Rushes

by John Rechy

  “How did you take the boy away from him, darling?” Lyndy reaches out to touch him as he moves by.

  Remembering the cold touch of the leather. Endore pulls his hand back.

  “Clearly Chas lost, but did you win?” Lyndy asks. “The boy ran out.”

  “Chas did not lose-there was nothing to ‘win.’” Endore says.

  This section of the bar is thinning as the packs on the sidelines disband to hunt in more fertile territory.

  Chas is here. He addresses Lyndy and Martin: “How about that? Our grand aloof Endore-never approaches anyone, remember?—he broke his own rules, the first time, man, and the kid ran out on him!”

  “And on you,” Lyndy accuses Chas. “You lost in our bet . . . darling,” she reminds him.

  “Hey, the night isn’t over,” Chas warns. “Might be able to do better. Surprise even you! Surprise even Endore!” His voice is breathless. Now he feels outside the black glass which encased him at the top of the steps. “There’s still Mike!” His surprise takes shape.

  “Michael,” Martin corrects him. “You know Endore always insists.”

  “He’s still here, spreading his angelic blessings, one assumes; didn’t we see him earlier on the piers, Martin?” Lyndy asks.

  “We’ve all been there, even you, Lyndy,” Endore says.

  “Oh, why are you so upset, darling?” Lyndy pouts. “Because the boy ran out? Or because of Michael?”

  “You taught Michael real good, Endore,” Chas shifts his assault.

  He’s chosen the wound. “What was learned or taught blurs,” Endore says.

  “I’ll help you remember! Or find out!” Chas promises.

  “What is between you and Chas, Endore?” Lyndy’s voice is a lazy purr.

  “What is between you and Martin?” Endore shoves the question back.

  “Mutual contempt’s between them,” Chas spits the words at Lyndy and Martin.

  “Is that what’s between you and Endore?” Martin asks.

  Lyndy hardly turns toward Martin. Her words are slow. Each pause underscores an implication. “No, Martin, darling, I think they respect each other.”

  Martin’s eyes shift to the bar. Lyndy follows their direction. To Elaine and Roxy.

  “Would you like to meet them, darling?” Martin asks her.

  Lyndy’s fingers float toward the double strands of pearls, but they do not touch them.

  She tried to pay Martin back for bringing the two in to taunt her vaguely, but she miscalculated in her move, Endore realizes.

  “Martin ran away that night at the trucks,” she drops a part of the withheld narrative.

  Prematurely. “Oh, do tell them.” Martin turns his back on her. “Tell them the rest, too, darling. Shall I get you another drink, in the meantime?”

  “Yes!”

  Martin moves toward the bar, and toward the transvestite and the woman.

  Chas holds his breath. He wants to engulf Endore in anger—to let the animosity of years flood, but there is now the diffusing threat of the transvestite.

  The three are trapped in a net of silence and tension.

  The isolative boundaries about Elaine and Roxy have wavered, restored intermittently. Martin is speaking to the two.

  Bill looks at Martin across the bar—the shirtless muscular man has been churned into the mass somewhere—and he turns away from Elaine and Roxy. Another construction worker is cruising him—cute; but at that very moment Bill spots a tough-looking man in–. . . mixed clothes–an army fatigue cap, a brown leather vest, logger’s shirt. Feast or famine, Bill thinks. On the one hand, the construction worker has expressed overt interest, but the tough-looking man next to him is so—. . . real, in a spectacularly unreal way! Bill decides to gamble. He turns his back on the “sure” construction worker and smiles an invitation at the man in hybrid uniform.

  “I like to get fucked by a big stud,” the rough-looking man is direct.

  Bill blinks. “Well, I think we’re barking up the wrong tree,” he gasps. With a conciliatory smile, he returns to the construction worker. Too late. It’s the man’s turn to reject him. Oh, good, Bill thinks as he watches the construction worker begin to cruise the logger with his cock showing out of the cutoffs. The logger walks away after a few moments; he counted one more, Bill thinks in annoyance. . .. Ridiculous! A man in black chaps is not wearing anything under them; the exposed dual ovals of his ass are being explored by probing hands.

  Bill slides aimlessly through the bodies, pushing away whatever hand searches his groin, allowing an occasional special one on his buttocks. He feels he should go to the transvestite and the black woman, confront his vacillating feelings. He saw what Endore did, and admired it. But each time he begins to move in their direction, he’s pulled back, and—. . . Oh, look! Martin is actually ushering the two over to Lyndy. Still, he cannot bring himself to join them.

  “They’re here, darling,” Endore says to Lyndy.

  “Ah, bon!” Lyndy faces the two figures.

  Even in the red-hued light, the bright assaulting fabrics, the blinking sequins, the resplendently cheap jewelry assert themselves brazenly.

  Martin holds out a fresh drink to Lyndy. She touches it with her lips for a moment, as if in an undecided toast.

  Recognizing him from the earlier moments at the bar, Elaine and Roxy smile at Endore; he nods back. But he is aware of—and he does not welcome it, knows that pursuing demons are being unleashed—a resurgence of resentment at their presence in the Rushes. Different from what he feels toward Lyndy? It’s difficult to know, his feelings toward her have developed over a vicissitude of encounters. His gesture in buying Elaine and Roxy a beer, was that in premature penance for resurfacing doubts?

  As if sensing his doubts, Roxy looks away from him.

  “They wanted to meet you, darling,” Martin tells Lyndy. “Roxy admires your designs. And this is Elaine.”

  A smile lashes Lyndy’s face. Her hands flirt with the neck-lace.

  “Oh, and did you tell them, darling? About the incident at the trucks, I mean,” Martin taunts her attempt at blackmail.

  “No,” she answers, kissing the glass. “I didn’t have to.”

  She is still withholding the implied blackmail, its power defused for now. She will recharge it. Endore is sure.

  Chas searches out the leatherman, as if to grasp for threatened identification. The interlude with Endore will fester in suspension. For now they may have to become allied. But it is all too splintered. They all saw him buy beers for the transvestite and the woman, but it’s obvious he’s not at ease now.

  Endore’s body tenses at Roxy. Perhaps if it were earlier, he defends his resentment of them, and Lyndy. These moments approaching are only for the faithful, the initiated in the carnal rites. He is glad Robert left. The memory of the boy’s sadness flowing to anger recurs. He looks toward the entrance. Don is there.

  Don moves from the tempting figure outside. He sees Chas turn away from the transvestite and the black woman. And Endore, too! After all he’s written. Finally they’re all machos, Don thinks. He touches his face. Why should he be concerned? They haven’t even noticed, that’s how clearly they see me. Though he’s relieved, he thinks that with bitterness.

  Yet I coaxed Martin to let them in, and I sealed the gap about them at the bar, Endore defends himself. For their sakes? His own? When Robert stood blocking the hostility, it seemed natural. He says to Roxy, “It’s refreshing to see drag.” And knows he’s stumbled.

  “It’s what I wear,” Roxy tells him.

  Elaine recognizes Chas. Does Roxy know it’s the guy on the piers?

  Lyndy studies the two as if they were on private exhibition for her.

  It is her, Chas recognizes Roxy. She stood on the ramp looking down at him; she’s so much shorter now. I won’t run this time! Chas promises himself. He searches out his psychic anchor—the leatherman.

  Our eyes are made up the same, Roxy thinks, looking at Lyndy.

  “I adore your g
owns!” Lyndy exults. “So ‘new feminism’—so right for the Rushes!” The outlined eyes shift her words to Chas.

  Pretending to admire them, she’s trying to thwart whatever power they may have, if any, over her. Endore sees Bill; he’s hesitating to come back.

  Roxy’s voice becomes very precise. She is choosing her most impressive tones and words: “I try to keep up with the current world. I enroll in courses and everything, and I must say that I do love your clothes—uh, dresses—uh, gowns. They make such a statement. I am so glad you have admired our—. . . wardrobe.” She looks down at her slit skirt

  She’s trying to win her over. Endore feels saddened. He has seen that look on Lyndy’s face, impassive features, a gash curved into a masquerading smile.

  “Très chic,” the woman’s curved lips utter.

  “Ah, merci, merci!” Roxy shows off.

  “You speak French so well,” Lyndy moves.

  “Oh, real good,” Elaine offers, “she been teaching me!”

  “I studied it, yes,” Roxy says. “It’s real important to extend your–uh–. . .”

  Lyndy shoots the words like rapid fire: “C’est un raffinement nécessaire, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Je—. . . Oui, oui. Uh, oui—. . . You know, one time, I–. . .”

  “Quand les nuances d’une langue s’avèrent insuffisantes, on peut les chercher dans une autre.”

  “Moi–. . . You know, I used to–. . .”

  “C’est l’essence de la vraie communication.”

  “Ah, certainly-ment, we was—. . .”

  “Si on est assez sot pour faire semblant de chercher la communication. Eh bien, vous êtes donc certainement d’accord que quand—. . .”

  Roxy looks around as if for protection from the slaughter.

  Why don’t I stop the attack? Because I want them to leave? Allowing the enemy to slaughter the enemy? Enemy! The word has formed. Endore feels trapped. Lyndy has annihilated Roxy’s pose of gentility. She has weakened her at least for now for any attack he or Martin or Chas may mount against her through them. Through them? His thoughts accuse, shaping dangerously.

  “Et si on—. . .” Lyndy is about to continue.

  Elaine thrusts herself between her and Roxy. “Lay! Plum! Day! May! Tant!” Elaine shoots each mangled word at Lyndy, ending her tirade.

  Did my silence align me with Lyndy? the doubt rips Endore.

  “Elaine was a model, you know,” Roxy still struggles.

  The defiance and the courage with which she invaded the macho territory have withered before Lyndy’s accusative power, Endore understands.

  “Were you?” Lyndy withdraws for now. Her gaze flashes her triumph at the men.

  “Not the kind you thinkin,” Elaine says. “Live-model art.” She sat naked in a plastic cage with other women. The cage rotated. Men in booths around them put in quarters. A peephole would open onto the displayed flesh for a few minutes, more for more quarters. “We pretended to be doin things to ourselves, and men in the booths jerked off and yelled at us—. . .” She frowns at the memory. “Yelled at us,” she says with anger. Pussies, cunts! the men yelled. Their faces were squashed, ugly against the peepholes.

  “What did they yell?” Lyndy prods.

  She’s collecting wounds, Endore thinks.

  “Ugly names.” Elaine will not pronounce them.

  “She punched out three guys in a row before they could stop her,” Roxy announces. “Just rushed into one booth after another and pulled them out for calling her filthy names. That’s why she ain’t—is not—there no more.

  “You’re a truly liberated woman,” Lyndy derides.

  “She sure is,” Roxy says. They met the night Elaine was fired, almost arrested, but she ran wrapped in whatever she could find. Roxy was hustling that corner. Elaine thought she was a woman. Roxy gave her her elegant red coat to cover herself.

  I pretended I thought she was a woman, Elaine remembers that night. Roxy was so grateful.

  Chas stares into his precious country, drawing strength from it. But the sexual plenitude does not assuage him now. His anger at Endore resurges. I’ll pay that bastard back. Tonight. If only he knew exactly what happened between Endore and Robert- if only the transvestite and the two women and Martin left—then his strategy against Endore would be pure.

  Don is back. Endore touches his arm. Don is aware that his own body jerked, resentful of the pitying touch.

  “I can see you in chains,” Lyndy says to Elaine.

  Another assault is shaping, Endore knows. Martin brought them here to confront her, and she’s flaunting proving him wrong—without having to release the blackmail. Martin is impassive.

  Roxy frowns at Lyndy: “Elaine’s not into that S ‘n’ M, people think she is, cause she’s so sexy and gorgeous, but she isn’t-ain’t-isn’t; she’s real gentle, aren’t you, hon? The only time she’ll punch anyone out is if they do her mean.”

  “Or if they do you mean,” Elaine threatens. “What do you mean, chains?” she growls at Lyndy.

  “Not real chains,” Lyndy says. “I was thinking of new designs.”

  “She designs her clothes on naked black models. She calls them her savages,” Martin ambushes her.

  Lyndy’s tongue moistens the frozen smile.

  “Savages!” Elaine exclaims.

  “Whose bodies she covers,” Endore feeds Elaine ammunition. “It’s her art.” His self-questioning abates.

  “Bodies are alive!” Elaine aims at Lyndy.

  Yes! Chas thinks.

  “Yeah!” Roxy approves. Too instantly bloodied, she did not feel the assault till now.

  “Oh, Chas would agree!” Lyndy pulls him in. “But—look-he can’t even face you.”

  She’s trying to shift the battle away from her, Endore realizes; and Chas will help her clumsily. It worked:

  “Don’t turn your back to me,” Roxy says to Chas. “I’m one of you!”

  “Not one of me,” Chas rejects. He looks at the nearest panel on the walls. Blurred!

  “Hey, well, look who’s here!” Roxy recognizes Chas. “We met on the piers earlier, remember? You ran away.” She slides next to him. The black of her vinyl blends with the black of his leather; the sequins on one shine like the bradded studs on the other. “See, I was right—we are dressed alike! Just like I said before you ran away on the piers. We even wear earrings, both of us.”

  “One earring!” Chas points to his, on the left. He pulls away from her. He drinks from his beer, to push back the nausea threatening him at her touch. “Leather and drag don’t mix!”

  “We mix when we fuck on the piers!” Elaine says.

  “And when the thugs beat us up!” Roxy asserts. “When they call us all faggots! So we have to . . . love . . . each other because they hate us so much, all of us.”

  “Amen,” Elaine shakes her head.

  How strange that word . . . love . . . sounds now, Endore realizes. So difficult to pronounce. Roxy had to pause to form it, and she looked down when she did.

  Don is glad for the two avenging presences affronting the machos. Including Endore. Look at him, so quiet, just standing there. Don pushes the increasing antagonism: “Endore here,” he identifies him to Roxy, “has written in his columns that.you’re the real sexual radicals, that you assault our sexual bigotries most clearly—. . .”

  I believe it, Endore knows; I do believe it.

  Roxy studies Endore.

  I believe it. But she will pass judgment on me anyhow, Endore knows. He looks away. The artificial currents of ail part the smoke ahead. In one of the panels on the wall a man pushes another to his knees. The clouds of smoke shift. Now the man is helping the other up. Another panel: Jacketed men stripping another. The last panel: The tangled signs. The annihilation of order, or of disorder? He thinks of the photographic paintings he saw earlier at the exhibit tonight. The inevitable question is. he writes uncertainly in his mind, for his column, whether after the disorder of violence—. . . He revises: . . .—after th
e order of violence, the disorder—. . .

  But Roxy releases him without a word.

  Bill is about to approach. I can’t. I hate them. He turns away.

  “Sick,” Chas says aloud.

  “Me?” Roxy’s eyes grow enormous.

  “Don’t you call her sick,” Elaine says harshly.

  “Let him! I know they hate me; you saw it—. . .” Roxy says.

  Endore detects triumph in her voice. No, it isn’t there, he rejects.

  “Why’d you bring us in?” Roxy whirls toward Martin.

  “You wanted to come in,” Martin shrugs.

  Endore wants to align himself with the transvestite—so much courage there, and in Robert’s gesture toward them—and to align himself against Chas’s cruel charge. But there is a tone in Roxy’s voice now—as if she’s welcomed the accusation. She has come to court our hatred, not discover and redeem it, the unwelcome thought ambushes Endore. Is he disguising his fealty to the Rushes?-and to Chas?-by thinking so. We were only too anxious to oblige with our own despicable courtship of hatred of her; and Martin’s “power” to bring them in was assigned, spurious: allowed. Had we really not wanted them and Lyndy?—to come in, Martin’s power would have bowed.

  Roxy confronts Endore: “I know who you are, sure. You’re the guy who writes about loving women but fucks only with men.”

  Lyndy’s look on Endore is cold on his hot skin. I can never reach Roxy, no, he knows, and while surrendering to the sorrowing knowledge, wants to protest it.

  “You call your black models savages,” Roxy moves on to Lyndy, “only because they’re alive—and you’re the manikin in your sexless drag!”

  Lyndy’s fingers flirt with the pearls. Her reaction is in suspension.

  Chas faces Roxy for the first time, acknowledging her and her anger. Somewhere else, perhaps, he might explore it, even accept it, but in the hallowed macho country of the Rushes?

  Lyndy sips her drink. The men are looking at her. Then she laughs. “Tu es drôle. C’était fatal avec eux.” By veiling her insult to Roxy, she has thwarted further attack.