by Steve Kluger
The corps of forty-five hundred cheering Harvard kids sardined into the cozy confines of the Yard represented nearly twice the turnout we’d expected (the prospect of free rock and roll inspires temporary idealism in many)—and by the time Buffalo Springfield had brought down the house with “For What It’s Worth,” word had spread to Kenmore Square, where two thousand future alumni from B.U. were jamming the “T” and heading for Cambridge as well. While Grid Tarbell and His Dunster Funsters were blasting John Mayall’s “Room to Move” into flinders, we were joined by another eight hundred from MIT. And the Boston College contingent showed up at the tail-end of my Dylan set—just in time to see me curl my lip into a sneer, twitch my ass, and direct “I Want You” to a well-muscled Travolta lookalike in the front row. (Subtlety, as ever, has rarely been a compulsory part of my act.)
And that’s when it happened.
I was in the middle of my third bow—the glare of the arc lights silhouetting thousands of my screaming public against the stately old ruins called Harvard—when some hothead from the Student Freedom League chose that moment to take the stage and announce that we needed a human symbol to show that we weren’t going to tolerate the violence any more. The only question was who. Then an obviously horny Travolta shouted it out from down front.
“Dylan! Strip Dylan!”
“Yeah! What about Dylan! This whole thing was his idea anyway.” If I hadn’t been preoccupied with a popped E string, I might have had time to react before it was too late. Sure, sure, Dylan. Jesus, it’s getting cold. If I could—DYLAN?! Horrified, I looked up wildly just in time to see Grid and the Funsters pounce gleefully on top of me—and the next thing I knew, my clothes had been yanked off, I’d been doused with ersatz blood (disguised as Hunt’s ketchup), and some schmuck from Accounting 108 had chained me to a pillar in front of Widener Library as the living emblem that we’d had our fill of blind justice. Naturally, I was outraged—the least they could have done was ask first. But I also recognized an easy audience when I saw one, so I added a touch of my own.
“Fuck you, Dan White!” I shrieked, to no one in particular. They went nuts. (What the hell. I hadn’t canonized Joan Baez and Woody Guthrie for nothing.) The effect was electrifying. Nine thousand people holding lit candles for Harvey Milk crowded around us while Graham Nash sang “Teach Your Children” to my tattered body. If I hadn’t been freezing to death, my hair would have been standing straight on end.
However, by that time word had also reached Jamaica Plain, where five hundred rednecks had piled into their vehicles, carrying bottles and sticks and anything else they could throw. And it only took them nineteen minutes to reach the Square.
The first Molotov cocktail exploded just as we were chanting “Carry On” with David Crosby and Stephen Stills. Thinking it was probably a practical joke, nobody paid much attention until the fire began spreading across the Yard. Then a brick hit someone in the chest and the real panic started. Stills and Nash grabbed their mikes and begged the crowd to stay calm, but by then it was way too late—kids were bleeding, rocks were flying, and Harvard Yard had turned into Okinawa, Part II. Meanwhile, I was still chained to a fucking pillar in my blue-and-white striped Jockeys and I couldn’t break free. If it hadn’t been for an uncharacteristically ruffled Charleen muscling her way past two truck drivers and a stevedore, I might still be hanging there.
“Good Lord, what have you gotten yourself into now?” she demanded impatiently, attacking the chains. With my body temperature down to 16 degrees, I was in no mood to be ragged on.
“Get me out of here,” I snapped.
“Where’s the key?”
“What key?”
“To the padlock.”
“There’s a padlock?!?”
Once she’d worked my hands loose enough to slip me out of the damned thing, I grabbed her wrist and dragged her through the mob toward the Mass Ave gate, just as the first SWAT team showed up. There was only one impediment standing between me and my goal: a large individual with a beer belly and a bullet head who was occupying most of the real estate in the Yard.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“Fucking faggot,” he replied, smashing his fist into my face. I cocked my right arm back to return the favor—but since he was at least twice my size, what resulted was a significantly unimpressive jab to his left tit which he probably didn’t even feel when he again attempted to eject my lower jaw onto Holyoke Street. I’d barely had time to topple over backward under the boots of eleven different assailants before I dimly heard an unexpected CRUNCH! and a SOCK! and a POW! and a “Get lost!” in rapid succession. And just as I was losing consciousness, I was pulled to my feet by the strongest pair of arms I’d ever felt in my life. Even without peripheral vision, I knew they had to be Clayton’s and that nothing was going to hurt me now—so I grinned groggily to myself and then I blacked out.
* * *
“I said no. If you start one more riot, we’re finished.”
“Clayton, three hundred people are dead, and Reagan’s head is still up his ass!”
“You’re gonna have to make a choice.”
“I hope you don’t mean this.”
* * *
“Ouch.”
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on his bed in Lionel Hall, wrapped in a blanket and trying to figure out which part of me hurt the least. He’d already checked my arms and legs to make sure nothing was broken, and now he was wiping the blood off my forehead with a rolled-up Purdue T-shirt. Let’s see. The last thing I remember is—
“Charleen,” I croaked in a panic, beginning to rise. But Clayton pushed me back down onto a pillow that smelled just like he did.
“Recovering with a double chocolate mocha at the Greenhouse.”
“Nonfat?” I asked weakly.
“And decaf.” By now his little finger was somehow stroking my chin too. God only knows why. I must have looked like shit and stunk like ketchup.
“Schmuck,” he said, in the quietest voice I ever heard him use. “See what happens when you shoot off your mouth?”
“Somebody has to do it,” I replied, feeling for broken teeth and inexplicably tasting pineapple.
“Then leave it to the other guys. You’re too short to make waves.” I pushed his hand away and struggled to sit up.
“You know what?” I shot back, letting him have it with both barrels. “In case nobody clued you in, there’s a war going on and we’re all soldiers. Anita Bryant kicked us out of Dade County and John Briggs tried to pull the same crap in California and if we don’t start covering each other’s asses—”
So Clayton did the only thing he could think of to shut me up. He kissed me.
* * *
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“You look great.”
“So you do.”
“Have coffee with me?”
“Are you going to ask me to move back in?”
“Only if you don’t ask first.”
* * *
After that, it all happened pretty quickly. By Christmas it was so unlikely that you’d see either one of us without the other, we were known all over campus, at various times, as the big one and the little one, the agitator and the bruiser, and (my own personal favorite) the prince and the pea. Fortunately, we’d gotten the falling in love part out of the way during the eight weeks we’d been ignoring each other, so we were able to save a little time and cut to the chase: (a) who buys more Rice Krispies when we run out; (b) who turns off the alarm clock when it rings; and (c) who says I’m sorry first. It was usually (c) that gave us the most trouble, because you just don’t put two hard-headed guys together and expect the Cleavers to happen. Charleen was the only one who could spot the primary warning sign: If I wasn’t wearing Clayton’s Cornell sweatshirt, it meant there were typhoons in Paradise.
“Princeton?!” she’d shriek in mock horror. “What are you fighting about now?” But nobody needed to be loved more than my boyfriend did. When the father he�
��d idolized had found out his kid liked men, he’d thrown him out of the house bodily. (“You make me sick,” he’d said, slamming the door on his only son.) Clayton never sufficiently recovered, especially after the old man died. Instead, he inherited a legacy that became his trademark: If it looks like they’re going to dump you, beat them to it. It saves a lot of wear and tear on the heart. So I never allowed our skirmishes to get in the way for long. Bundled up against the cold, we’d walk along the Charles River at 1:00 in the morning holding hands. (Bashers tended to stay away from Clayton. One “faggot” and they’d be hunting for their teeth in the dark.) After moving into our microscopic two-room apartment on Concord Street, we’d spend hours at a time painting the walls and each other—initially by accident and then deliberately. (It was a great excuse for taking a shower together at 1:30 in the afternoon. And 2:15. And 3:05.) And even on Princeton nights, I’d always fall asleep curled up in his arms.
Our routine was established pretty quickly: he’d make the coffee and I’d watch. I’d drop off the laundry and he’d pick it up. He’d insist on HBO and I’d switch to the Red Sox. I’d put on “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and he’d groan. He’d go to class and I’d write a brief. (Once in a while, he’d call me at lunch time if he couldn’t decide between a shrimp salad sandwich or a turkey on rye, but mostly he just felt like hearing my voice.) At night, after we’d made dinner together, I’d read him what I’d written and he’d tell me what needed work. Then I’d stop speaking to him for two days until he dragged me to Pogo’s for a burger. (Note: Pogo’s is where we always made up, 33 Dunster is where we celebrated his birthday, the Union Oyster House is where we consecrated mine, and Grendel’s is where we had dessert on our anniversary. These establishments were off-limits at all other times.) Once I’d gotten him to apologize for hurting my feelings, I’d wait a week and then make every change he’d suggested, hoping that by then he’d have forgotten it was all his idea. He hadn’t.
So except for a three-and-a-half-year misunderstanding that we got out of the way early, we haven’t had to look back since 1986. When Charleen and I decided to go into practice together the same week that Clay found a bankrupt hardware store and 125 available acres in Saratoga Springs, it was a done deal. And for some reason, I couldn’t help thinking of Travis—because whenever he was really happy, he’d always quote Ethel Merman:
“Who could ask for anything more?”
* * *
“I don’t want you marching on Washington. What if something happens to you?”
“Clay, nothing’s going to happen to me if you come too. We’ll stay at the Shoreham in Room 626, and we’ll have dinner at Pierre’s and you’ll hate the Cajun shrimp so I’ll eat it instead, and then we’ll go for a walk by the Tidal Basin so I can sing something dopey from ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ and you can tell me to shut up.”
“I’m trying to pick a fight here. You’re not making it easy.”
“That’s my job.”
* * *
It was platinum. And he paid retail.
(Grin.)
4
Travis
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
UNIVERSITY PARK • LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90007
Doheny Library
Faculty Research Request
DATE: May 4, 1998
FROM: Travis Puckett
DEPARTMENT: History
BUILDING/ROOM: VKC/223
MATERIALS NEEDED
SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS
Julian: I’m sorry. Please please please please please try dinner with me again. I promise that no matter what happens we’ll at least make it to the restaurant. See, it’s an old Toyota and the manual says a 50,000-mile tune-up and if we hadn’t been lucky enough to find a garage that stayed open late, the timing belt could have gone out at 50,001. Actually, it’s pretty amusing when you think about it.
No, Travis. Bette Midler is amusing. Lea DeLaria is hysterical. Handling a grease gun in a $129 Armani shirt doesn’t even come close.
By the way—a kiss might have been a good idea. Even narcissists have feelings. (I can’t believe I’m leading you on….)
FROM THE JOURNAL OF
Travis Puckett
Our first real date—after the preliminary Starbucks let’s-pretend-we’re-not-thinking-about-each-other-naked summit—was a casual lunch that only took me three days to get ready for. He chose an open-air café on Santa Monica Boulevard that specialized in avocado-and-cilantro sandwiches, two ingredients that, even individually, render the concept of induced vomiting obsolete. But Julian was so dazzling in his snug white T-shirt and one-dimple grin, I ate a pair of them and actually managed to stay away from a bathroom for almost an hour.
“Are you okay?”
“I’ll be out in a minute.”
Two days later we went to Our First Movie, where we held hands and let our feet play with each other and I bought him more popcorn when he tried to eat mine before the previews started. (Incidentally, the three-fifths-of-the-way-back-on-the-aisle rule suffered its first veto in twenty-three years: Julian won’t sit anywhere except the middle row, smack in the center—but I could learn to love that if I had to.)
On our third date, I took him to Dodger Stadium during a home stand with the Mets. By the top of the ninth, New York was leading 2–0, Benitez was pitching a no-hitter, and we’d both decided we’d rather have sex with Eric Karros than Todd Hundley.
Date Number 4 was an unmitigated disaster, and by mutual consent we agreed that we’d never mention it again.
But the fifth date was the charm. We were on our way to Dan Tana’s for seafood risotto and another two hours of shameless flirting, when he suddenly leaned over the hand brake and kissed me. Happily, there were no pedestrians on the sidewalk when I jumped the curb and rammed a gas pump—and after I’d paid $300 for the cracked hose with my Shell credit card, Julian put his hand on my ass and asked me to turn the car around. That’s when I learned that it’s really not a good idea to drive a stick shift while you’re hyperventilating.
“Move the car, you fucking asshole!”
Oh, yeah. The seafood risotto never happened. We had bigger fish to fry.
Hours later, his head was resting blissfully on my shoulder as we bathed in the scarlet glow of a red lava lamp manufactured a good year before he was born and at least nine years after I was.
“Travis?”
“Mmmmm?”
“We aren’t really going to fall asleep like this, are we?”
“Don’t you want to wake up in my arms?”
“Do I have to?” Not that it matters, but Julian hates being held. Instead, he turns away and curls himself up into a little ball, just like a cuddly hamster without the cuddling.
I could learn to love that, too.
* * *
TRAVIS PUCKETT’S BOYFRIEND CHECKLIST
Name: Julian Brennan
Duration: 2 weeks so far
Occupation: USC Librarian
Where we met: Over microfiche
BEGINNER LEVEL
___ Can say “I love you”
Isn’t hiding another boyfriend
Thinks kissing is sexy
Has a glowy smile
Is at least marginally sensitive
Will probably remember my name the next morning
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL
___ Can say “I love you” without my saying it first
___ Likes me enough to tell me I’m special
Trusts me enough to tell me I’m wrong
___ Always lets me pick the first fortune cookie
Teases me when I need it but knows when to stop
___ Pursues making me laugh as a hobby
___ Pretends to like the same things I do even when he doesn’t
Misses me when we’re apart
Isn’t afraid to fight with me
Allows me to drive him crazy
___ Would rather do nothing with me than something by himself
___ Can fall asleep in
my lap while I work—and still call it a date
TOP-OF-THE-LINE LEVEL
___ Can say “I love you” with his eyes
___ Never lies (except to spare my feelings)
___ Doesn’t worry about losing me because he knows he can’t
___ Forgets there was a time when we didn’t know each other
___ Kisses me for no good reason
Celebrates my faults
___ Sighs when I hold him
___ Knows all the lyrics to Flora, The Red Menace (optional)
Strong Points:
Looks like a puppy when he pouts.
Shortcomings:
Pouts too much.
Comments:
We’re getting there.
* * *
* * *
Vidiots
Santa Monica’s Favorite Video Store
CUSTOMER: Travis Puckett
