by John Rechy
As they walked on Santa Monica Boulevard—all gray, closed buildings—a car came to a sudden stop ahead. Two youngish men yelling, “Fags!” “Queers!” started shoving Tim and another equally effeminate boy around near the pizza parlor.
All the accumulated rage erupted in Stud. He ran across the street, Billy followed. Stud's knee connected with a groin. He felt a fist on his cheek, and punched back. Tim and the other effeminate youngmen were flailing with small hands. Billy rammed his fist into the face of the other attacker. Stud looked at Billy in surprise when he heard the crunch of teeth.
They all scattered.
Stud felt good, the anger shoved out. “Now I'm hungry,” he said.
“I love you so much, Stud,” Billy said.
Stud held his breath and pretended not to hear.
He had been in Los Angeles a week, less.
Then another of the nightmares of the street happened. He was walking along the boulevard. A car slowed, and then it moved on. “You're not worth thirty-five dollars,” a man said to him. “I'll pay you five bucks.” “Fuck you!” Stud slammed the car door. “You want me to pay you and you do nothing?” another man was indignant. Stud said Fuck you, again, got out. Another man agreed, and then he noticed another youngman, new on the streets. “I think I'm looking for something else tonight,” the man said. Stud saw him pick up the kid who had just walked by. A nervous middle-aged man said yes to everything and couldn't keep his hands off him as they drove into a dark residential area. Before a small house, the man stopped, opened the car door for Stud to get out—and drove off leaving him stranded. Humilated, Stud walked back to Santa Monica Boulevard. He didn't want to know what time it was—but he knew it was at least midnight. A squad car flashed a light in his face. He walked on. A car stopped. As Stud approached, the man appraised him and drove off. Stud knew he must look very tired. He began counting the numbers of hustlers still out. Dozens. He saw older ones, in their twenties—the old-young who haunt the streets, knowing death can occur at twenty; the ones he didn't hang around with. What would happen to Billy when he was twenty, twenty-one? Stud stopped himself when he realized he was doing what he'd never done before; what others did—peer anxiously into slowly moving cars and grope himself. It had to be three o'clock. Shadowy bodies soon to be trapped by the threatening, accusing dawn. Finally Stud surrendered, started walking back to the apartment. Then a car slowed as it turned the comer. Stud heard it stop, and his heart raced in gratitude as he walked quickly around the comer, only to realize that the driver of the car had stopped for another youngman, slouched against the lightening shadows. Feeling very, very, very tired, Stud walked back in gloom to the apartment, with the dark knowledge that for the first time he had not been able to make it on the street.
The next day, to assert his identity, he had STUD tattooed on his arm. And that evening everything was different! Everything changed, as it has a way of doing, and he made it several times. The one disappointment of the day: Billy had frowned when he saw the fresh tattoo on Stud's arm; then quickly he told him how wonderful and tough it looked—but Stud remembered the first look. He told himself Billy had reacted only because the tattoo had not fully healed. Yes! That was it.
He and Billy were standing on “their” corner when a round-faced man got out of his car and offered to pay them both a “modeling fee” to let him photograph them nude. Billy said yes, Stud shuffled his feet.
Of course, Stud and Billy had seen each other naked—on their way in or out of the bathroom, or at night, lying without a sheet in the hot beds. Here, in the man's house, they both stripped awkwardly, though. While the man fussed with the camera, they stood on the floor at opposite sides of the room. Then Billy looked at Stud and could not take his eyes off him—he was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. Stud glanced at Billy and noticed he was becoming more masculine all the time, but strangely just as pretty.
The man photographed them separately. Then he offered to double their “fee” if they would pose for “sex pictures.” “Nothing kinky,” he emphasized. “Just you— …”He pointed to Stud. “… —going down on him.” He pointed to Billy.
“No!” Billy protested for Stud.
“But your cock's bigger than his,” the man said.
“It's not!” Billy said, putting on his pants.
The man drove them back in silence.
Near the chained motorcycle, Stud said to Billy, “It is true, Billy, you're bigger hung than me.”
“No,” Billy soothed. “It's just that I was more excited than you, so I looked bigger.”
“No,” Stud said, “you are bigger hung. But I'm not small, either!” he emphasized.
Tim was walking out of the bathroom. He was in full drag. “I am now Tina Louise,” he said. “And I am hustling Western Boulevard with all the other ladies—you boys can have Santa Monica Boulevard.”
The next day at Coffee Andy's there were no new rumors; just the news that Gary was dead, found in a park overdosed on uppers and downers. The death weighed over them all. Another intimate unknown presence had disappeared. They did not even know where the body would be, where they might go and at least say good-bye. Only the hated cops would know, and not care.
In the apartment, Stud folded Gary's mattress until a new tenant would claim it. “Shit,” Dianne kept saying, “shit, shit, shit, shit—it's all fuckin’ shit!”
The next night there was a bright moon. Billy and Stud could tell from the silvery shadows in the apartment. Billy in his cutoffs and Stud wearing only his jeans, they sat watching television. The air was breathless. Billy lay back. In the spill of glowing colors from the television screen, his face looked like that in a painting. Stud turned off the sound, not wanting to change the glow on Billy, and leaned back on the same mattress.
Billy bent over him and kissed him on the lips. Stud felt his cock harden more quickly than it ever had before; he felt Billy's pressed against his and just as hard. Stud's legs curled about Billy's hips. Billy reached for the buttons on Stud's pants, opening them, pulling out the eager cock. He felt Stud's fingers pulling down the cutoffs. Both of them lay naked on the narrow mattress, the electric colored glow brushing their limbs in changing hues. Their erect cocks kissed. Billy slipped down, licking Stud from his lips to his chest, to his waist, down. His lips swirled about his balls and then enclosed his cock, licked his balls again, enclosed his cock, and sucked. Stud sighed and leaned slightly to one side, to see Billy's body, study it openly for the first time—the sculpted buttocks, the golden down. His own limbs were brushed over with darker hair. The meshing of their bodies looked beautiful and right. He shifted farther and took Billy's cock in his mouth, sucking him in the exact rhythm with which he was being sucked. Stud felt the strange, full organ in his mouth. He didn't know whether he was about to come in Billy's mouth or Billy was about to come in his, the excitement was so totally fused. He pulled his head away slightly and studied Billy's cock and balls cupped in his hand, the knot of the heavy balls, the round firmness of the cock; he licked it, and the balls, and felt Billy's tongue slide along his. Stud swallowed Billy's cock, deep, deeper, astonished that it slid into his throat, as deeply as his slid into Billy's! Their buttocks thrust. Then they shifted their bodies and kissed and kissed, their mouths parting only for seconds in order to connect again.
Billy lay back, opening his legs. The light from the television brushed him in gold, the hairs on his legs gleaming. Stud spat on his hand and touched the knot at the parting of Billy's buttocks. Billy widened his legs, his ankles on Stud's broad shoulders. Stud rubbed the spittle on his own cock and into Billy's ass, entering it slowly. He held Billy's legs. Then he arched his body and pushed in as he lowered his torso so they could kiss to die rhythm of his pumping strokes. Billy came against Stud's rubbing stomach. Feeling the moisture, Stud pushed his full length into Billy's ass. His lips and tongue roamed eagerly over Billy's mouth and face. Stud came—came, came, came.
Then he rolled over, onto his own mat
tress, out of the spill of the television's soundless colors. In the grudging moonlight, Billy noticed, Stud's look had changed.
In the morning the mattress beside Billy was vacant. A note was there, in his place:
Deeres Billy;
Life is strang in't it?!!! You think you no everythin ther is to no an you fine out you dont no anythin atall—life is shor strang!!! I cain love a guy an stil be my self Stud—you heer bout goin away to cleer yor hed—well—thats wat I am doin—to much hapent to soon an Gary dyin like that to—Billy I got-a cleer my hed then maybe life wont be so dam strang—I hop you unerstan???? You ar a boy like me an thats the dam problum!!!! Who nos what tomoro will bring???? Heers wishin you the besta helth—
You truly—STUD
Billy's face was drenched in tears.
Dianne snatched the note from him, read it, dropped it.
Billy couldn't stop crying—frantic, lost, desolate. Stud's satchel was gone.
Dianne stormed out. In her Toyota, she drove up and down the boulevard, into Hollywood, back to Coffee Andy's asking everyone whether they'd seen Stud. She even went to the Greyhound depot in Hollywood and circled the Y. She saw his satchel before she saw him in a small park where hustlers slept when they didn't have a place; it was only five blocks from the building where he'd lived with Billy. Dianne parked in a no-parking zone and went to where he was lying looking up at the smoky sky.
“Asshole!” Dianne shouted at him.
He sat up in the ashy wind.
“You fuckin’ asshole,” Dianne said.
“Leave me alone, Dianne.”
“Life is strange, and you're trying to figure it out while it just stares you in the fuckin’ face! You don't wanna be gay, huh?”
“Nothing wrong with it,” Stud said.
“Then what's the fuckin’ problem?”
“I don't know,” Stud said truthfully.
“Asshole,” Dianne said. “Look, there's nothing wrong with liking certain sex things and not others—that's where everyone's goofy saying everybody's gotta like everything! Some of us don't like anything!” Dianne sat wearily next to Stud on the grass.
“But I did do certain things,” Stud said, “last night, with Billy. Everything!”
Dianne looked at him in surprise, and then she sighed, relieved. “Well, it's better than I thought. Did you like it?”
“Then, yeah. Later, no.” He shook his head. “I'm not sure; I mean, Gary dying, just never coming back.”
“So each moment matters—that's all you got!” Dianne was very serious. She pulled back quickly. “You wanna know something, asshole? You just about killed Billy. I've never seen him crying like that—like he could just fall over and die.”
“No!” Stud stood up. Sticky fingers of wind clutched him. “Don't say that. I'd die if he died! … I intended to go back. I just wanted to clear my head, I was coming back, I guess I just figured if I told him I was, then it wouldn't seem like I meant it.”
Dianne was leading him to her car. “You're so blind, Stud; you never see that Billy's got problems, too—not like yours, other ones. He might've just rushed out and gone hustling cause that's all he's got…. Well, you wanna go back or not?”
“Yes!” Stud said.
Dianne relented. “Look—can you drive?”
“Sure!” Stud was indignant at the implied blemish on his masculinity.
“When you and Billy make up, I'll lend you my wheels, okay?—and you two can go to the beach, get some sun, get away from these fuckin’ ugly streets.”
“Yeah!” Stud longed for that.
“You can drive?” Dianne insisted.
“Better than you!” Stud tossed. Then: “And, Dianne—thanks.”
They were driving along Santa Monica Boulevard. As if she couldn't cope with the emotional gratitude, Dianne merely said, “Fuck it, it's just— .
“Billy!” Stud yelled out the window. He had seen the unmistakable lithe figure of Billy, in his cutoffs and short shirt, getting into a van with painted swirly fingers lapping like flames. Stud felt his heart sink.
“Don't worry, he'll be checking for you back at the apartment.” Dianne left Stud at Coffee Andy's. “Asshole,” she called back at him.
Stud hung around about half an hour. His emotions bunched tightly. He went back to the apartment. It was emptier than he had ever seen it. Ernie came in. No, he hadn't seen Billy since he ran out in a hurry this afternoon early. “Strange about Gary, huh?” Ernie said. Yes, it was strange, very strange, and it compounded the feeling of physical absence Stud felt about Billy. He went back to Coffee Andy's. Back to the apartment. Each time, the apartment seemed emptier. He noticed how really ugly the building was, really ugly, waiting to die, resigned, everything dry and dead, like his bike—which no one had even bothered to steal.
He walked the length of Santa Monica Boulevard, the hustling stretch. In the lots, nobody was clowning or jostling or chinning. It was so hot everyone lay on patches of grass, like a recuperating army. He waited around, talking to some of his friends and trying to stay away from the apartment, sure that if he did, when he went back, Billy would be there.
He wasn't.
Stud went out again, feeling cold in the heat. It would be one of those nights so hot that the heat seems to color the sky a blackish orange. Maybe a distant fire was raging. This was the season of canyon fires.
He milled around Coffee Andy's. Back to the apartment. It was night. Stud had walked miles. Ed! He looked throughout the room, found nothing, nothing but the traces of Billy's existence—several cutoffs, several shortened shirts. No telephone number.
He lay on his mattress, then slipped over onto Billy's. He was so exhausted he fell asleep. When he woke, there was either a very bright moon or it was the beginning to dawn. Had the wind blown all night or had he dreamed it? The heat was like a scalding rock radiating waves in the room. Ernie was asleep. So was Tim. Gary's mattress remained rolled up in a corner. And Billy was not there.
Stud went out. The dawning sun was already burning through the morning smog kept distant by the wind. Coffee Andy's was open. Only when a waitress told him he couldn't come in without a shirt did he realize he had left without one. He walked in anyway, looking for Billy. He lingered outside. He felt a coldness in the heat, as if it had chosen only him. He returned to the apartment, went back to Santa Monica Boulevard through sickening heat.
He saw the slender form coming toward him against the sky, which glowered an angered orange. But it wasn't Billy.
Heat saturated the air and his body. Panting, he sat down on a patch of grass by a closed playground. He let all the apprehension, shackled fear, isolation, loneliness crash on him. He faced that something terrible had happened to Billy. He remembered the flashy van— … Maybe he'd been busted!
He took a deep breath and walked into the Hollywood police station where he had been booked. “I want to know if someone by the name of Billy— …”He didn't know Billy's last name! “… —is here,” he said to the fat cop behind a desk. The balding cop looked up at Stud. “You what?” “Billy—that's his name,” Stud said. “I don't know his last name—we just call him Billy, but you couldn't mistake him for anybody else because he's— … very beautiful.” He felt sweat gathering under his arms, streaking into his pants, down his legs. “He's very handsome,” he corrected.
The cop looked at him as if he wanted to bust this shirtless sweaty boy. “Beautiful!” he seized, alerting other, milling cops to listen to this. “Is he a girl?”
Stud saw the smirking faces. “Billy's a guy, like me,” he said firmly. When he had been arrested, he had thought he would never again feel that helpless, that little, that insignificant, that lost. He knew that was not so. That was nothing compared to now. Seeing the contemptuous faces of the cops, he knew how thoroughly unimportant he and Billy were to everyone else except in those moments when someone desired them. And except to each other. He wanted to shout and be heard, because he knew that none of them, not him, not Billy, no
t Tim, not Gary, not Ernie, not one of them mattered—not to the cops nor to those TV people nor the ones who had looked at Billy like a freak on that program—not one of them mattered one fucking goddamn bit. He walked out into the melting Hollywood sun.
He went back to the apartment. Billy was not there. Was it possible that somebody could just disappear, just like that? What if he never saw Billy again? What if he'd never know what happened to him. He couldn't stand that. He'd— … He heard the door open, and he closed his eyes. If it wasn't Billy, he didn't want to know right away, he'd keep hope locked in blackness behind his eyes. He heard slow footsteps, forced breathing.
“Billy!”
Billy's body sagged into Stud's. Stud would remember that always—and how Billy was covering his face with both bloodied hands. He wasn't wearing a shirt. His cutoffs were brutally ripped. There was blood on his stomach, on his legs— …
Stud held Billy and saw his bared face, black with bruises, one eye closed shut and puffy, the upper part of his lip bloated purple from bleeding. Stud thought, If he dies, I'll kill myself, I'll die with Billy. He felt Billy's tears squeezing only out of one eye. Or was it sweat? Or was it blood!
Stud laid Billy on the mattress. Trembling, he brought towels, as clean as he could find them—towels, water, ice. As the caked blood cleared, Stud knew the bruises had been made by pounding fists. Gently he tested for broken bones. None. He was aware of Ernie but only vaguely—aware that Dianne was here, too. He heard himself asking Billy, “Are you all right, are you all right?” He kept checking his breathing.
“We gotta call the cops, they'll take him to the hospital.”
Stud didn't know who said that. He only knew the words untapped his rage. “They'll just smirk at us and shove him around.” If Billy got sicker, they would have to call the cops; but he didn't want that, didn't want the cruelty, the cold indifference. And they wouldn't allow him to stay with him. He didn't want to let Billy out of his sight.
