alt.sherlock.holmes

by Gini Koch

  Andy shuffled forward, the microphone hanging limp in his hand. He was looking around like he didn’t know where he wanted to point it, like there was nothing of interest to tape in the entire world. It was a look I knew well enough. This was Bored Andy coming on with Andy Candy, and I wondered what was going to happen.

  We fell into an uneasy silence. Ondine shifting from foot to foot, trying to keep his relentless sober enthusiasm from pouring out. Candy didn’t say a word, just smoked one cigarette after another, looking over the top of Andy’s head and anywhere but Ondine.

  Candy Darling spoke up. “I was thinking about changing my name.”

  Andy didn’t even look.

  “What do you think about Candy Warhol?”

  Ondine looked up. That go this attention.

  “Well, I think that would be wonderful. Interesting, anyway.” Andy’s gaze passed out over the people arriving at the line, their faces filling with shock and then resignation as they either marched to the back of the line or turned around and walked away. “See those two there? I can’t bear to imagine them and their lives. Look at them. They just can’t decide. I can’t imagine having friends like that, friends that don’t think the same way as you. It would be like a little betrayal. It would be so boring. Just stand in the goddamned line or go get a cup of coffee. Standing there arguing in the street is just so boring, wouldn’t you think? How would you do it? Would there be a wedding? You’re not trying to legitimize me, are you?”

  “Me, Andy? You know better; I’m good for nothing but scandal. What would you want? St. Patrick’s Cathedral and carriages through Central Park, or should we go to city hall and invite everyone along? We could make this entire line sign our papers.”

  “See that? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Friends that think like you do.”

  Andy started pointing his microphone at the people around us. We could see the funeral home now. Our arguing and shuffling had gotten us that far.

  “Don’t you have headphones?”

  “No. I don’t want to know what I’m listening to. That’s sort of the point. Chance. Ondine’s so goddamn boring I need to do something.”

  “You should try life clean, Doc. A little clean, maybe. It’s nice. Earning an honest living. Coming home to your lover. Making it in the summer heat. A cold beer and a cigarette afterwards.” Ondine looked up and down the block, like he was waiting on someone else.

  “See what I mean?” Andy wasn’t impressed by Ondine’s anything, and kept talking to me in his almost whispery voice. In the studio, everyone would shut up and listen and laugh, even though what he said usually wasn’t funny. Out here on the street, you had to be a foot away from him to hear a word. “I just can’t tell what it is that I’m listening to. Or who. It could be your Aunt Tilly. I suppose I’m glad he’s off drugs. I suppose I’m glad he’s clean and happy with his little suburban life, but he hasn’t got any sparkle. He’s like the Silver Factory. Gone with the wind. He’s a goddamn non-personality now.” Andy paused and looked up at the length of the line. “Ah, now we approach greatness.”

  We were nearly under the red ‘Frank E. Campbell’ awning when a halt was called. We were almost the next people in the door, standing there for almost ten minutes on our own, until a man walked out of the funeral home door. He should have been good-looking, but the weight of the world had settled on his shoulders and let all the air out of his tires.

  Candy knew the score. “That’s her husband, Mickey Deans. He doesn’t look anything like he did in their wedding pictures. Not glamorous at all in those wrinkled clothes. He looks devastated.”

  Deans looked at the assembled crowd like it was completely overwhelming. He started to say something and then turned, sober as a judge, and got into his waiting limousine, holding back a shudder. People were filing out with their handkerchiefs up against their noses and clutching anything: old movie posters, LPs, pictures. It was like they wanted to just have her records in the room with her body. Andy was riveted, in his disinterested way. I turned to Sherlock.

  “What are we doing here, Holmes? This is... voyeuristic, at best.”

  “I know, but I think we should stick it out. Trust me.”

  “Jesus. They were only married for a few months,” I heard from someone just behind us in line, while we waited. Deans had had enough time alone with his bride after about fifteen minutes. Andy smirked, holding his microphone out. He gave me a look that I didn’t understand as he pushed the leather case of the tape recorder behind his back.

  The security guards in their pale grey suits pulled aside the velvet rope and let us go on in. Candy Darling strode forward with purpose, drawing us along in her wake. The place was drowning in flowers. There were displays from everybody, from Fred Astaire to Irving Berlin.

  There was an actual rainbow made of flowers in front of a glossy white and gold coffin. Glossy. Classy, I supposed. It was sad, sure, just like the death of anyone is sad; but I thought this whole setup was really weird. Thousands of people lining up to pay their respects to a person that they’d only known from the movies and their record players, maybe the stage if they were lucky enough to get tickets.

  “She’s really gone away over that rainbow now, hasn’t she?” Candy was conferring with a woman whose mascara had run down the side of her face. She’d buried her face on Candy’s dress, probably smearing her makeup all over. I looked at Sherlock, wanting to grab him and get out of this festival of chintz and manufactured feelings, but he was standing back, head down, watching Ondine, his eyes flicking to the entrance and away.

  There were piles of roses, records, playbills, and stuffed Toto dogs. You name it, it was piled against that coffin. One of the ubiquitous security men in his pale grey suit came up to Candy and held out a box of Kleenex. He put his hand on her shoulder and whispered to her. She took the strange woman by the arm, patting her, and began to pull away. Andy hovered, glancing into the coffin but standing back, catching the people as they passed. I turned and walked out, trying to pull Sherlock with me, but he shrugged off my hand and ambled in behind Candy, Andy, and Ondine.

  “What do you see outside, John? Anyone watching? I think someone should be.”

  “Have you dipped into the Obetrol? You’re on edge and I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Just wait, John. Just you wait.” He looked up, “Ondine—why don’t we go for a drink and catch up? A night like this”—Sherlock nodded at the line of thousands still standing ten abreast on the sidewalk—“would be a good night to go down the Village and dance with some short-haired women and long-haired men, don’t you think?”

  Ondine looked around, at the cars up and down the street. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got to get home, Freddy’ll be expecting me.”

  “Oh, come on. We’ve got to celebrate the night of righteousness and send off Mrs. Garland in style, don’t we? Look, there’s a pay phone. Here’s a dime. Why don’t you give Freddy a call? I’d love to meet up with him. See this person that’s got you going down the straight and narrow. Well, clean, anyway. What do you think, Andy?”

  Andy looked off to the side, almost rolling his eyes. “Sorry, I’ve got to get home and dissect my tapes.”

  “Come on, Ondine, Doc. Let’s go dance downtown.”

  THE STREETS WERE steaming as we exited the subway at Christopher Street. A curl of vapor was rising out of the grate on the right and we crossed 7th Street to walk past the little park on the right and cross the street.

  “This is a little place I’ve heard about. Ondine, you should be able to get us in.”

  It was a nondescript brick building with blacked-out windows. There was a neon sign above, but it wasn’t lit up. You could hear some kind of music coming from somewhere. It sounded like black music, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Oh, hang on.” Sherlock knocked a pattern—three short, two long. “You have to know a few little secrets. Go on, Ondine. They only let you in if you look a certain way.”

  We a
ll heard the hatch slide back from over the keyhole. “Yeah?”

  Sherlock prodded Ondine.

  “Oh, um, can we come in?”

  “What for?” The voice was gruff, very old New York, like a truck driver or a fireman.

  Ondine looked at me, then Sherlock. Sherlock gave him a nod. “A drink?” Sherlock raised his eyebrows. “We’re here to dance away our sorrows at the ending of a legend.” Ondine cocked his head and put his hands on his hips.

  The bolt slid back and the door opened. The music was coming from inside the bar, of course, and it was black music, with its incessant beat. A massive Italian stood there in black work pants and a black jacket. We filed in, and Sherlock came last, entering backwards. He turned around and gave me a smile.

  “We’ve been followed. I’m certain of it. It’s good to know I’m not paranoid. Let’s let the evening play out into night and see who turns up following darling Ondine.”

  We paid our three dollars and signed the register with false names. There were more John Smiths at this nightclub than lived in the five boroughs. Sherlock signed himself Inspector Clouseau. I signed as Doc Holiday. The bouncer gave us each two drink tickets. Ondine smiled at the beat and looked at me and nodded. Clearly his cleaning up his act didn’t extend to booze or dancing in underground Village gay bars. Sherlock walked me through the smoke-filled bar, looking around.

  “Let’s go to the bar. Look at that—retail duty stamps. Naughty naughty. Illegal booze sales. Probably no liquor license. Hiding behind the pretense of being a private club.” He got us both gin and seltzer—no lime, unfortunately, not in this hole, and barely any ice. It looked all melted, and there were fingerprints all over our glasses. Not the strictest hygiene standards.

  The dance floor was a riot of color: shirtless men, drag, butch girls with short hair, and anything in between. There were at least four people dressed up as Dorothy. Whether these were regular transvestites or just there to honor Her Imperial Majesty I didn’t know. Blacks and Hispanics and whites dancing like the world outside didn’t matter. It seemed lighter in here, somehow. I pushed my way across the floor searching for the bathroom, which required not a little bit of dancing, and between the flashing and the blacklight it was enough to bring on the tiniest hint of a flashback. The toilets were foul, with a chiseled farm boy wearing overalls and cowboy boots kissing a skinny little thing in a tight pink shirt. It must’ve been the only space they could get enough room for their roaming hands.

  When I pushed my way back across the dance floor I saw Sherlock standing there, looking amazing. Almost exactly like he looked the first time I saw him, leaning against the wall and scanning everybody, but I understood now what it was he was doing. I could see that he was where he could watch the front door and where he could see Ondine dancing. He had one foot up and was rolling a cigarette of his strong brown tobacco.

  It seemed like Sherlock had turned favors into a type of currency. Everyone owed him something, and while he used money from time to time, favors were a better currency. They got him things that money couldn’t. Loyalty, information, attention—or the lack of it.

  I went and stood next to Sherlock and he handed me the extra cigarette he’d rolled. “I saw you watching me there. What time is it?”

  “Jesus Christ, it’s almost one o’clock. What happens to time in these places? It’s like it loses its shape. Another drink?”

  He looked troubled. “Perceptions change. You’re enjoying a collective unconscious experience, getting a little bit high off the people here. Time is elastic, according to our experiences. You needed to blow off some steam anyway, John. Ondine seems to be getting along all right. Is one of those his Freddy, do you suppose?”

  I looked around, and spotted Ondine wrapped in the arms of one man, with another writhing away behind him. “I don’t know, but something tells me not.”

  “Do you think I could have been wrong, John?”

  “About what?”

  “About being followed. I would have expected the raid to come before this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Come on. Let’s go outside.”

  We moved to the door. The bouncer looked us up and down. “No ins and outs. You go, you’re gone, fairies.”

  We shrugged at him and went outside. It was like hitting air conditioning, even that evening in New York, after the sweat and smoky haze of the club. Sherlock nodded across the street at the tiny park with the knee-high fence. We stepped over the fence and sat on a bench facing the Stonewall Inn, and Sherlock rolled us both a cigarette.

  “Damn Ondine. There was something about him the last time, when we saw him outside the Factory, remember? He was watching. He kept acting oddly, asking strange questions, probing for information, and then he suddenly goes clean. Can you imagine? Ondine? Clean and straight? The only reason he’d do that is if it could get the heat off him somehow. He’s been using going straight as an excuse to stop spying on Andy and the Factory. I laid the trap today, and he came, and I’m pretty sure I saw his handler.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s been a spy. For the police, or somebody. Someone’s been using him. They’ve probably got something on him, some charge they’re holding over his head to make him deliver more information. I’ve been thinking we’ve all been watched, but they should have come by now. The NYPD can get a few dozen officers together pretty quickly, if they want to bust some gays. I can’t see why they wouldn’t... Wait. Sssh.” He held up one hand and took both of our cigarettes with the other and silently crushed them under his foot.

  Two cars had blocked off both ends of the block, and around twenty of New York’s Finest walked up to the Stonewall Inn and pounded on the door.

  “Police! We’re taking the place!”

  They hammered on the door until it opened, and they held up their badges and billy clubs and marched in. I was glad we’d left.

  “Look, John. The suits. Those two are NYPD, but that other one, in the navy suit? That’s no police officer. He’s a Fed.”

  “What? How do you know?”

  “The suit, for one. Charcoal or navy blue. Classic Fed. You can see that he knows he’s in charge. See the other ones? They’re deferring to him. Look, see there? The first ones coming out in handcuffs? They’ve just looked at him to see. He’s watching, but for us, or for Ondine? Let’s stay here.”

  More people came out of the nightclub, one by one, all of them looking down. They were the most normal, no one dressed up, no one in drag, no one too effete. The good homos. Some of them stood around, waiting, and that was the pigs’ mistake. They let them wait for their friends or neighbors or whatever. There was silence for a while. The pigs in suits conferred with one another; there was some sort of disagreement. The Stonewall’s managers were brought out in handcuffs, and the staff from the bar. A few ragged cheers came out from the assembled homos. “Good going! Make them pay for their shitty drinks! Get us some running water in there, why don’t you!” There were five uniforms standing around ten handcuffed Mafioso types. They looked around, and when they brought a couple of drag queens out in handcuffs to a murmur of protest from the crowd, shouted into the bar to, “Hold on till the paddy wagon arrives.”

  The cops standing around guarding the prisoners started to look nervous. There must’ve been forty people standing around; way more than they could shoot or club. A murmur went across the crowd, punctuated by shouts. “Why the hell you guys gotta bust our balls? We ain’t doing nothing.” “Gay Power!” “Who complained?” “Oh, no. Harass the homo!”

  The cops looked nervous. Some of them drew their billy clubs and some of them put their hands on their guns, and the crowd quieted down, a little bit, but murmurs went across it. A police wagon came up, driving over the edge of the sidewalk at the end of the street. Sherlock put one finger up, urging me to stay still here in the shadows where we could watch unobserved.

  Two cops got out of the wagon and went around and opened the do
ors. They looked over at their pig brothers, and laughed. “What are you, scared of a bunch of pansies? Come on. Let’s get ’em in here.” He called through the door. “Okay, bring ’em out. The cavalry’s here.”

  Four cops exited the door with three drag queens and a short-haired, short, muscular woman in a tank top, her hands cuffed in front of her. She was fighting, and she pulled away from the cops and ran a few steps. Two cops broke off from guarding the door to help out the pigs chasing the woman. She stopped, smiled, and made as though to allow herself to be arrested again, and then when the pigs were close she smashed one of them in the nose with her forehead and kicked the second one in the shin, missing a strike at his testicles.

  The murmurs from the crowd changed in tone. They sounded bolder, more sure of themselves. The woman backed away from the four pigs now approaching her and looked around at the good homos and shouted, “What the hell are you guys just standing around for? Do something already!”

  Memory is fleeting, and changes all the time. Ask two witnesses to an event what happened and you’ll get two conflicting statements. Even what they agree on might be demonstrably wrong. Camera evidence, for instance. My mental image of this moment fills me with shivers each time I recall it. It probably didn’t really happen quite like this, but here’s what I remember.

  “Do something!” shouted the woman, and the cop stepping towards her came face-to-face against the perfect, silent parabola of a brick spinning in from the hand of a tall black transvestite in an outrageous hat made of pineapples. I don’t think it hurt him, not really, but it shocked him. It’s lucky for homos everywhere that those four cops reached for their billy clubs and not their guns, that they backed up as the crowd found the power in their own limbs. A bottle flew, along with the shouted words “It’s the revolution!” and more bricks. Another drag queen stomped a cop with her heel, and a big beefcake slammed his forehead into a pig who was looking like he was ready for the woman. After that, it was like a flood. Shouting and hooting rose, the drag queen in the Carmen Sandiego hat was there in the middle of it, kicking and punching. The pure force of numbers had the pigs in complete disarray. I wasn’t really a military man; I was really only in country to patch up boys so they wouldn’t die too quickly. I could recognize a rout, though. The pigs had no discipline, no coordination, and they fell back more like a mob than a retreat into the bar, one of them bleeding from his nose.