by John Rechy
That was a gay song if he'd ever heard one, about strangers glancing at each other, hoping to get together, hoping for more. It was a favorite song of his, romantic, mellow. People thought that if you were black you had to like loud rock, and jazz. Sure he did, but not always. When others were with him, he'd play popular stuff, like Prince or the Police. Not that weird Devo, nor any of that stuff that sounded like an explosion. The cable station they were promoting all day on radio and television—that MTV—was pushing those new sounds. New Wave, they called it.
It would be a sexy night! These winds stirred desire. He felt it now, the invitation to a fantastic night ahead.
Back in his bedroom, he dressed in cruising clothes—jeans, cowboy boots by Tony Lama—not too many white people knew about black cowboys—a shirt unbuttoned to mid-chest. He never wore undershorts when cruising. Sexier without.
The wind was turning angry. These winds were like that. You'd think they were over, everything would be calm, and then they'd whip at the City—and stop, just like that, as if throttled—and then they would rise even more vengefully, as if they had been waiting. Sure, those winds created hot cruising, but they also stirred tensions. He'd read that gay-bashings went up during these hot spells, pulling ratty punks out for that purpose. A friend of his had been mauled in an attack outside a bar recently.
Maybe he'd only go out early, have a few beers, play pool, talk with friends—he deliberated as the wind yowled, straining at the windows. He was popular, had many friends, all white but not out of choice. He didn't go to all-black bars, but that wasn't because he wasn't attracted to good-looking black guys like himself. It was just that there were more white bars, several nearby.
Perhaps he'd go to the Studio Club tonight, avoid bar-hopping. People said the popular dance bar in West Hollywood didn't admit black people, but he never had any trouble getting in. He'd go dancing early, leave soon, bring someone home, make out, then watch TV—skip the late-hour franticness always possible on these hot nights.
Maybe he wouldn't go out at all tonight.
For now, he'd just take a ride in his pickup—his new Dodge Ram, great name!—why did guys insist on calling it a “truck"? He would just go along with the day. Before he walked out, he put on, at an angle, his new cowboy hat.
Paul and Stanley
MORNING
“I'm going to San Francisco today, got some business,” Stanley told Paul, his lover during the last five years.
Paul didn't bother to ask what business he had in San Francisco on Saturday. He was used to the euphemism, which they both accepted. “Business” meant that Stanley—“named after Stanley Kowalski,” he used to claim until one of their friends said, “Now there's a macho queen for you”—would go to San Francisco for a weekend of sex, keeping his word to Paul that he'd never make it with anyone else while they were in the same city. Paul had known, earlier, that Stanley's “business” was coming up. He had seen him—not that Stanley bothered to hide what he was doing, he didn't, he was, as he had promised Paul long ago, “always open” about what he did—had seen him packing his “macho gear,” including some leather. He claimed he wasn't really “into leather,”
but you had to wear the right uniform in the South of Market bars, “the best cruise turf,” or they wouldn't let you in.
They had been together since Paul turned twenty-five and Stanley was thirty-one. Soon after they met, they rented a house in the beach city of Venice, built, they both loved to explain to their friends, by a rich man attempting to re-create Venice, Italy. Instead, he found oil. Paul's friends—they became Stanley's only slowly—often told him that he was better-looking than Stanley. Paul denied it. “I have regular features, and Stanley is sexy,” he'd correct. Overhearing the remarks once, Stanley said, “Yeah, but you're good-looking, too, Paul, and kinda sexy in a clean-cut way” He'd wink. “Otherwise I wouldn't still be with you.”
Their unique “arrangement” had begun during their very first year together. Paul wanted to be “faithful,” and Stanley wanted an “open relationship.” “No reason why we can't both have our choices,” Stanley had said. When his “nights off” started to threaten the relationship—Paul telling him that on those nights he couldn't sleep imagining him in the same city with someone else—Stanley said, “If that's what's bothering you, I'll never do it again. Our love means more to me than anything else. Can't you just face that, and that I'm a slutty whore?” He said that with a helpless smile.
He kept his word. He didn't have “nights off” in the City, but he began going away on “business”—during weekdays at first, then Fridays, and then whole weekends. Paul pretended to believe the subterfuge, but soon the matter became open.
What made all this possible, for Paul, was that when they were together, they went out to movies, ball games, watched television, slept in the same bed, took short vacations to Mammoth—both skied, Paul better than Stanley, but, as Stanley pointed out, he rode a motorcycle better. They had different tastes in music. Paul got used to Stanley's and never told him that it had surprised him to learn that he loved Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand, whereas he himself preferred New Wave, which he eventually played only when Stanley was away. Sex remained good between them, at times very good, although, of course, it did not occur nearly as often and it was not like at first when they could spend a whole day and night coming over and over.
Now, after having cleared the breakfast table—they had long ago assigned each other respective household chores, equal—Stanley stretched his long body, wiped perspiration from his brow, and said, “Goddamn, it's hot. It's going to be one of those sexy nights.” He seemed almost to regret that he would be out of town.
“Then why don't you stay?” Paul offered. With me, he stopped himself from saying.
Stanley shook his head in regret. “I got my ticket, babe. Or else, wow, yeah.” He was wearing a sleeveless lumberjack shirt, which he opened lower now, revealing the dark hair on his chest.
“Maybe I'll go out tonight, and cruise,” Paul said. He had spoken those words!
Stanley frowned—and then quickly he smiled, cocked his head.
He's so fucking confident I won't, Paul knew, wanting me to keep my side of it, be “faithful” to him. Paul looked away from him, out the window.
The wind was whipping up sand from the shore, smirching the glass panes in gray splotches. Still, the heat would bring a lot of people out to the beach.
Stanley stood up, raised Paul by the shoulders. “Do it if you want, babe. Go out and cruise—whatever.”
That squint Paul had thought was so sexy—had it changed? Now Stanley looked mean.
“Before I go, kiss me?” Stanley said.
No! But Paul did, their lips hot on each other's. Stanley pushed his tongue into Paul's mouth. Paul opened his lips to receive it. Stanley's hands traveled down, opening their flies, bringing both cocks out, both hardening, slightly moist, sliding his fingers up and down both cocks, hot, sticky. Stanley withdrew his lips, held Paul by the neck, rubbing it at first and then pressuring it downward, down along his chest, moist tongue on moist chest, down, until he had brought Paul's mouth to his crotch. Paul took Stanley's cock into his throat. He worked himself up, feeling a flood of urgency and desire.
“Go ahead and come, yeah, take that cock deep, deeper, yeah, all the way—down, deep, let me fuck your throat—yeah, do it, deep-throat me, do it.” Stanley arched back and thrust forward. “Shoot with me, babe, cummon! Ah, ah, ahhh—take it, stay down, yeah—ah!”
Paul came into his own hand, his body jerking.
Stanley withdrew.
Paul, still kneeling, looked up at him, questioning.
“I couldn't come, babe. I tried.” Stanley shook his head. “It's too hot to come, I guess. When I get back, I'll be even hotter for you.”
Paul stood up, words ready to accuse, demand—bastard, son of a bitch, fucking shit, you never intended to come, and you pretended you did, just to make sure I came! You think that'll kee
p me satisfied, you fucking bastard!
Stanley kissed him, sealing his words, kissing him for long seconds, until Paul responded.
Nick
MORNING
“How much?”
“Fifty bucks.”
“Shit.”
“Thirty.”
“Twenty.”
“Twenty-five—if you got a place nearby and it won't take long.”
“Around the corner, five minutes away, and that's all it'll take.”
Nick looked about Santa Monica Boulevard, that stretch taken over by male hustlers, especially at night and on weekends, a stretch of a few blocks, vacant squat buildings, auto dealers, liquor stores, fast-food eateries shoved crudely into storefronts, a few brave trees.
Just noon, and almost every corner was claimed by hustlers taking advantage of these weird winds that brought everybody out. But there were only a few johns circling the blocks, probably others waiting for the hot night to come, Nick figured. In the brief period he'd been on the streets, he'd seen guys—who'd been here before he turned up—waiting, real long, to be picked up. Not him. Nineteen years old, with a hard body darkened by the sun, and natural carved ridges on his stomach, he was tough and boyish at the same time. One of the old guys who had picked him up had told him he was “real butch.” He had liked that and had considered calling himself that, “Butch,” except that no one asked his name. Fuck, no one ever asked anything about him except about his dick and what he did with it. Sometimes johns acted like he'd been born on the fuckin’ street. Well, fuck it, man, everybody was looking for sex all the time, and he was selling, liked gettin’ paid for it, liked to hold the crushed bills in his hand. Sometimes he'd go to sleep gripping the money he'd made.
Nick had evaluated the tight situation on the street. Too, he believed this guy because he knew johns often rented a motel room off Sunset minutes away. He'd learned some did that because they were married, in town only to pick up a hustler. “Okay. Twenty-five bucks—for just a few minutes.”
He got into the car.
“—to fuck you.”
Nick hadn't been listening until those words echoed. “You want to fuck me?”
“Yeah, stick my dick up your tight ass. You know howda squeeze, right?”
“I'm not gay, man.” Nick felt insulted when this occurred. Other hustlers on the street said they never got fucked, either. But he'd seen some of them going with men he'd turned down because they wanted to fuck.
“Sure, sure, you're not gay,” said the man, heavy, sweating. “Doing it for the money, huh?”
“Right.”
“You suck?”
“Not that either.” Shit, man, what the fuck?
“Don't kiss, right?”
“Right.”
“How about letting me fuck your ass with my tongue?”
“You can rim me, yeah.”
“How big is your dick?”
“No one ever complained.”
“Let me see.”
“Are you a cop?”
“Hell, no, are you?”
“Fuck, no.”
“If you're not, you'll show me your dick and then we can take care of business right here in the car. A few minutes. Twenty-five bucks. There's lots of other hustlers on the streets.” Sweat specked his face, stained his collar.
“How do I know you're not a cop?” Nick had learned early about dangers.
“Like this.” The man opened Nick's fly and took out his dick. “Real nice, ah-ha, yeah, real nice, real nice—”
“Hey, man!” Nick saw that the guy was pulling himself off—must've already had his pants open.
“Ahh!” The man's body jolted. Wiping his pants, he rubbed off the sticky moisture on his hands.
“Motherfucker!” Nick realized what had happened.
“Get outta my car, you little shit whore!”
“Hey, cocksucker, you better pay me or I'll tell all the guys on the street about you and we'll kick your fat ass—”
The man started the car. “Okay, okay, here—” He fumbled for his wallet. “Cops! Behind us!”
Nick pulled his fly together, grabbed for the door, held it slightly open.
The man pushed him out.
Nick clung to the door, and let go when the man sped off.
No cops.
Nick felt a rush of anger, almost as if it were contained in the heated wind that jostled him. He reached down for a rock, a stick, anything. He found a board and flung it in the direction of the fuckin’ car. The wind intercepted the board, hurling it back, and the car sped away.
Nick took off his shirt, wiping the perspiration he'd worked up from running and from the anger that lodged like vomit in his stomach.
Clint
NOON
Clint got off the airplane at LAX and felt a blast of heat as he walked through the tunnel that led into the crowded waiting room. The pilot had announced a Sant'Ana condition before they landed. Clint had been prepared, but not for the intensity of the stagnant heat that crouched in the passageway. As he entered the air-conditioned waiting area, he felt a chill that warred uncomfortably with the temperature.
He was a handsome, sensual man in his early forties, with dark hair, thick eyebrows over dark eyes—and a lean frame that allowed his walk a subtle swagger, a masculine gracefulness. Like most gay men who dedicated strict time to their looks, their bodies, knowing that age is an enemy in their world, he looked younger than his years. Although he decried the cruel banishment of the old from sexual turf, he was determined to survive there. He was a desirable “top man,” but, like most others, he did not adhere to one role, often reciprocating in all sex acts—an easy shift.
On the airplane, he had reread Camus's The Stranger. On a blank page of it he had written, The randomness of destiny. Now, on his way to the baggage-claim area, he opened the book to the same page. Laughing at his lofty thought, he paused to draw a heavy inked line through his own words. Then he thought, How similar Meursault is to Sydney Carton, both in pursuit of their destinies. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
The wait for luggage—he had brought only one suitcase—was always interminable. Today it was especially so because everyone was edgy from the heat and the sound of the screeching wind they would soon be surrendering to.
Either having managed to prod in on a blade of wind and through sliding doors, or having been dropped there, scattered sheets of a newspaper fanned out on the floor. Clint glanced down at the lead story. The City might have to be sprayed with aerial pesticide to combat the spreading infestation of a destructive breed of medflies that had been found in—He leaned down to stare more closely at a large photograph on the spread page. It depicted three Mexican children, about six or seven years old, stooped low, picking strawberries—“the devil's fruit,” the accompanying story read, “so-called because of the excruciating labor involved in its harvesting.”
VOYAGER RACING FOR LOOK AT SATURN
Under that headline was a large photograph. Swirls of smeared white light—the planet's rings—smudged a deep, unperturbed darkness. When he straightened up again, the page itself—blurring—assumed a discordant unity in his mind, fragments of words and images melding into incoherence. A rush of heat blasted through an open glass door and against the cooled artificial air. Caught in the two extremes, heat and cold, he felt dizzy. A ring of darkness threatened to enclose his vision. He shook his head, and the moment was over.
As he waited outside for the shuttle that would take him to the parking area where he would pick up the rental car he had reserved, Clint detected the singed odor of ashes. Familiar with the City he had lived in years ago—he thought of it often as the last shore before night fell—he looked beyond for the glow that would signal fire. The horizon was not yet singed.
In the rented two-door Mustang—once inside, he snorted two pinches of the cocaine he had brought with him—he sped on the freeway to his hotel in Hollywood. The sound of the wind drowned even the hum of the air
conditioner. He welcomed the wind sweeping away the debris of the City. If, like that, he could sweep away last weekend—
He turned on the radio, hoping for a classical station. If he could have, he would choose Bartok's “Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta”—not entirely remote since this was the 100th anniversary of the composer's birth—but the dark strains of that favorite work would only have entrenched his mood. He roamed through the spectrum of stations, pausing at Blondie's “Call Me,” which he had danced to at discos, last year. The music slipped into his mind the image of sweat-gleaming bodies contorting, knifed by strobes of colored lights, flesh sliding on flesh, dancing—no, struggling—That image pushed back into the shadows of crumbling piers he had roamed in New York last weekend, skeletal warehouses, butcher trucks abandoned to the night, orgy rooms—
Blood—
When? Whose? Where? A man bleeding—Lying on a dance floor? Among contorted bodies? On rubbish—? In the piers—? No, in—Only the impression of redness and blood persisted, tainting his mind, until he focused his attention on the jumble of sounds from the radio—
“—yesterday's hits, and tomorrow's—and here's Queen's ‘Under Pressure’—”
The song's agitated bass line, like a persistent undercurrent, and its words about a final dance, a final chance—made him tenser. He turned off the radio.
He drove off the freeway onto Sunset Boulevard, along its strip of pop-art advertisements for Las Vegas extravaganzas, records, rock concerts. When he reached the slight hill to the Château Marmont, where he would stay, he looked back, beyond ubiquitous palm trees resisting blasts of wind. Now the horizon was flushed red with distant fire. What irony that something that calamitous could look so beautiful.
Ernie
MORNING
Ernie lay in his bed in his Hollywood Apartment—he always slept late on Saturdays, right?—an apartment he intended to move out of but which was okay—and he studied his cock.
Twenty-nine years old, he liked to wake up to the sight of his muscular, weight-pumped body, nude on rumpled white sheets.
