by John Rechy
“Sometimes I walk past your house when you're playing that same record, and I stand outside and listen. I wonder, Thomas—could we ride back to your house? I'd like to listen to more of your beautiful music. I'll tend to my car later, it's parked okay.”
“Why, of course! This evening I was thinking of going to a movie—”
“I haven't seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. Everyone's talking about it.
“Exactly the film I was intending to see!”
Thomas had reached the mouth of the Canyon. His imagined encounter with the young man who lived down the road from him—and whom he had placed on the street—made him sigh again as he drove past the boy's house and the boy still wasn't there.
In his home at last, Thomas sat in his favorite chair. The obscene messages on the filthy walls seemed still to shout out their horrifying pleadings. To blot them out, he turned on his stereo. The voice of La Divina and the music of Saint-Saëns soothed the horror.
Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix—
He looked out his glass wall. Rushing funnels of wind were dredging everything that was dirty along the roads. He drank from his glass. Scotch. Chivas Regal. He drank nothing else.
He wished there was an opera in town, something lyrical, Puccini would be perfect, but Verdi would do. He began humming Musetta's Waltz. Oh, he would eventually go see Sweeney Todd at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Too violent for tonight. That English film that had received such favorable notices, Chariots of—
He saw his reflection in the glass of his picture window. The reflection didn't reveal someone awful. He straightened up. He had more hair than most men his age, and he didn't have to comb it across and down—like Herbert.
Feeling better, he fixed himself another—a small—scotch. How thankful he was for his home, his haven that shut out the ugly, the commonplace, the cruel, especially now that the whole world was rife with violence, and indifference. Teenage killers in gangs. That woman who dumped her child in the garbage. An attempted assassination on the Pope, another on the President—that bad supporting player, that Reagan. No, he was not fond of either of those crude gentlemen. Both were vulgar. And insensitive. Did they care about those poor Mexican children exploited in the strawberry fields? He had wept when he saw that picture in the paper recently, the little bodies stooped over painfully. Violence and corruption! And insensitivity! Imagine, new revelations about that Agnew man—talk about insensitive and crude!—taking bribes in the White House. Probation, only probation, for that highway patrolman who admitted molesting those children. Probation! Think what a gay man would receive if he was found in—found in—that terrifying tunnel he had just fled.
He refused to remember that fetid place, refused—
Of course—he forced himself to regain normal control of his breathing—within all that was frightening in the world, there was this to hold on to—
The new translation of Proust's masterpiece! “'And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray—'” he recited aloud from a favorite passage.
He sipped his drink, slowly, savoring it and the peace he had created for himself in this lovely Canyon. A trickle of liquor slipped down the edge of his lips, surprising him. He wiped it away urgently—so unattractive when that happened. His finger touched his chin—he pulled it away from the skin there. Why did everything seem to fall?
Out of shrieks of the wind, softened inside his haven, the loud roar of a motorcycle invaded rudely. Without looking out, Thomas knew it belonged to that ridiculous heavy-set old man—he must be all of sixty—a few blocks up the Canyon, always covered in leather, no matter how hot the weather might be, like now.
That leather business distressed Thomas. It was so unpleasant. In his time there had been the Cinema Bar, where everyone was in leather. How rigid those men were, then—and they were just as rigid now, terrified of a wrist going limp or a hip swinging out in a swish, but wrists did go limp and hips did swing out, more often than those posturing men wanted—or even thought—and, God knew, they didn't all ride motorcycles. Volkswagens, that's what they rode.
“Leather queens”—that was probably the only one of Herbert's phrases that he appreciated—were everywhere now, strutting around the streets like roosters but cackling like hens. Yes, and those colored handkerchiefs that so many gay men were wearing, to signal their sexual preferences, even hideously distasteful ones. As if there wasn't enough lack of real communication among gay men, now they had created a mute vocabulary of—what?—only sexual preferences. Hadn't Herbert told him that older people frequented leather bars, that they were called “daddies”—what a terrible designation!—and that some young men preferred them?
Thomas faced his reflection in the window. How would he look in leather?
Ridiculous—that's how.
Did he look his age?
No.
Sometimes, when he used his driver's license to cash a check where they didn't know him, the clerk would look up at him and down at the license, clearly not believing he was as old as indicated, silent about it, too.
He looked at the picture on his license. Not flattering, but whose was? Herbert's—which he had seen once when his wallet fell out and he went to the rest room—looked like the head of a whale.
Thomas freshened his drink before he went to his desk in his study. With his Mont Blanc pen, he practiced writing numbers from zero to nine. With an ink eraser, he scratched out the last two numbers of his date of birth. No one would doubt that he was thirty-five. Let them check his identification—they were notorious for that at that popular bathhouse he'd driven past one night where so many attractive young men lined up to enter.
With his new identification, he sat down to nurse a freshened Chivas Regal for a few moments before he would go—
To see that English film—yes, and to bring, softly, to an end this ghastly day.
Orville
AFTERNOON
Orville had been watching television, idly, since the man he had brought home with him had left. Saturday-afternoon television was mostly for kids. He wished it was World Series time—that would take care of the TV doldrums, but that was still a while away. He preferred basketball, though. He especially liked to watch it on television, in bars. That provided an easy way to make contact with guys who had similar interests. Earlier in the year, he'd met a super guy that way—both were avid Celtics fans. When their team won—defeating the Rockets, whom they had booed together—they agreed to “celebrate.” Obviously he would have gone with the guy even if they hadn't had a team in common. The guy was good-looking, slim, with brown hair. They went out a couple of times—dinner, dancing, great sex each time—and then—He still didn't know what happened. He didn't phone the guy, but waited for his call—and the guy didn't call him, probably waiting for him to call. The next time they ran into each other, they turned away as if they were strangers. Why did that sort of thing happen so often?—possible intimacy broken so easily, before it was even really explored.
He had been idly shifting channels.
The Sant'Ana was creating havoc in small communities outside Los Angeles, an early-news announcer was saying. The camera panned streets lashed by the wind, tumbleweeds exploding against cars. Even in Hollywood, there were occurring sporadic power outages as a result of felled electrical lines. “In the hills populated by some of the City's most prominent figures,” the announcer said breathlessly, “fires have been kept in control. But firemen warn that flames might spread if the wind shifts. Not yet considered threatened but in the area being carefully watched is the mansion of Studio Head Dick Gellman—”
That rich queen who wouldn't admit publicly that he was gay, although everyone knew about his bizarre “private entertainments” with half the male whores in Hollywood.
Orville listened as Anchorwoman Mandy Lange-Jones queried a reporter, “What creates the Santa Ana winds?” “Air currents that collide, then warm air rises and cooler
air intercepts it. Before that, sea- sons of drought have turned brush into tinder, and so—Actually, like with all other natural disasters, a series of random situations creates the hot violent winds.” “I'm sure,” Mandy Lange-Jones offered, “that the people affected by their destruction don't think of them as random. Maybe that's why they call them devil winds.” Tommy Basich, the mustached reporter, agreed. “When these fires rage out of control, they keep on destroying until the devil winds die out.”
Orville turned the television off and looked out the window. It wasn't there, the mysterious glow that bathed the City when smoke from many fires converged in the sky and the sun turned into a splash of violent red.
Damn! Even with the air conditioner on, he was sweating. He stood before the cooling unit in his elegant living room until he felt a chill. Maybe he'd just drive over to Griffith Park. There was action all the time in that vast park. No. He'd just sit here and read the new Tom Clancy novel.
Goddamn that son of a bitch bigot he'd brought home—and he'd been so attractive.
Paul
AFTERNOON
The man on the bench kept staring at him as Paul walked along the beach-front walk, staring almost as if he recognized him. Paul had walked here, aimlessly, after he had waited long for the phone to ring again, for it to be Stanley telling him he was returning today. But that hadn't happened.
The man on the bench was handsome, clean-cut, about Stanley's age. Paul pushed the thought of Stanley away. The wind flung his shirt open, and he left it that way, to attract further. He fixed his eyes on the man on the bench and smiled, ready to approach him—except that when he was about to speak to him, the man hopped off the bench, and walked away without looking back.
What the hell?
The wind caught Paul in a hot vortex. He sheltered his eyes from the dust until it drifted away along the sandy streets. The good-looking man had disappeared.
Now Paul was less sure that he would cruise the beach. For one thing, this wasn't exactly gay turf, although in Venice there were no strict boundaries.
Despite the wind, but because of the heat, the beach was crowded. Along walks and on the bordering grass, impromptu bands sprouted, gymnasts tumbled, jugglers performed as men and women in trunks and bathing suits sauntered by, past plumed hats for sale, tinny jewelry, posters of Marilyn Monroe—
The man stood a few feet away as if waiting for him.
Paul caught up, paused, walked ahead, looked back, and then he sat on one of the many benches along the boardwalk. Playing this game of risky cruising—the connection might be severed at any moment—he lingered for the man to signal further encouragement.
He did. He took a few more steps, closer.
Paul was very attracted to him, strange as he was acting. There was something about him that was unlike the usual pickup, not only his unself-conscious good looks. He seemed moody—or sad. Maybe his lover was gone for the weekend, maybe they'd broken up. That would create a closeness between them. Okay—he'd skip some steps in this game. “Hi!” he called to the man, and held out his hand—
Damned if the guy didn't turn away! That was enough. To hell with him—too strange. Just as he had known, now he felt guilty to be cruising, even though Stanley was fucking everyone in San Francisco. Would he have gone with that man?
“Hi.” The man was back, extending his hand to Paul.
Now that getting together was really possible, would he be able to? “Hi.” Paul took his hand. They shook. “My name's Paul.”
“I'm Mitch Sherman.”
Paul was perplexed. No one in the gay world gave a last name while cruising.”
“Look, man, I came back to explain why I was acting so strange.”
“Yeah?”
“I thought you were someone else,”
Oh, shit, one of the top three lines when you decided you'd made a mistake and were about to reject. “I just remembered I have to meet someone—” “Sorry, I thought you were someone else—” He'd forgotten the third line. “Is that why you kept walking back?”
“Yes, no, I mean—look, man, I just had a quarrel with my girlfriend—”
Paul couldn't believe he was hearing those words. This guy was telling him he was straight. Not that bullshit, especially on the day he was determined to show Stanley he could—and would—live without him. “Oh, shit,” he said aloud.
“Look, man, I'm telling you,” the man said. “I found out only today that my girl's a dyke—”
“You mean a lesbian, right?” Paul and Stanley had several lesbian friends, mostly couples, good, easy relationships.
“Yeah. She's a lesbian. We'd started having problems, and I didn't know why. Then she—”
“You want to find out what lesbians do in bed, huh?” The last thing he needed was some guy's story about breaking up with his girlfriend.
“Oh, hell, that's not all of it. See, I knew you were trying to come on to me, and I wanted to let you know that I'm not gay—”
“You were cruising me!” Depression nagged.
“No, I wasn't, man.”
“Oh, shit—man.” The really worst thing he needed was a closet case calling him “man” and claiming his girlfriend was a “lez”—and insisting he himself wasn't gay but everyone was always cruising him and he wondered why Paul jumped off the bench and walked away without glancing back. When a day started wrong, there was no changing it—it continued downward, and this one had already gone way down. There was just one thing to do. Go home.
And wait for Stanley.
Nick
AFTERNOON
Not desperate, far from it, but eager to get goin’, Nick left his shirt off, like many other hustlers did even on cool nights. He also did this—he opened the top button of his jeans and pushed them real low on his hips. He dangled a lit cigarette loosely from his lips and propped one leg against the wall of a vacated building—he'd seen another hustler standing like that and it looked sexy. An old guy in a new expensive car drove by Nick signaled to him.
Along the street, other hustlers were abandoning their stands, fast but pretending to be idling away That meant cops were on the block. Only the few transvestites, or transsexuals—tall figures in makeup and wearing revealing clothes—remained at their posts. Today the cops were rousting masculine hustlers, Nick saw. He dodged off Santa Monica Boulevard, to a side street. The man in the expensive car had stopped near an apartment building ahead. Since the cops were hassling someone else on the street—Nick saw the steady glow of swirling lights—he could be bold. He walked right up to the car, opened the door brashly, and got in. “Hi,” he said to the man.
The man didn't answer. He was looking at Nick with—panic. Then why had he left the passenger door unlocked if he hadn't expected a hustler to get in with him? He had to act quick, whatever was involved because another squad car—the glow of the first one's lights was still fixed away—cruised by Often cops pulled hustlers and johns out of a car.
“Why don't we take a drive, man?” Nick said.
The man started the car. He drove a block away, to Fountain, along apartment buildings that looked like they belonged in an old movie. On a side street, he stopped, looked at Nick.
Nervous or not, the guy wanted him. Squinting at the smoke from his cigarette, Nick stretched his young stripped torso, and let his hand drop to the waist of his pants, hooking his thumb there, pulling his pants down, to the edge of his pubic hair.
“I don't pay for sex, if that's what you're looking for,” the man said. “I was just driving by, and you signaled to me, you jumped into my car, I didn't invite you, please get out.”
“Man, I ain't hustling,” Nick lied quickly because the man's face was enraged, and you never could tell who was a psycho, “I signaled you and got in cause I liked you, man. I—”
“You what?”
“Yeah, because I liked you,” Nick lied. All he wanted now was to get the man to drive him back to the Boulevard. This guy was really weird, acting like he was surprised by w
hat was happening. What the fuck did he expect on these streets? Jesuschrist, now the guy had put his hands over his face, and his body was shaking—and Jesus fuckin’ Christ, he was—
Nick opened the door and hopped out. In exasperation at this really weird day, he puffed a cloud of cigarette smoke into the wind, which pushed it against him. Angrily, he threw the cigarette away and put on his shirt because a cop in a cruising squad car had stared pointedly at him.
Jesus fuckin’ Christ—that weird guy who'd just picked him up had been crying!
Clint
AFTERNOON
Clint heard laughter from the hotel pool. He sat up on the bed. He would get up, and—Fatigue—and pursuing memories—pulled him back down.
NEW YORK
Last Weekend
That late afternoon, when he saw two men pissing on a third groveling in the trash of the piers, and was invited by one of the men standing to join them, he moved toward them as if hypnotized—no, as if to break a spell, no, as if—
The man who had invited him—by now his piss had dwindled to a few drops, while the other's continued in a steady stream—opened Clint's fly, pulled out his cock, held a vial of inhalant to his nose, and growled, “Piss on that fuckin’ pig!” and then he flung himself on the floor, opened his own mouth, and aimed Clint's cock at himself. “Piss on me, stud, I'll be your pig-slave.” Clint pushed his cock into the open mouth, stopping the words.
He withdrew before coming, walked away along garbage. He passed more gray shadows of men hunting within deepening evening. He heard the crunch of his footsteps on trash, beer cans. The odor of poppers, urine, musky cum clung. He moved along loosened boards—splinters of glass like sequins—and out of the warehouse, stooping under its oxidized gate, jagged like a guillotine.
Outside, he inhaled. Grime.
The sky darkened, night fell.
Behind a graffiti-smeared tin wall before a truncated wharf, men crouched, others stood, some wandered with their cocks out. Near the edge of oily water, Clint and a man who had followed him sucked each other on the wooden boards without coming.
