About My Life and the Kept Woman

by John Rechy

  Outside the 3-2-6, pushers loitered openly. That bar was a grayish yellow, darkened into brown by cigarette smoke curling over gutted booths, jukebox winking, leering at the sights, queens flirting with hustlers, hustlers flirting back with them, considering them women.

  Like a scared little boy, a queen would approach the entrance to the bar. One step inside, in outcast-protected territory, she would pause for a transformation. The collar of her “shirt” would be turned up into a regal high collar; her fingers would dig into her hair, fluffing it out into a corona; her hands would twist the tails of her shirt into a knot, creating a midriff blouse; the tight pants became toreador pants when squeezed and tucked at the waist. Attention gained, the transformation accomplished, she strutted in proudly, head tossed back.

  I was sitting with Chuck the cowboy at the counter of Cooper’s Donuts on Main Street—a shabby after-hours hangout for queens, hustlers, clients, and gay men just cruising—when two young cops sauntered in. They paced the aisles, asking randomly for identification, moving on without checking, harrassing, a favorite cop pastime in gay turfs.

  They paused at the door as if about to leave. Then they turned abruptly and pointed to the three people sitting nearest them at the counter: a lavish queen, Chuck, and me. “Come with us.” Fear crept through my body. To object to the arbitrary order meant being handcuffed, with no chance of being released outside if the cops’ game had played itself out by then. Chuck strutted to show he wasn’t intimidated. I wanted to imitate him, but I felt afraid, cold, grasping the very real possibiity of being jailed for nothing, charged with loitering, no visible means of support, resisting arrest.

  A man sitting at the counter hooted drunkenly at the cops, daring them to come back and take him, motherfuckers. “Take us all, see if you can!” another taunted. The heckling spread. Emboldened, several men rose from their seats. Some moved out into the street, where we were being packed into the back of the squad car. The cops turned toward the growing group exiting the coffee shop.

  Seizing the distraction—the queen shoving the cops away—Chuck and I scattered. As I ran into the cool night, I felt warmth returning, my breathing holding up. I passed the lavish queen. She had halted nearby, as if wondering why she was suddenly free.

  Out of the doughnut shop, and, now, the closing bars, spilled more men—a dozen, more—flinging gathered trash at the cops, forcing them back into the squad car. Trapped, the cops called for backup. Defiance became almost festive. A queen danced around the isolated squad car; two men rocked it. Sirens wailing as if wounded, other squad cars entered the area, forcing men to dodge before them. Cops spilled out, grabbing at anyone they could grasp, letting go to grab someone else taunting them.

  When it was over—quelled by shots fired in warning, the street barricaded, a smoggy morning dawning—the denizens of the area walked away like veterans who had survived a battle in preparation for war.

  I had run away from it. I had watched the defiance from across the street, enraged but not joining—and I had barely escaped being busted.

  25

  I moved out of the building on Hope Street. I rented a larger room near MacArthur Park, a large room, with a private entrance, in the rear of an attractive house.

  In Pershing Square a young man named Luke appeared one afternoon. He immediately stood out because of his sensational appearance.

  The cute queen Roxy saw him first: “Oh, my dears, will you look at what just came in? Carry me away to die!”

  He was one of the handsomest hustlers I had ever seen. He was neither tall nor short, with brown hair, slightly curly; sun-tinted strands licked his forehead over perfect features. In the bright light of the sun, his eyes were agate blue. Tight sinews and muscles, a gymnast’s muscles, showed even through his loose T-shirt. His skin had absorbed the sun into a golden tan.

  He approached a group of us loitering in the square: three hustlers, two queens. “I’m Luke McHenry.” He announced his full name, surprising everyone; most in the area remained nameless, or provided only a first name, often a nickname. His wide smile friendly, he extended his hand warmly in introduction to each of us, shaking one after the other, a gesture so exceptional that everyone was surprised into responding.

  “You’re gorgeous, babe,” said Roxy, rolling her eyes and pretending to swoon.

  I felt a pang of resentment, which other hustlers there must also have felt—they shuffled about; one spat on the floor. The guy was too good-looking. A man who had been shifting his attention back and forth among our group fixed his gaze on Luke, who did not seem aware of the furor his presence had created. He sat down on the ledge with the rest of us, joining in conversation about nothing; he had a soft Southern twang.

  I left the park soon after, going to the movies. I hoped that Luke would be only briefly on the scene.

  The next night, he was just arriving at the park. With him was an older man. The two were parting, Luke, smiling, extending his hand out to the man he had just been with, perhaps agreeing to connect again—the man kept looking back at him, wistfully.

  “Hi, guy,” Luke said to me. “Remember me, from earlier? My name’s Luke McHenry.” Again, the warmly extended hand.

  “Hi,” I said, walking away. I saw another man eyeing him and I didn’t want to see him making out while I remained waiting.

  “Aw, cummon, guy, let’s just talk,” he coaxed.

  On top of it all, he was too fucking likable: not conceited; he didn’t swagger. Had I seen The Incredible Shrinking Man? he asked me. A favorite, I answered. Had he seen a ragged little movie that had held me captive, The Little Shop of Horrors? “Guy, I most split a gut,” he said. Then I did feel a warmth for him, a warmth perhaps unwelcome.

  When I left the park to go to Main Street, I saw him talking spiritedly to another hustler, a hoody-looking one who was popular in the park.

  “The fag tried to blow me, man; he ain’t no hustler; he’s a fuckin’ queer.” It was the hoody-looking hustler I had seen on the earlier night with Luke, the same one who had spat on the ground when Luke had first appeared. The hustler was talking loudly, contemptuously, spitting between words to underscore his disgust. A group had already gathered: two other hustlers, a queen.

  I knew that he was talking about Luke, and that the indignation spreading to the others was being aroused because the rigid stance of masculinity demanded of hustlers had been exposed through the handsome new guy in the park.

  “Yeah, man,” the hustler was continuing, “he took me to this pad he’s staying at, with this old guy, and I thought we were gonna hustle the guy, but the old guy wasn’t there; so he starts gropin’ me, pulled out my dick and—”

  By evening, the word had spread among queens and hustlers, and the clients, that Luke was queer.

  I went to Harold’s Bar on Main Street; a man bought me a drink—bourbon and water, “a man’s drink, huh?” the man had approved. I didn’t go with him, drawn back to the park.

  Luke McHenry was sitting on a ledge, alone. Despite the pull that had brought me back, I prepared to turn away, walk away, not compromise my own status by association.

  “Hey, guy—”

  He looked up at me. I backed up. I sat next to him.

  “You heard what they’re saying about me, guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve been here all night, no one’s talked to me. The guy I was staying with—he kicked me out, said his family’s coming to visit.”

  I understood. He had been spat out, the victim of a rigid code that made us all, in varying degrees, liars, demanding we deny any trace of mutual desire.

  “Can you believe it, guy?”

  Yes, I believed it. That world of excitement easily turned brutal, as it did now when two breezy queens spotted Luke. “Oooo, Lukeeee,” one cooed, “I always knew you were my sister, baby.”

  “Night, night, Lukey-girl,” the other tossed at him.

  They paused ahead, bristling with glee, peering back. I knew how quickly their
darts could be aimed at me just for sitting here with Luke, ignoring their taunts.

  Inhaling, as if dredging up all his courage for what he would ask next, Luke said, “Guy, you got a pad of your own I can crash in, just tonight?”

  I inhaled, preparing the harsh answer: No.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “You can sleep on the floor,” I told him too anxiously when we were in my rented room. “I’ll put blankets on the floor for you.”

  “Sure,” he said, “sure, guy, sure, thanks.”

  I got an extra blanket off my bed; I helped him spread it on the floor.

  I got into my bed, leaving my shorts on.

  Luke lay on the floor, in his shorts.

  I was aware, through light from a window, that he had sat up, his bare legs gathered before him. When he stood, I saw his body gleaming in the dim light, the whiteness of his shorts emphasizing his tan.

  He was waiting.

  For what?

  To tell me he was queer, that it was true?

  Or to deny it?

  Waiting for me to say that I was queer, too, or for me to deny it?

  He waited.

  I waited.

  I watched the moon-tinted outline of the lithe physique.

  “Guy—” he barely whispered, and moved one more step toward me.

  I pretended to be asleep, pretended not to know how close he was to me, pretended not to be aware of his almost naked body, so close now, and yet I felt isolated in that stifled room, and sad. Long ago, at that ranch in Balmorhea, I had felt this alone when I had walked out into the cactus garden. Then, the image of the kept woman had unexpectedly soothed me. I tried to invoke that image this time, only to keep away the awareness of Luke: As if deciding not to complete the smile, or because the memory aroused had turned bitter … but when the summoned image came this time, it only added to the sadness I was feeling.

  Luke McHenry returned to the blanket on the floor.

  In the morning he was gone.

  After the encounter with Luke McHenry, Pershing Square became oppressive to me. I was not making out as easily as when I had first appeared on the scene. I shrugged that off—tried to shrug it off—as having resulted from my apparent down mood, a negative attitude that kept me distant. Some of the hustlers I had known were gone—nobody on the scene even wondered where. Others replaced them, new faces, new bodies. I shifted my turf to Hollywood Boulevard.

  At the time, the boulevard—tawdry, already aging, past its legendary glory of stars and limousines—was taken over by factions largely oblivious of each other, workers from nearby offices on lunch break, idle residents from adjoining neighborhoods, shoppers from all over the city, tourists from everywhere, photographing everything.

  Along the blocks, masculine homosexuals cruised each other for mutual encounters, pausing idly as if window-shopping; “butch” hustlers and queens—less bold than those downtown—shared an exile’s camaraderie. Although the word was out to be cautious—a Hollywood newspaper was goading and trumpeting “roundups of queers” on the boulevard—activity thrived from early in the day to late at night.

  During the day, at the Golden Cup coffee shop, young men played slot machines in back, while eyeing and being eyed by prospective customers. Others loitered near an outdoor newsstand that boldly sold “physique magazines,” wrapped in sealed plastic, with photographs of attractive young men, like an advertisement for the hustlers nearby.

  On that street, I met a natty little man whom I would remember as looking like a rabbit; he even nibbled at his rosy lips. On the way to his car, he proudly boasted that he had approached me without trepidation of any sort because he knew that everyone he desired could be bought. In the area where he hunted, that was probably true.

  The man, whose name was Otis, lived in a large house atop a graceful hill, where he took me to a dinner served by an older woman, his maid. Probably to probe more deeply to affirm his fantasy with me, he asked me what I aspired to. Disliking him, and not caring whether any further connection would occur—he had already ostentatiously given me several bills that I deliberately did not count, asserting my own indifference—I told him I was a writer, although the typewriter in my rented room remained idle except for letters home.

  “Oh, dear,” he said, “and you look so butch.”

  Perhaps to taunt me further with comparisons—I had sensed a distinct cunning in his maneuvers—he showed me a home movie he had made, an eight-millimeter flick popular at the time.

  There appeared, entirely nude, a young man doing calisthenics. The film lasted no more than five minutes.

  “I paid him fifty cents,” Otis said.

  “What?”

  “Fifty cents. It was the Depression.”

  Then he surprised me by inviting me—why?—to go with him the next day to meet a famous Hollywood director. Curious about his motives—and about the director—I met him at the arranged time.

  After being buzzed in through a wrought-iron gate, we entered a courtyard squalid with flowers. A giant swimming pool reflected marble columns. In a rotunda draped with blood-red bougainvillea, a table had been set for dinner outside. Nearby was an outdoor bar. Behind the bar was a handsome man of about thirty, perhaps older, mixing drinks.

  “Oh, George,” Otis trilled. “This is John, from the streets.”

  There stood George Cukor, famous as a “woman’s director.” He was an unattractive tall man with a jagged face and glasses that he peered over, as if to focus more clearly on me. With a nod, he signaled to the man tending bar to bring him a drink, predetermined. The man brought the prepared drink over. The director hardly looked at him.

  Otis leaned over to whisper to the director while eyeing the bartender.

  The director said, louder than a whisper, “Of course, you can have him.”

  We sat at a glass table; the bartender had not said a word. A black woman served a watery stew, while the director informed us that tomorrow Vivien Leigh would be his guest. No stew tomorrow, I thought. Now the “women’s director” announced that he was going to tell a “funny story.”

  At the time Lana Turner was involved in a scandal swirling about the murder of her sleezy lover, Johnny Stampanato, a petty crook and gigolo. Lana Turner was suspected of the murder, although it was her daughter, Cheryl, who would finally be accused.

  “… And on the stand, Miss Turner, all prissy and prim,” the director was saying, imitating a woman wiping tears melodramatically from her eyes, “couldn’t even open her mouth to speak. Who would have thought that she had made her way up by using that very mouth—so expertly?” He roared with laughter as he made a loud ugly sucking sound.

  “John is going to be writer of renown,” Otis announced. That was the reason the cunning little bastard had invited me here, to taunt both me and the director with information that would set us at odds.

  The director fixed his eyes on me over his thick glasses—he looked like a perched hawk. “Oh? The last time I talked to a writer, I ended up in Confidential magazine,” he said.

  “Perhaps this time,” I said, “you’ll end up in a book.” I said that only to trump his remark.

  The dinner turned colder than the stew.

  On the drive back, Otis congratulated me: “Oh, I loved that you put him in his place. Of course, he did seem—didn’t he?—to dislike you,” he said. He looked at me, shook his little head and said, “What a pity, my dear, you have a young man’s body and an old man’s mind.”

  “Better,” I said, “than having an old man’s body and a young man’s mind.”

  “Hmmmmm.”

  Those incidents, and others I experienced—and often acted in—along with similar events I heard about, caused me at times to view the world of hustling as an undeclared war between two factions on the same battlefield: hustlers and their clients. Hustlers had youth, but it was terminal; some were through in a few short seasons, fading into lingering ghosts on the streets. Buyers would continue to want new young bodies, always
available in a steady stream, and then in turn replaced; but too often, buyers longed for more, what was not possible from those they sought it in: love. That imbalance generated tension often heightened by mutual disdain—among the two interlocked factions.

  And then there were the cops, another faction.

  None of those considerations—quickly shoved aside—kept me from performing on that battlefield.

  VICE SWEEP NETS 100S OF DEVIANTS

  A scurrilous Hollywood newspaper trumpeted that. It described raids along the streets, in and outside gay bars. A successful raid, “netting dozens of deviants,” it said, had occurred at a “hidden club” in Topanga Canyon. Men dancing with men were arrested for committing an illegal act. Lesbians were ignored; it was legal for two women to dance together.

  As I approached Selma a few nights later, I saw two plain-clothes cops stealthily approaching a car where two men were sitting. The cops pulled the two men out roughly, knocking one down on the sidewalk. “What was your head doing down there?” one cop shouted at the man on the ground. Handcuffed, the two men were driven away in a waiting squad car. The resultant charge of such a claim, real or heatedly trumped up—spoken by rote when two men were seen sitting together in a car—carried the possibility of confinement in prison.

  As the reign of Senator McCarthy raged on in Washington, more homosexuals fled to Los Angeles. Arrests increased. Entrapment was epidemic. Courts and juries believed any testimony presented by cops. Unmarked cars pursued men to their homes. The police charged in without a warrant to arrest men during a suspected sexual encounter; men caught having sex in private were charged with a felony that dictated imprisonment for up to five years.

  That was the time, those were the times, of lost jobs, of threatened shock therapy, of gay men beaten and dragged bloody out of bars, exposed to rape by heterosexual inmates in jail “holding tanks”—a time of bashings, invisible years-long incarcerations, suicides, uninvestigated murders.

  That was the time, those were the times, of denial, of subterfuge, of defensive lying. Even in gay bars, the accusation of being gay might be rebutted with anger by men cruising.