she's my girlfriend, great girl, you'll have to meet her, Bob, soon as we find a place we're moving in together—uh—getting married—Josie was saying I'm one of the most grateful people she's ever known—and she's known a lot, in her line of work. I mean, she's a high-school teacher. Grateful to a fault, that's what she said I am.”
“Din-din!” Sandra leaned sinuously against the doorway. She was wearing a small silver apron, which formed a V at her thighs, and she held a giant fork, up, in one hand. “Din-din's ready,” she purred.
She cooked? Mick followed them—and the odor of onions—into the outdoor patio. The heat fondled him. He breathed deeply, holding the warm delicious air, to thaw his insides. Then the odor of the onions, intruded, made him cough.
Newman glared. “You coming down?”
“No,” Mick managed to squeeze out.
The patio chairs were iron peacocks. Fiery coals glowed from behind a cloud of smoke that almost concealed the barbecue pit and almost dove into the pool. Slowly the smoke drifted away and abandoned lumps of dead meat on a glowing grill. To one side, a dish of blackened onions awaited the meat's cremation.
They sat at an aluminum table, from which a long slanted pole emerged, holding an umbrella. Mick felt as if he had moved out of the arctic and into the tropics. He opened his shirt a button, not knowing how formal Bob wanted to remain at dinner.
The table was clothless. Trays of relish, a plate of pineapple slices, and a wooden bowl of salad that seemed to have waged fierce battle with itself—tangled green, red, and something yellow—squatted on the table. Unmatched silver lay heavily on paper napkins
next to plastic plates. Giant goblets awaited the opening of a bottle of deep red wine.
“I love homemade hamburgers.” Mick found he could speak.
“Sandra makes the best,” said Robert Newman.
Mick realized they did not look at each other. Had they, since he'd been here?
Sandra slapped a hamburger onto Newman's plastic plate. He piled relish on it, topped that with the squirming black onions, outlined it all with pineapple slices, and transferred resisting chunks from the salad bowl into a smaller plate.
A giant hamburger landed on Mick's plate, and a smaller one on Sandra's. She sat down, duplicating Newman's embellishments on her plate. Newman opened the wine and poured it into the goblets.
Mick might have hesitated drinking it, if it weren't that Newman was proposing a toast. “To the Mr. Universal!”
Did he hold his glass out directly to me? “To Mr. Universal,” Mick revised. The glass was so full the wine dripped onto his plate—like ketchup. Now he poked his fork into the meat. Not a drop of juice squirted out.
Sandra shoved her hamburger around the plate, gathering the assorted juices from the relish. Now she speared one of the yellow pieces from the salad. Looking at Mick, she popped it into her mouth, chewing it slowly. Mick turned to see whether Bob had seen that, but he was eating heartily.
“But you didn't take your clothes off.”
Mick heard Newman's words, clearly, but he still couldn't believe their awful bluntness. So he did know about the party where he'd been a naked waiter. Mick began: “When they approached me, Bob, I didn't understand— …”
Newman almost looked at Sandra. “But he said no. He turned down that Party girl magazine; they wanted him to pose nude.”
Anywhere else, Mick would have lapsed back into his abandoned Catholicism, he would have flung himself on his knees and blessed God. Here, he could only sigh in relief, a sigh which came from every millimeter of his 55-inch chest. And so Newman was not talking about the party; he was talking about the magazine. He turned down being a centerfold because it would have destroyed his chance at the Mr. Universal.
