Like People in History

by Felice Picano

  "Hit those pin spots," he commanded. "The controls are inside that little baldachin right by your hand."

  After some hit-and-miss, I found the correct button and Alistair's head was thrown into strong, white illumination.

  He'd opened one of the cabinets and withdrawn two vials of ecru liquid.

  "Where would we be without Cover-Up?" Alistair sighed, handing the two little bottles to me. "You'll have to do it for me. The way my hands shake I'll end up looking like Clarabelle."

  "You don't need it," I said. But of course in this light I could very clearly see he did. The White Woman had been far too stinting earlier, and I could see three KS lesions already showing through his ministrations.

  "Use the darker color in front, the lighter on my neck," Alistair said, as I chose and began applying. "Old trade secret of the stars, that!" Alistair went on. "Keeps the wrinkles from showing under key lights."

  His skin looked papery as a wasp's nest wherever a bone was prominent—on the bridge of his nose, at either eyebrow ridge, under his imperfectly shaven chin.

  "Garbo teach you this?" I asked.

  "Actually it was Bette Midler. Before she got it fixed, her nose bone bent like that road sign in Monterey spelling out 'Hills and Curves Next 74 Miles'! I watched her paint a line straight down and shade in both sides. Not that it was ever a petite button, but she made herself look like Esther the Queen redivivus."

  "When was that?'

  "Continental Baths. Seventy-two? Seventy-four?" Alistair slowly shifted the planes of his face in the mirror. "You're in love with that little schmuck, aren't you?"

  "Hold still."

  "I can tell. All the signs are there," Alistair said.

  "Nefertiti, gone four thousand years, could tell," I said. "I mean Wally's only been living with me over a year."

  "Have you awakened in the middle of the night and wanted to strangle him in his sleep? That's the only way I've ever been certain I loved someone."

  "There are less homicidal ways."

  "None as certain," Alistair argued. "You're not bad at this. I guess it was all your zits that made you master of the makeup jar."

  "I never had zits," I said. "You taught me how to do this."

  "I did?" Alistair seemed amazed. "When?"

  "When we were adolescents. We practiced on that pretty girl with all those beauty marks she hated. Judy something. In California."

  "She married a maharaja," Alistair said, musing. "Or became a maharishi. I don't remember which. So are you and the little beast going to exchange rings in the Sheep Meadow and all that homo-tripe?" Alistair asked.

  "Wally would gather blow up the Sheep Meadow," I said.

  "He sort of reminds me of myself at that age."

  "Come off it. At Wally's age all you wanted was your name etched on double glass doors on Fifty-seventh and Fifth."

  "That's enough," Alistair said. "I don't want to look like Dietrich."

  I pulled back a second. Then I placed my own face next to Alistair's in the mirror. Difficult to believe we'd once looked so alike. Oh, the structure was there all right: the identical wide brows, the little dents at each temple, the long, somewhat aristocratic nose. But the lower part of my face was round—though not yet jowly—whereas his was pointed. And his lips were fleshier; even the gauntness of his illness hadn't affected them.

  "You do!" I said louder than necessary. "You look like Dietrich in the early seventies in Paris. When she was wearing those silver sequined gowns they had to break several ribs to stuff her into and singing 'Lili Marlene' for the eleven thousandth time during yet another of her innumerable farewell performances at the Paris Opera House."

  "Shameless flattery," Alistair sniffed, but he preened too.

  He was busy making big lips at himself in the mirror and saying "Daw-a-ling" when he suddenly asked, "You did bring my gift?"

  I turned away and began deliberately shoving the little brush inside each vial of Cover-Up and carefully screwing closed each cap.

  "Remember when my mother called us the Gold Dust Twins?" I asked.

  "Your mother was a doll, but she saw things no one else did."

  "Must run in the family. Remember Great Aunt Lillian? How she used you in her séances?"

  "Did you bring my gift?" He repeated his question quietly but firmly.

  "I brought it, but I still don't think..."

  "What you think is inconsequential at this late date, Cuz."

  "It's not that late."

  "Be real for once. Nothing is working anymore."

  "Nothing?"

  "Oh, Dr. Jekyll says he recently discovered a T cell, and my Billy Reuben is about the same as that of an Arctic sardine." He turned to me. "But do let's face facts. I spike a fever to a hundred and four every other day. And it's already passed the brain-blood barrier and damaged my cerebral cortex. I can't remember anything anymore. Orkney's taken to using little yellow glue-on notes on things like salad forks and needle cases so we won't be too embarrassed."

  "It's age, my own memory is—"

  "Shut up and listen, Rog. My boats are burned," he said, carefully enunciating. "And I'm a big enough girl to realize it's time for a final Viking do. Shields inverted! Flames to the top of the mast! Floating out in Long Island Sound!"

  I half sat, half collapsed on the toilet.

  "Oh, come on! Don't be like that!" Alistair said brightly. "We've planned this for weeks. Don't spoil it."

  "I can't believe it's... over."

  "Look on the bright side, Cuz. You'll soon be the last queen left in New York who necked at Le Jardin with the son of a President in Office."

  "I never did that."

  "You did too! Stephen Ford. Was it Jack Ford? One of the Ford boys."

  "Not me," I declared.

  "It was. A big beefy blond. Remember? Fran Lebowitz was at the next table, and as we entered, you said, 'Don't let her see me,' even though she wouldn't have known you from King Kong. Ultraviolet came over to her table with Jack or Steve or Whomever Ford in tow, and he sat down next to you while she joined Fran, and next thing I knew you two were gone. I later found you in the men's room lounge pressed into the wallpaper doing the heaviest fully clothed petting act I've seen outside of Tijuana."

  I remembered the incident, and the boy, but I still disbelieved him about it being one of President Ford's sons.

  "If it is true," and I stopped him from interjecting, "who'll be around to remind me?"

  "You'll remind yourself. You'll sit yourself down with magnums of Dom Perignon and write your memoirs."

  "I never did anything, and what I did I'll need you to remember."

  "It would be fun if I remained as a tiny voice. Who was that pretty boy in Ovid? Tithonus? He became Aurora's lover, and she managed to get him eternal life, but she forgot to ask for eternal youth too and he shriveled away to the size of a cricket."

  "Tennyson," I said; "'The woods decay, the woods decay and fall.' Don't take them, Alistair!"

  "Of course I'm going to take them. And you know what? I found these clever little things." He pulled out a little plastic packet of flesh-colored patches the size of a nickel. "Anti-Lupe Velez Syndrome patches," he said. "I place one on each pulse point on the back of my neck, and these'll keep me from getting nauseated and looking like shit when they find the body."

  "Does the White— Does Orkney know about this?"

  "He'll go to sleep in his usual sublime ignorance and awaken to what I trust will be only a tiny iota less ignorance tomorrow morning."

  "What if something goes wrong? Shouldn't he know?"

  "Be real, Cuz. He's one of those Vermont WASPs who cut open their bellies to keep their babies warm in winter. He'd never approve of me escaping from one second of earthly suffering."

  "Wally too. We've argued over this all week."

  "Really! I'd think he'd want to see me out of the way!"

  "He's conflicted," I temporized.

  "Neither of them have suffered as you and I have, Cuz. Phys
ically or ethically."

  "And neither of them ever had as much fun."

  "Or fought as bitterly."

  "Or loved as hopelessly."

  "Or..."

  I hung on Alistair's breath.

  "—Saw as many bad movies!" he exploded.

  We both laughed till I said, "Or screwed as many pretty boys."

  "Or been as badly screwed by as many pretty boys," Alistair completed the list with a chortle. "One of whom was considerate enough to have led us to this very moment."

  My high spirits sank.

  "Which is about to end as planned. You will give me my forty-fifth birthday present. Then kiss my well-cosmetized cheek, and leave me. Forever."

  He was serious now. Exhausted too.

  I stood up, dug into my deep pocket, and handed over the little package. It was wrapped in black paper with a narrow black ribbon.

  "Happy forty-five," I said. And as he collapsed onto the toilet seat I'd just vacated, I kissed one of the cheeks I'd just made up.

  "Thank you, Cuz. These wrappings! Couldn't you find anything with a skull-and-crossbones motif?" He ripped off the paper and held the palm-sized ebony-colored metal Sobranie cigarette box in one skeletal hand, then lifted its lid and said in a voice I'd never before heard out of him, "Ah, my hot-pink-and-electric-blue darlings!"

  Alistair looked up at me as though surprised I was still there. "What are you waiting for? Go."

  "I'm waiting for you to say something final to me."

  "Make sure they play Ravel's Ma Mère l'oye at my memorial service. The four-hand piano version."

  "Oh, Alistair! That's not what I mean!"

  He smiled an odd, crooked smile, doubtless twisted by the same

  Parkinson's that had affected his hands. "What's left to say? No, really, Cuz. What haven't we said? What haven't we done to each other?"

  I left the bathroom. Left the apartment. Got into the elevator and descended.

  When it arrived at the third floor, for the blue-haired old woman with the beribboned dachshund to get in, she was treated to the possibly not too daily sight of a grown man soundly and methodically banging his head against the cleverly pre-aged wood paneling.

  Wally was in the Chinese restaurant, at the table closest to the kitchen and farthest from the expanse of windows fronting Broadway. It never ceased to amaze me how the lad had a sixth sense for placing himself less than a yard away from wherever the help ate. Since it was nearly nine o'clock, and the restaurant nearly empty of customers, three young waiters and an older man, whom I guessed to be a chef from his food-spattered full apron, were already attacking an enormous bowl of rice noodles with assorted vegetables.

  Less surprising than Wally's instinct for getting nitty-gritty with the laboring class was the fact that he wasn't alone. I recognized one companion from the back as I entered—Junior Obregon—the other I didn't know.

  I sat down in front of a giant porcelain teapot surrounded by plates of what had recently been General Tso's Chicken and Three Mountain Prawn.

  The strange overhead illumination in the restaurant made everyone look slightly green, including Wally, who, being supernaturally handsome, instead of looking seasick like the rest of us, now resembled some superb wild woodland creature just flitting out into light from a deep forested glade.

  As he always does in public—whether we're speaking that day or not—Wally made sure to lean over and kiss me full on the lips.

  It had its usual effect: the two waiters said something and giggled, allowing Wally to be superior and indifferent.

  "You know my Sig Oth," Wally said to Junior Obregon, who grunted out, "How's it hanging, man."

  I turned to the third diner. He was slim and pale, with bittersweet-chocolate straight hair. Nice face, even handsome, save for the eyebrows that connected without pause over his nose and shadowed his surprisingly dark blue-black eyes. Oddly, instead of making him look like a Neanderthal, they gave him a sad, even a somewhat tragic cast. I decided with no proof at all that he and Junior were doing it.

  "James Niebuhr," he introduced himself, with a strong, large hand thrust out for me to shake across the ravages of noodles in cold sesame sauce. I noticed paper cuts in the thumb and index finger and guessed he worked in design or art directing. "And yes, I'm distantly related to the Niebuhr."

  "I gotta piss!" was Junior Obregon's loud announcement. He continued to sit there, chewing on a chopstick while glowering at me.

  Now Junior and me, we have history. About two years ago, I was walking home from watching a third-rate foreign film at a local cinema when he accosted me at Seventh Avenue and Twelfth Street. Junior is lanky, and handsome in that strange blond-Latin way—you know, hair a little too thick, eyes a little too brown, face a little too pitted. His leather jacket is always open, and a work shirt is open to his navel even when it's so cold out sleeping sparrows are falling like stones out of trees. So I looked, immediately thought, Trouble, and moved on.

  Junior Obregon is no fool, and he caught on to what I was thinking. So he followed me all the way home, sometimes behind me, sometimes on the side, a couple of times even in the gutter, all the time talking dirty to me, but in reality challenging me.

  When we got to my place, he stopped my hand at the front door and said, "I need it bad!"

  "If you're looking for money, forget it," I said, hard as ice.

  "No, man!" with that accent. "Just a little action."

  I still thought he was trouble, but I've been gay long enough to know even the worst men can be quite amenable when they're suffering from a case of blue balls and you're the one designated to help them.

  As I let him in, I continued calculating: I was big enough to take him without a weapon if he got itsy. But if he were armed... Before he could think, I spun Junior around, pushed him against the corridor wall, and frisked him. He didn't complain. He did not breathe a word. I didn't find a weapon, and all the while I was saying to myself, "Honey! You are one hard queen!" thinking what a great story this would make when I told Alistair the next day on the phone.

  Inside the apartment he stripped off his pants and dropped onto my sofa, working up his dick. I blew him and he left. The entire encounter took at most ten minutes. I never asked his name and he never offered it.

  He appeared a year later, stepping out of Tisch Hall in company with Wally and some of his cohorts. At which point it became clear he wasn't the Puerto Rican ex-con with the hots he'd pretended to be, but merely another NYU film school student, son of successful and well-off parents who lived in semirural New Jersey.

  I didn't care. But evidently Norberto Juan Maria Obregon the Third— that was Junior's full name—did care, especially because he'd been found out playing a most unenlightened role of Latino trade. He'd silently resented me for it ever since, even though I never told Wally or anyone else.

  "So Wally said you do... What is it?" Niebuhr asked.

  "Drug pushing!" Wally said.

  "I'm an axe murderer," I readily agreed and poked through their dishes searching for something edible.

  "No," James said. "You're like a writer or something."

  I turned to Wally. "To answer your question: yes, I gave Alistair the pills. All sixty-four."

  "You'll burn in Hell," Wally said with no emotion. He'd located a prawn and fed it to me with his chopsticks.

  Junior Obregon got up to piss.

  "You wrote a book, didn't you?" Niebuhr asked. "The Sexual Underclass. Junior's Soc professor has it on his reading list."

  "He's losing his memory," I said to Wally, referring to Alistair. "The virus has already reached his brain. I've seen what it's like when they become demented. You haven't."

  "Why not just wait outside his building and knife him?" Wally asked.

  "He barely gets out anymore. Too exhausted to walk."

  Niebuhr continued to ignore our conversation. "Junior said that his prof said it was the best study of the rise of the gay political minority after Stonewall."

&nb
sp; Wally was bored by the conversation. He stood up and began distributing "Silence=Death" leaflets onto the restaurant tables.

  "You joining us at Gracie Mansion, James?" I suddenly asked.

  The caterpillar across his brow lifted up twice, registering surprise.

  "You mean you're comin' too?"

  "Think I'm too old?"

  He shrugged.

  "I was demonstrating before you were born," I said, regretting it the minute I said it. "I'm an old hand at this shit."

  "Oh, yeah?" he asked.

  "Chicago. '68. D.C. against the war in Vietnam in '64. On the SNCC busses down south a few years earlier." Even I was getting tired of hearing myself recall it, like some old anarchist giving a liturgy of the assassinations he'd flubbed, the riots he'd almost provoked.

  "No wonder...," James said. Then he explained, "I could never figure out why a great-looking guy like Wally would get involved in a trans-gen thing."

  Read trans-generational. Read I'm old enough to be his father but neither look it nor act like it. Read eternal Peter Pan. Read refusing to grow up and accept that life stinks and people are worthless. Read I'll be ninety and in a wheelchair and still picketing the White House. Read...

  "You ready, Bluebeard?" Wally was at my shoulder, all his leaflets having been distributed.

  "Aren't we waiting for Junior?"

  Wally pointed. Junior was outside on the street already. With him were four other guys I recognized from the two chaotic Monday night sessions I'd attended at the group's new headquarters.

  When we got out, Junior counted off bodies for taxis, Gracie Mansion being unattainable from here by public transport except with bus transfers and other old-lady stuff like that. Wally and I were left alone for a cab.

  "You lose," I said, as he pushed me into the taxi.

  Our cabby was a fat-faced, young but very nervous Indian Muslim, who seemed visibly relieved when Wally told him to head east toward Gracie Mansion instead of to a Hundred and Thirty-eighth Street or the abandoned wharves at Jersey City. Wally and I settled into the backseat and sat with our knees close together. I was looking out the window, trying not to think about Alistair staring at those Tuinals and stroking them like a lover's scrotum when we reached Central Park West and Wally tapped my knee.