by Gary Indiana
The side avenues end at a wide boulevard that is crossed by flat concrete islands dotted with high metal stalks with glazed lights curled over at their tips. A gas station in the center of its own tar arcade sports an immense crimson “M,” broken at a slant for design allure. Behind it a cyclone fence barricades more stripped trees and a row of vacant tenements, row after row of shattered windows like broken teeth in a swollen mouth.
Gregory looks different today. His body seems more organized than before, small and sinewy and animated by controlled, tottery movements, like the body of a life-size puppet. Tight gray and black jeans, thick black ankle boots, a voluminous black sweater and a thin denim jacket. He moves determinedly, on his way to an exam he knows all the answers to. He likes these squalid streets, they’re “his,” he’s used to them and they’re used to him. I haven’t walked over here for much of anything in years, too many shitty memories, though it isn’t far from my house. One of the shabbier zones of the Lower East Side: bodegas with yellow and red plastic awnings, a Nedick’s, over there a wan-looking tar playground with a basketball hoop and some smashed-up orange swings. Across the street, a boarded-up synagogue. On Gregory’s corner, there’s a cocktail lounge with a sloped pink roof and jalousie windows, shaped like a roadhouse in an upstate village. We walk past it to the fifth house on the block, past a maroon monolith that used to be a day-care center, past a gap in the block full of uncut gravestones, past a monument showroom—Gregory lives in the monument district—to a place with a short, scarred stoop, double black doors with rectangles of iron mesh bolted over grimy inset glass, the wood splintered and gouged around the lock. Like the other buildings, this one has a fire escape jutting down its face, an architectural scar that jumps out at me as Gregory points to the buildings across the street, waving at the nearest: That’s where Bruno lives. Bruno doesn’t care for this area, Gregory says, insinuatingly. He can’t believe I go exploring down these ratty side streets, Bruno hates all this poverty and ethnic clutter, but I’m really moved by it. I like checking out all these tiny shops, listening to ordinary people talk. Bruno’s so out of touch with real people, he just stays in that constricted world of art and artists and never comes in contact with anything real. When you watch and listen to the people down here, Gregory says, you realize each one of them has a life, full of particular things.
Gregory pushed open the door and walked into the hall. He peered into the mailbox grille. The stairwell had dim fluorescent circles coloring up the sickly green walls and the warped, rotted stairs. I followed him up while he talked, perhaps about the neighbors or the drunken super or the landlord, or he may not have spoken at all, possibly we climbed the stairs in the crackling silence that often swallowed us. Silence like: We’re normal together, everything’s normal. I’m in your mind, you’re in my mind. Silence like: Now we’re content and steady. This is how it’s supposed to feel, being together. Ordinary silence, which is to say: a silence that can change character when one or the other does something unexpected, gets an abstracted look in his eye or stands a certain way, fails somehow to follow the unknown laws of this particular silence. With Gregory this happened easily, a content or approving silence changed into a doleful or an angry silence, and I would find myself outside the charmed circle of Gregory’s approval, Gregory’s interests, becoming a chunk of petrified rock obstructing Gregory’s path. When Gregory had had enough of somebody, he had none of the usual gift for concealing the fact. He might say in one breath that I was the most important person in his life, and a moment later behave as if I were an importunate, vague acquaintance from whom he tore himself away with a gelid apology. It could happen in the course of a phone call, a dinner, a walk through the neighborhood.
A few days earlier I had gone to visit Bruno at his gallery. We not only knew each other but had been flirtatious from time to time, in a desultory way. I had considered Bruno the best possible choice for a boyfriend until meeting Gregory. For a time, even after meeting Gregory, I continued flirting with Bruno, in hopes that if Gregory proved as refractory as he seemed, Bruno would fill the void. And then, naturally, I discovered that Bruno too was infatuated with Gregory, though he had drawn back from his infatuation, found another boyfriend, and now kept Gregory at arm’s length, emotionally speaking. I hadn’t wanted to ask Bruno about Gregory. Bruno was never especially loquacious. Bruno favored epigrammatic, slightly irrelevant answers to almost any question. I don’t understand Gregory’s behavior, I once told him against my better judgment. What behavior do you mean, Bruno asked. I like Gregory, I hastily qualified, he’s an exceptionally nice person. But, Bruno said, encouragingly. Yes, I said, but what, exactly. What is it with him. Why is it that one minute I feel I know him and we’re close to each other, intimate, practically lovers, then without warning it’s as if I were oppressing and torturing him, smothering him, using up all the air in the room, why does he call and arrange to see me and then keep me waiting for hours, sometimes not bothering to call, sometimes never showing up, when the whole thing was his idea, not mine, why can’t Gregory just say, I’d rather not see you today, instead of making an urgent point that he wants to see me, and if he does show up, acting as if I’d begged him to meet me and he’s only enduring a situation which is actually killing him, reversing the whole thing? And if he injures my feelings and I tell him he’s treating me badly he whines and moans about how unacceptable his life is, that I’m his only reassurance, his only true friend, the only person he can turn to, how wounded he is that now I seem to be turning against him like the rest of the world, so suddenly I’m the one abusing him, before I even know what’s happening I’m plunged into a bath of guilt, when it’s all his fault.
This sounds disgustingly familiar, Bruno said, but I don’t want to puncture your balloon.
But what, I wanted to know. I thought: Bruno’s so much less complicated than Gregory, why did I give him up when we were just becoming friendly?
But, everything you just said will seem comparatively charming, if you get deeply involved with Gregory. If you put any expectations at all on Gregory, be prepared for the worst. He wants everything his own way. He’s a child. People have always wanted him, and he’s always exploited anybody who got close to him. The trouble is he’s so fucking convincing. He could make a million dollars in Hollywood, he’s such an incredible actor. But then again, if he ever came close to a real opportunity he’d fuck it up big so he could still feel like a victim. He’ll never compromise with you even the slightest little bit. He’s destroyed people for his own amusement. He’s a rotten monster, if you want to know the truth.
But he’s so bright, I said.
Oh, bright, Gregory’s too smart for his own good, Bruno said. He’s really brilliant, really charming, and he’s really, really beautiful in a sleazy sort of way, and he’s totally seductive.
But, I said.
But, yeah, he’s so fucked up I can’t even talk about it, Bruno went on. I don’t really want to discuss this, if I tell you any more you’ll just resent me for it until you find out for yourself
Maybe, I said, you just took the wrong line with him. The wrong approach.
Bruno made a sour face. I didn’t take any approach, Bruno said. That’s his thing, not mine. Approaches. Lines.
Oh, well, I said, thinking: Now Bruno thinks I’m nuts.
Look, Bruno said, I’m only going to say this once, but if you want to get along with Gregory . . .
Uh-huh . . .
Never believe a single word he tells you, ever.
As he turned the key in his door, Gregory said: Bruno said he saw you the other day.
He looked at me over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised.
The apartment door swung open.
Did he say what we talked about?
We entered a long room. It contained a recently installed kitchen area, a sleeping area, a work area, a shelf area, a closet area. All these areas, in a single, not terribly large room. Next to the door, a tiny bathroom with only a toilet
inside and a red lightbulb over it. A metal shower stall beside the stove. Adjacent to the toilet, a deep, empty alcove, painted black, with a stuck-looking window staring directly into another apartment across a thin air shaft. Along the lower wall of the alcove ran a panoramic poster of night-time Manhattan, snapped from a helicopter.
He threw his keys on the shelf of a built-in cabinet, into a bowl full of change. I noticed a stack of opened mail, some photos in cheap paper frames.
No, he said, but I suppose you talked about me.
So, I thought: This dinky place holds his life. No wonder we all lose our minds in this city. Like kids playing at adulthood, living in these rabbit warrens with ugly floors and chipping ceilings. And areas instead of rooms.
A little, I admitted, striking a playful note which soured instantly as Gregory smirked and walked to a small metal desk festooned with eviscerated magazines.
Do us both a favor, he sighed. If you want this to work out between us, don’t discuss what happens between us with Bruno. Or with anybody else. I don’t discuss you with anybody, but especially not with Bruno. I can just hear the things he’d say. In case you hadn’t noticed, Bruno hates my guts. He’s deeply embittered because I never went to bed with him, which I would’ve thought it was my privilege not to, so now he thinks he’s been swindled out of something he deserves. He’s convinced himself that I led him on. So he tells people I’m untrustworthy, says I’m a lousy friend, he tells everybody this. Imagine what that’s like for me. Look out for Gregory, he’ll fuck you over. I know what Bruno spreads around about me behind my back. He’s probably freaked as hell that you and I are in a relationship suddenly. To my face he’s a friend, actually sometimes we can be friends when it’s about art or ideas or day-to-day practical things, but periodically Bruno gets on his high horse about what I did to him, and if you want to know the absolute truth, I never did anything to him. He played this whole manipulative number with me and when I failed to play along, get seduced by him or whatever, he decided I was the root of all evil.
Gregory sifted out grass from a plastic bag, pinched it between his fingers, let it spill down the seam of two stuck-together rolling papers. As he spoke he rolled a joint, lit it, sucked on it, and held it out to me. I hate smoking dope. A few minutes later I sat on the floor, laughing uncontrollably, while Gregory put on several black wigs he’d pulled from the closet. He had switched on the stereo, and with the wigs aped various singers. With female hair he looked like a costly, big-nosed prostitute on her day off. As he discarded each wig he tossed it to me and I put it on, feeling acutely conscious of my face. My expressions tightened and lost their spontaneity whenever I knew he was looking at me.
You look really foxy like that, he said, I’d love to put it inside you right now. He rubbed his crotch. He sprang up and danced around the room.
Let me show you my Tricia Brown, he said, lifting one knee to his chest, lowering his leg, lifting the other, gyrating on his heels. See? Like she’s dropping the world’s biggest turd, in an artful fashion.
Gregory took off his boots, and then he was lying on top of me, grinding his hips against mine. It felt gestural rather than erotic.
Fuck everything, he said. I love you. Is that enough for you, or what?
Of course it’s enough, I told him, noticing that I was hard but he wasn’t. He kissed my forehead loudly and rolled off, jumped to his feet and began slicing the air with his elbows in time to the music. He was still wearing a shoulder-length wig.
I gotta get a shirt, he said, flinging the wig off. I just have to finish up something here, he said, waving at the desk, then go buy a shirt. You want to wait? Or maybe it’s tedious for you.
I’m not bored, I said. But I felt time slipping past in a senseless drift and knew that hanging out would later make me feel guilty. He settled down behind his desk and sorted through sheaves of paper cutouts, his office chair wheeling and squeaking as he worked. I lay down on his leather futon and stared at the dingy wall. Why do I feel like I’m cracking apart, I wondered.
A radiator hissed under the window. The room looked chalky and provisional under the bare ceiling bulbs. As if Gregory could clear off with an hour’s notice. His clothes were shoved away in the closet, cardboard boxes of packed-away treasures splitting open in there. Dishes and cookware his mother must have given him, stacked in the cupboard. Miles of albums under the turntable, a few books arranged for display: a boxed set of Calvino, probably unopened, piles of art magazines, lots of current theoretical writings in paperback.
And a picture on the wall, over the stereo: a familiar picture, blown up big. It was an arrangement of six snapshots, reproduced on a single large sheet of white paper, six different male types, all handsome, some clean-shaven, some bearded or semi-bearded, with various hairstyles, various styles of clothing: college preppie, Kennedy-type young lawyer, bohemian, blue-collar worker, and so forth, in age ranging from about twenty-five to somewhere near forty. The significant peculiarity being that these faces all belonged to the same person, and had all been taken within four years, a so-called serial killer who had raped and murdered his way across the United States a few years earlier. A man who had impressed everyone who met him as extremely charming, sexy, intelligent, sensitive, possibly brilliant, definitely middle-class, an exemplary neighbor and concerned friend, buckets of fun on a date. Ted was typically described by horrified ex-acquaintances as “a real all-American,” a “golden boy.” Which, in fact, is a description not entirely inconsistent with raping and murdering upwards of thirty women, though press accounts had found it particularly rich in ghoulish irony that Ted struck everyone who knew him as an all-American, even when he’d completely run out of control, sometimes murdering two women at the same time, abducting one and tying her up somewhere, driving off and finding another, then raping and killing the first one in plain sight of the second, who then would be raped and murdered in turn, or running amok in a women’s dormitory with a baseball bat, cracking in the skulls of as many women as he could locate. Such is the ambiance of American society, that a person who runs out of control in this manner can effortlessly impress those he meets as a paragon of desirable national qualities. Even after being apprehended, an event that occurred a ridiculously long time after Ted had been identified, thanks to the professional rivalries and murderous laziness of various law enforcement organizations, Ted attracted flocks of admirers of both sexes, fans who attended his trial every day and wrote him adoring letters full of blunt sexual propositions and marriage offers.
And here, on Gregory’s wall, are the six faces of Ted. He notices me noticing it and says: That’s my first large-scale work. He resumes clipping pictures from GQ with an X-acto knife. I think: What does this picture indicate here, about Gregory—no killer, he? Of course, it’s obvious: he tells me every day, in one way or another, that he’s not what he appears to be. He reproaches me, in fact, for what he calls fetishizing his looks, and what I call being attracted to him. But that’s not me, he says. That’s not what I am inside. He says: I think I’ll eat everything I can lay my hands on and grow immensely fat, then you’ll see how much you love me for who I really am. Are you immensely fat inside, then, I asked. Perhaps, he said, you never know. One day, when we noticed an elderly woman begging on the street, Gregory said: I think when I’m old I’ll have my dick cut off and pass myself off as an old woman, they’ve got more style than men.
Bruno had been working on a pencil drawing throughout our conversation in the gallery. A sort of castle tower, with macaroni-shaped lines flowing down from the top. He worked with a green-hooded lamp shining on the paper. Whenever the discussion of Gregory flagged or went dead, the tip of his mechanical pencil claimed his attention. I smoked and flipped through an issue of Vogue, feigning interest in Gaultier’s spring line. Nice jacket, I remarked, hoping I would sound less than totally obsessed about Gregory. Gregory spoke to his drawing. “But if a body falls from a certain height . . .” he murmured, then stared with pale lips pursed, as
if the thing before him had assumed a troublesome identity of its own. He cocked his head and shot me a quizzical look, which he does again as he watches me walk to the cupboard. I study his odds and ends, poke a finger into the bowl of buttons and keys, pick up one of the framed photos.
Is this you, I said.
No, he said, he’s my younger brother. He’s in school. I saw him in a play they did, you could see he’d be dynamite on stage. He sang and danced and everything, I could never get up in front of people and do that, not if my life depended on it. And what a heartbreaker Joey is, huh? If you met him, you’d drop me in a second. You’d say, Forget that Gregory, this guy is boyfriend material.
What an odd thing to say, I said. Gregory does sing to me sometimes: I’m your private dancer, he sang the other day, and crossing Astor Place last week he sang, lips close to my ear, I’ve got you, under my skin. He played the accordion as a child, his mother loved for him to play the accordion and sing for her, Goodnight, Irene, goodnight, Irene, I’ll see you in my dreams. His mother’s name is Marina.
That other picture is my parents, he said.
Smiling, gorgeous, dated faces: Marina, and Jerzy-that-got-changed-to-Jack.
They’re beautiful, I said. Well, he said, they certainly thought so, in fact that’s practically all they ever thought about. I said that people often get together for mysterious reasons. Gregory said he didn’t think it was so mysterious in their case, but you could apply that to a lot of other situations. What, I said, you mean like ours? That’s something else again, he said.
Has Gloria still been pestering you, I asked. He said he’d gone with her to a coffee shop in the West Village to talk things over. I said, Why doesn’t she leave you alone, thinking if he’d agreed to see her perhaps she’d also got him to fuck her. Gregory said it wouldn’t be normal not to have a chat, that he showed her slides of his work. Gloria had asked why none of his pictures showed any women. I had to explain, he said, that this work is about men, I’m not a woman, I have no right to use images of women, I’m trying to figure something out about male sexuality, she didn’t get it of course, Gloria’s dense when she wants to be and anyway it was obvious what she was driving at. Why doesn’t she give up, I said, with irritation. He said: She’s still pissed off and you know something, I didn’t treat her so wonderfully if the truth be told.
