by Steve Kluger
Craig McKenna
Attorney Notes
By sophomore year, I’d already earned an entirely undeserved reputation across campus as a rabble-rouser. According to a highly illegal copy of my transcript—purloined at my request by a hunky swimmer in the dean’s office whom I’d once dated long enough to determine that the rumors about his cock were altogether understated—I was an instigator, a provocateur, a demagogue, and a seditionist.
“What the fuck is an agitprop?” I mumbled to myself, thumbing through the pages late one night when I should have been reading Dostoevski instead.
“It means you’ve got a big mouth,” shouted Clayton from the shower. “I told you so.”
Me?
Psychology 311
PROFESSOR:
What do we call a patient with paranoid schizophrenic tendencies who still manages to assimilate himself into the social structure?
CRAIG:
A Republican.
Mathematics 204
PROFESSOR:
We accept that pi equals 3.14159 because theoretically it’s endless and there’s no sense letting it ramble.
CRAIG:
Sort of like Jerry Falwell.
American History 126
PROFESSOR:
Certain facts about Alexander Hamilton are still coming to light. His imperialism. His obstinance.
CRAIG:
His boyfriend.
Government 210
PROFESSOR:
If there’s one thing we’ve learned since the collapse of the polis in 509 B.C. it’s that change takes time.
CRAIG:
Bullshit. If we had a Students for Human Rights Commission around here, it’d take about fifteen minutes.
ALETHEA:
You got that right. Craig, I can get us the Freshman Union.
ETHAN:
I can handle the fliers.
DARBY:
What about a permit?
JORDAN:
We don’t need one. Hey, Craig. Can I chair a subcommittee?
And suddenly the sixties were back.
“It happened again,” I moaned to Charleen over coffee at the Greenhouse. “I was only being theoretical!”
“That’s what Einstein said after Hiroshima,” she snapped, slicing a chicken salad sandwich into eight equal pieces and handing me two of them. (Usually I got three. She must have been really pissed.) “Craig, if you think I’m going to spend the next six years—including law school—unchaining your ass from a series of Corinthian columns dotting this institution of higher learning—”
“Who asked you to?” I demanded.
“Who has a choice?! Have you told Clayton yet?” The blood instantly drained out of my face.
“Oh my God,” I groaned. “If he finds out about this—”
“Yes, Lucy. ‘If he finds out about this.’”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I should.”
“But you won’t.”
“I know.”
Eventually, of course, Clayton had to discover that he was married to an unintentional subversive. If nothing else, there was the little matter of a headline in the Crimson that required an adroit pas-de-deux to ’splain away: “McKenna Welcomes Cardinal Cook with Sit-in.” Not that I was completely successful with the ballet metaphor; as a matter of fact, we didn’t have sex for the longest two weeks of my life—but once the Archdiocese had slapped a temporary moratorium on its queers-burn-in-hell oratory, Clayton relented. Maybe the little shit knows what he’s doing.
“But no bottles and no bricks,” he warned.
Our first SHR meeting was held in a lounge at the Freshman Union. Thirty-four people showed up. A month later, we’d clocked two hundred members and Charleen had snared us a classroom. (“I employed the ‘wouldn’t it be unfortunate if the Boston Globe got its hands on a story like this?’ routine again. They fell for it. A second time. Have you ever heard of a flat learning curve before?”) Maybe our agenda was a little unrealistic, but hey—we weren’t even 20 yet. What the hell did we know?
Students for Human Rights
Meeting Minutes
Alethea Cathcart was refused admission to a dance club called Orion in Beacon Hill on grounds that they’d reached capacity. However, seven Caucasians were waved through the ropes while Alethea continued to wait. Craig assigned a subcommittee to draft fliers and posters warning kids to stay away from Orion. They’ll be papered across Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and the Fens.
Jordan Halper’s boyfriend, Kenji Fukuda, has been harassed repeatedly by members of the freshman soccer team. The assaults have included destruction of personal property, physical abuse, and a spray-painted warning on the door of his room in Lowell House: “Remember Pearl Harbor.” Craig organized a zap attack on the Freshman Athletic Department, to take place immediately.
Ethan Whaley read a statement from the Archdiocese of Boston, claiming that sexual deviates are a moral threat to Christianity. Craig requested volunteers to help him stage a sit-in during Cardinal Cook’s visit to the university next month. He assured the membership that this was one of those rare occasions where we weren’t required to behave. One hundred and fourteen students raised their hands.
Darby Burnett reported on a sports bar in the South End that has a sign over the mirror reading “No Dykes.” Craig suggested that 150 lesbians show up during next Sunday’s playoff game, and then he appointed an ad hoc committee to spread the word.
We kicked and we screamed, but we got the job done. And nothing was going to stand in our way.
The honeymoon ended on July 3, 1981. Two things happened that day that made me wish Travis had never taught me what “irony” meant. First I received an unexpected letter from a kid with shy eyes who’d once been afraid to tell anyone his name:
Dear Craig,
Living in Indiana was like hiding out from the law. All they had to do was find out certain things about you and suddenly you had broken body parts.
I didn’t think Boston was going to be any different until you stood up in front of a class filled with mostly straight people and talked about your boyfriend. It was like hearing the Declaration of Independence read out loud for the first time, or getting to start your life all over again. That’s why I joined the SHR.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks. Bet you never thought you’d be anybody’s hero before.
Ethan Whaley
Then I opened the New York Times. Buried on page A20 was a tiny headline that nonetheless packed the wallop of an impending nightmare:
RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS
Yeah, right, sure, I thought, beginning to sweat bullets. Just another excuse to scare us.
As it turned out, Ethan was the first in our group to find out otherwise.
Petrified, I picked up the telephone and dialed our number, praying that he’d answer. Please be home Please be home Please be home Please be home Please—
“Yeah.”
“Clay, it’s me.” The words tumbled out in a rush. I was so fucking grateful to hear his voice, I swore I’d never fight with him again. “Something’s the matter with Eeth.”
“Honey, stop crying,” he said, hugging me with his voice. “Just tell me what happened.” Behind me, my study partner was doubled over on his bed, retching violently.
“I don’t know,” I sobbed. “There’s two more purple things on his face and white stuff inside his mouth and when I tried to give him soup, he threw up blood. Now he can’t stop.” In the background I could hear Clayton picking up his car keys.
“I’m calling an ambulance. Sit tight. It’ll only take me ten minutes to get there.”
“Clay, I’m really scared.”
“I love you.”
AIDS pretty much ended things between me and Clayton. Once the figures began pouring in from the CDC—with a polite “No, thanks” from Nancy Reagan’s husband—the message was loud and clear: We were alone in the trenches fighting for our lives, and meanwhile I had a lover who didn’t
want me to make waves.
“How can you ask me to keep my mouth shut!” I cried, hurling a medical dictionary at him late one night. “Ethan was killed by a sheep disease and nobody gives a fuck! Including you!”
“I said leave it alone!” he thundered, throwing it back at me and storming out of the apartment.
The phone rang at 2:14 in the morning. We were still pretzeled together from our earlier “I-Love-You-I-Hate-You-Shut-Up-and-Fuck-Me” tango, but I had enough of an arm free to grapple with the receiver.
“’Lo?” I mumbled, trying not to wake him up.
“I’m at Mass General,” said a barely controlled Charleen, a Code-Blue page clearly audible behind her. Alarmed, I sat up in bed and dropped the whisper.
“Darby again?”
“He’s got pneumonia and they can’t control it.” A deep breath. “Craig, have you ever known me to panic?”
“No. Why?” The minute her voice cracked, I knew that Darby was going to die.
“Because I don’t think he’s going to make it this time.”
“I’m on my way,” I blurted, hanging up instantly. I kissed Clayton, hit the dirt, grabbed my Jimi Hendrix T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, and ran all the way to Massachusetts General. This couldn’t be happening to Darby.
In spite of Clayton’s edict, I didn’t exactly leave it alone—I turned into a half-pint Larry Kramer in a Red Sox cap. Die-ins, bleed-ins, memorial marches—anything to wake people up. But no matter how many peaceful protests I organized, they always seemed to attract the National Guard: according to the box scores, I was arrested nine times in eleven months. (Charleen usually bailed me out with a credit card. At an 18 percent APR. Activism converted to profit, courtesy of Citibank.) Jail didn’t really bother me, though. It was the only place I got any studying done.
By then Clayton and I were barely speaking: a pair of grunts at breakfast and a who-gets-the-bathroom-first parley at night. (Did we really used to shower together?) We were way too unhappy to fight any more—kind of like Lucy and Desi at the very end. It finally came to a head when I cooked up a three-state strike in front of the White House.
“I said no,” he demanded, spinning me around to face him in the middle of Harvard Yard. “If you start one more riot, we’re finished.”
“Clayton,” I hissed through gritted teeth, “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.” He glared at me for an angry moment, then let go of my shoulders and pushed past me wordlessly.
He meant it. When I got back from Washington, he was gone.
Charleen and I sat in matching ghastly blue plastic chairs and stared vacantly at the swinging doors with the words Emergencies Only stenciled in red above the glass. After a moment, they opened to reveal an apologetic Chinese American intern whom, under other circumstances, I would have found blindingly cute.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, kneeling in front of us. “We couldn’t stop the hemorrhaging. Jordan died at approximately 3:26.” After the customarily awkward condolences, he stood up and left us alone. Charleen and I turned to each other.
“Whose turn is it to plan the memorial service?” I asked idly. Charleen shrugged.
“I picked up the last two,” she replied. “You owe me one.” Then she took my hand and we went back to staring at the swinging doors.
For the next three and a half years, I was Jack Kerouac without a Neal Cassady: I smoked pot, I watched my friends die, I hitchhiked to California, I hunted for Travis, I got drunk when I couldn’t find him, I went to law school, I got laid, I felt for swollen glands, I watched my friends die, I stayed away from the Harvard Center for Business Administration so I wouldn’t run into Clayton, I pretended I didn’t see him when I ran into him anyway, I passed the bar exam, I got laid some more, I searched for lesions, I got my blood tested, I grew up, and I watched my friends die. It was all quite tragic and inevitably romantic.
“Don’t I remind you of Lenny Bruce?” I asked Charleen. At my insistence, we’d gone to a smoky jazz club so I could wear dark glasses, drink rosé wine, and brood.
“Impersonating whom?” she retorted. “Rosalind Russell?”
But Clayton and I couldn’t possibly stay apart forever, and we both knew it. Shortly after I began clerking for my first law firm (Schnitzler, Fickman, Something & Something), I stopped by Wordsworth Harvard Square on my way home. Normally, you wouldn’t have caught me dead in the philosophy section, but I was just lonely enough to look toward Socrates for answers: Why was my Walkman broken and why had another friend gone off life support and why did they forget to put the mushrooms on my pizza and—
“Hey,” said Clayton from somewhere behind me. I could smell his soap before I’d even heard his voice.
“Hey,” I mumbled, turning to face him. We stood there staring at one another awkwardly for a good fifteen seconds. He’d put on at least ten more pounds of muscle (like he needed it) and he was wearing the Moody Blues T-shirt I’d bought him in Woodstock. We each seemed a little wearier than the other remembered.
“You look great,” he sighed, eyeing me from top to bottom while I was doing the same thing to him.
“So do you.” It wasn’t really necessary to figure out where all this was going. After you’ve spent four years kissing somebody’s perineum, the subtext talks louder than the words do. And I was way too tired to fight it.
“Have coffee with me?” he suggested hopefully.
“Are you going to ask me to move back in?”
“Only if you don’t ask first.”
I didn’t, but he did. So I requested five minutes to think it over, and then I said yes. It was the Moody Blues T-shirt that did me in.
Charleen’s right—Harvard was a long time ago. Besides, I’m not a troublemaker any more. Those days are over.
NEW YORK STATE DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEE
ALBANY HEADQUARTERS
151 STATE STREET
ALBANY, NEW YORK 12207
June 2, 1998
VIA FACSIMILE
Craig S. McKenna, Esq.
McKenna & Webb
118 Congress Park, Suite 407
Saratoga Springs, New York 12866
Dear Craig:
I’m looking forward to our Thursday meeting. However, it appears as if we’ve gotten our signals crossed. Though we’re always interested in filing suit against the Republican Party, that’s not why I contacted you. We want you to run for State Assembly on behalf of the Fifth Congressional District.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. See you Thursday.
Very truly yours,
Wayne Duvall
8
Travis
THE PERILOUS JOURNEY OF TRAVIS PUCKETT
PART I
Travis and Brandon in an Orange Corvette
(Traveler’s Advisory: If you’re going to accept a ride from a guy in an Orange Corvette whom you meet at a Chevron station when your timing belt goes out, make sure you determine his taste in music first.)
L.A. to Needles
If I didn’t already loathe ABBA, the first ninety miles would have convinced me to nuke my copy of Muriel’s Wedding. We bonded to “Dancing Queen”—fifteen times on the way to San Bernardino. In heavy traffic!
Unimportant stuff: He’s 28 years old, his last name is Tracey, he’s a record producer, he lives in Holmby Hills, and he owns a ranch in Amarillo.
Critical stats: He has sandy blond hair, heterosexual-green eyes, biceps many men would pay to bite, and I’m guessing 8 inches by 6 inches, cut. On the McKenna scale, he’s a 9.
Needles to Flagstaff
(Same CD. By now I didn’t just hate ABBA, I hated Sweden too.)
In a desperate effort to drown out “Fernando,” I began comparing opinions with Brandon on Super Bowls and point spreads and earned run averages and personal fouls. He seemed particularly impressed when I suggested that the Jets had made a big
mistake in 1993 after they’d dumped Kenny O’Brien for Boomer Esiason.
“Why O’Brien?” he asked smugly. “Ever check out his stats?”
“Ever check out his ass?” Credentials established.
Then I told him about Craig. He handled it pretty well.
Flagstaff to Albuquerque
“You mean you haven’t seen this guy in twenty years?!” he asked incredulously. “What if he looks like Jesse Helms by now?!” We fought all the way to the New Mexico border—partly because I had Craig’s honor to uphold and partly because as long as we were calling each other assholes he wasn’t playing ABBA.
“I know what I’m talking about,” he insisted hotly. “I had one of those too. Jennifer Carson. When she moved to Chicago, it ended. So what? Life happens.”
“Do you still have dreams about her?” I demanded, ignoring Gallup. He shrugged.
“Maybe.”
“Do you still love her?”
“What difference does it make!” he blurted, banging the steering wheel impatiently. By then I was pretty sure I had his number (1–800-JULIET), so I began harassing him with pointed references to Brigadoon, the chocolate chip cookies, the first kiss in the rain, and still ordering hot-and-sour soup every June 4th because that’s the anniversary of the day Craig and I discovered it together. Brandon claimed I was nuts and changed the subject. Then we pulled into Albuquerque and I mentioned that Ethel Mertz had been born there, but he didn’t seem to give a shit about that either.
