City of Night (Rechy, John)

by John Rechy

  Now the malenurse entered with a tray. “Youve fixed a tray for my guest, of course?” the Professor asked him.

  “I didnt know he’d be here,” said the malenurse. He left, returned with a tray for me.

  “Larry is not an angel,” the Professor said again. “There is even, wouldnt you say? something Uncomfortable about him. I distrust him sometimes. Do you suppose—” he asked, lowering his voice, “—that Larry is a misplaced agent for the FBI —in the wrong cell?” He laughed, pleased with himself. “Perhaps,” he whispered in posed secrecy, “he is writing a book about me—but then, it wouldnt be the first time I have been between covers!” He proceeded to eat, talking between mouthfuls. When he had finished, he placed the tray on the table. “We have talked enough,” he said. “Come over here, un-categorized angel. Stand next to me now. We have looked into the Soul long enough for today—now: Now let us look in the other, equally sacred, direction.... ”

  Later as I walked out the door of his bedroom, I heard him call after me: “God Is Love . . . .”

  In the outside room, the malenurse sat reading a thick book. He rose, walking swiftly toward me as if I would escape. He thrust the book at me: “The Professor wrote this!” he said. “Hes written many great things!” I reached for the book; but before I could even read the title, he withdrew it from me, not allowing me to touch it. “Heres the check,” he said.

  4

  The next day I received a more desperate telegram:

  VITAL UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE TO THE CONTRARY THAT YOU MAINTAIN DAILY CONTACT WITH ME. I NEED THIS CONTACT VERY BADLY NOW FOR THE REASSURANCE IT GIVES ME IN MOMENTS OF VARIOUS CONFUSIONS AND DANGERS TO MY PEACE OF MIND. CAN EXPLAIN ALL WHEN YOU COME TO SEE ME. G IS L.

  When I saw the Professor, again there was no mention of the telegram. The tape-measure was on the bed.... The “interview” proceeded: the mountainous anarchy of the facts of his life piling higher and higher. Occasionally, I stopped listening, the drumming of his voice lulling me. There were episodes begun, interrupted, picked up, sometimes not finished -the story of Robbie winding through it like a wayward river. “I spent that first delirious night with Robbie,” the Professor was saying, “and it was Glorious! He knew his calling—unlike—” he says, looking at me accusingly, “—unlike others who merely play at this life. And I would say this to them,” he continued, staring fixedly at me, “yes, I would say: ‘You sit and listen to me, you stand and let me at the end of our interview-but you dont really Give.’ ... There are painters who paint without heart, poets who write without compassion—they are cold. There is too much coldness in this world: Alas! the Ice Age of the heart has not left us. Here and there, a flicker of compassion arises courageously to thaw out the icy blanket—but it is just that: a valiant flicker, soon snuffed out by the very ice it sought to melt! ... Smitty gave his body, in any fashion at all, without question, without terms: His profession was to please, and one got what one paid for. Robbie gave his body and his soul.... He was like a saint who gives himself completely for his cause . . . That first night,” he said, the accusing gaze relenting, “that first night with Robbie, I gave him the $15.00, and then, when he was already outside, I called him back. I gave him $10.00 more—all I had. And my friend, the author, Martin St Dennis—the Notorious American writer, child: an enfant—if now an aging enfant—terrible—... It got back to him that I had given Robbie $25.00, and Martin told me indignantly: ‘Absolutely not, Professor! You will ruin those boys! Their fee is $15.00—not a cent more!’ He couldnt understand what I had received from Robbie, my Robbie. But Martin is not a very perceptive person: His books are searchlights on the facts of our world—but cold, too, like searchlights. And where his heart should be, there is a novel. . . . I wish that were original but it is not: A psychiatrist said that to him once, who, incidently—how shall I say it and be modest?—was intrigued by me. He—the psychiatrist—persuaded me to let him give me the Rorschach test—to test my subconscious!—and I let him—on a lark. I looked at one of the inkblots, and he said, ‘What do you see?’ I answered, ‘I see you, trying to see me!’ ... And that reminds me of a young assistant to the good Dr. Kinsey. The assistant didnt fool me a second; he was a professional voyeur. Do you know what that is, my dear young angel? A watcher! Science—oh, yes—truly—he was most dedicated to the science of Sexology. ... Countess von Braun was fond of saying: ‘If Sex is a science, its only laboratory is the Bedroom! ... I introduced the young assistant to two charming youngmen I knew (one of them gained a certain notoriety by playing the naked sailor in the musical Island Paradise), and the assistant Expressed An Interest in seeing one of their ‘wild parties’—for The Research. . . . Shall I amuse you? ... Well! These boys were not that kind—they were very quiet lovers—and! I do not mean any trace of contempt when I say ‘that kind’—it is a most extraordinary kind, that kind. Anyway, the assistant was so insistent (The Insistent Assistant!) that they decided to ‘stage’ a wild party for him. And they did. It was incredible! The good assistant kept moving from room to room, watching—and, child, it was more than the glimmer of scientific discovery that shone in the good assistant’s eyes! . . . He asked to interview me, for The Book, but I told him my affairs with the angels are too precious to reduce them to lines on a graph! For example, how could he have indicated on a graph what Joe Jones (it was part of his distinction that he had such a common name—at first)—what Joe Jones meant to me? He was definitely an earthangel—and is there a graph for such a breed? ... He was an Oklahoma cowboy, discovered on the range—who came to the newyork Rodeo (I am not referring to the one in Madison Square Garden: Im referring to the Rodeo of this city itself), and whom I was able—my lucky star was shining—to corral in my own small patio—sadly not large enough for him who was used to The Plains—but briefly, briefly, I had that earthangel, but the bronco god called him, and off he galloped: to the vaster plains of Broadway—and I heard later he changed his name to Cam Rider—rather, the agent who Sponsored him changed it; the agent was fond of saying: ‘He jes cam’ ridin into my life.’ ... How could the good assistant, with all his science, have indicated Cam Rider, né Joe Jones, on his graph? Impossible! ... And at the party which these two youngmen gave to entertain the assistant (although he would not have called it ‘entertainment’—it was always Material! Research! Study! Science!)—at that party, he would ask for specific performances. I must say the boys in the groups had never had such a marvelous time—with no fear of a raid, since the assistant was well protected: And thus, in the future, you will see life imitating science! ... It was after Robbie had left that I went to that party. I saw Robbie after that magic first night, at different places, but I could not afford him. Once I had given him $25.00, I couldnt give him less. I wasnt—let me again remind you—doing well—uh—‘breadwise,’ then: It was a dry period: And I thought that Heaven had allowed me only that brief time with Robbie. And then one day he called me: My Robbie! ‘Professor,’ he said, ‘can I come up?’ My heart died to speak the next words: ‘Angel-child,’ I said, ‘I cannot afford you at the moment—in fact, the memory of you is so precious to me, that I cannot even afford that—but it is one of those rare prizes of life that memories have no price!’ And then, after a brief wordless interlude in which my heart refused to budge, my guardian Angel sighed into the telephone: Professor, havent you ever heard of love?’ . . . I had never dared to hope—me, a mountain of spent flesh—and that supple magnificent youngman.... And yet there it was: The Word: The Magic Word: Love. . . . I called up a friend of mine—for once, I was not too proud. I needed money badly, I told him. That afternoon, when Robbie came over, I gave him $100.00. He looked hurt when I gave it to him. ‘This was for love,’ he told me. ‘Child,’ I told him, ‘Robbie—Angel—the money is also an inadequate expression of my Love.’ And I pressed it into his hand.... Ah! if indeed it were possible to shatter this sorry scheme of things—I would begin by replacing that first sharp slap which brings us howling into life—I would replace it ... with a Ki
ss.... I would breathe Love into each child.... But my Robbie’s wings began to feel for the breeze, wings are meant for flying, and before I knew it he was Gone. He wrote me, he was in Europe—stranded briefly. I sent him funds. Then it was South America. By then things were much better for me, and I sent him money—a long-distance bond between us—but what I sent was but a meager expression of my Love—but what else could I do? And always he would write back, endearingly, endearingly!—the dear child—that he should send it right back to me, but he needed it badly—he would pay it back—because what he had from me was Greater. But he knew it pleased me to give him things.... And then, suddenly, no more letters—” He broke off abruptly, reached for a Kleenex, touched his cheeks. “Can I accuse him for the emptiness he left in my heart? No! It was his nature—the very nature which made me love him—his nature, to occupy my heart forever and my life only fleetingly: He had wings; he had to fly away.... Or perhaps,” he said cautiously, almost in a whisper, “could it be that Love had indeed touched him powerfully—Love for me—and that that Love, at war with his angel’s love of flight—had—lost out? ... I dont know.” He went on dully now. “I have heard hes now in Los Angeles—Im not sure—Ive heard he works in a bar—... Its been so many years.... Maybe he has soared to Heaven to bring Beauty to that drab place....”

  He paused—a rare, long pause. Then, with a flourish of his cigarette, he continued more enthusiastically: “The Countess Sabrisky once asked me if I believed in Heaven, and I answered; ‘Of course I believe—I have had it on earth!’ ... I was referring to the angels—my angels—why, even Milton, the poet, in his epic poem, was on the side of the rebellious angels. He makes us sympathize with them against God: They are as heroic as American colonists rebelling against extra taxation! ... But listen to me, I have gone on and on, and I must interview you, my new angel.... And, child, there is a favor I have to ask you: I must have a photograph of you, to put in my Album.... I have pictures of most of my Angels. . . . Please—over there—oh that shelf—that album—please bring it to me . . . .”

  I rose from the chair, mesmerized by the words which came almost like an endless song. I saw an album. On top of the album was a book: a thick, important-looking volume—much like the one the malenurse had thrust at me that day, but a different color. I glanced at the author’s name. It was the Professor’s. I brought the album to him.

  “Now move over here. No, you can bring your chair this time. The other is for the closing moments of our Interview—ha, ha—our momentary close farewell. First we establish emotional contact, by speaking to each other, by telling each other, as we have been doing, about each other’s lives: And then: ... sex,” he said bluntly, strangely flatly.

  He begins turning the pages of the album, holding it-over so that both of us can look at it. From its black pages emerge various photographs of different youngmen: some are large, others almost frail—some goodlooking, some harsh. The Professor is saying: “This is my All-American angel. I still have his football—somewhere—” He glanced about the room. “I must get rid of that beer mug,” he said absently; going on, showing me the picture of a squarefaced youngman: “When he got married,” the Professor explains, “I gave him the money for the wedding ring. He insisted he would pay me back, but I refused: I said: ‘Somehow this will be our wedding ring.’ And he said to me, ‘Tante Goul, thats why I asked you for the money—and not someone else.’ ” (I looked at the large blank bulldog face in the picture. I wondered how much the ring had cost.) ... “And look here, this is the Oklahoma cowboy. If I had been able to, I would have bought him his own Rodeo. Ah, Cam Rider!” he sighed. (1 saw a studiedly masculine face mounted on a long lean body—the smile on his face like a stamp.) “And this—this is the Mexican child with shoulderblades like sprouting wings: He had never been inside the Bellas Artes. His eyes were more brilliant than the theater! He wanted to come to America, he would speak about it to me glowingly, and I would describe it to him equally glowingly: It was his dream. Would I bring him here? Alas, he got into trouble with the police.” (The face of the dark youngman had stared at the camera with an obviously forced anxiety to please.) “Here is the young French boy—and with him are his mother and father—they insisted on being photographed with the adorable child.” (The picture showed a tall starkly pompous older man and a fat goodhumored-looking woman. Between them was a very young, handsome boy, his shirt open to the waist. One of the woman’s arms was draped proudly about the boy’s shoulders; the other hand held a bottle of wine toward the camera.) ... “This is for the last,” the Professor said, skipping a page, bringing the book to his chest momentarily; goes on: “And this is the most poetic of my poetic angels—he wrote the Most Divine, sensitive poems—crystals! —I helped him to get a grant—not through any foundation, mind you, but part of mine: My life’s source at that time thus contributing to his.” (The youngman in the picture wore his hair poetically over his forehead.) “He was a beautiful poet—” the Professor sighed, “and when I told him I would help him, he told me, passionately, that he would dedicate his first volume to me. Ive wondered if it came out. . . . Danny, the ice-skater: He glided across my not-so-icy heart . . . . And this one!—a Mr America candidate!” (The body in the photograph gleamed coldly as if chiseled out of ice.) ... There were other photographs—youngmen in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Mexico, America . . . several sailors, servicemen, various youngmen in trunks: all staring at the world with a look strangely in common: a look which at first I thought was a coldness behind the smile and then realized must be a kind of muted despair, a franticness to get what the world had offered others and not extended readily to them....

  And now the Professor turns back to the page he had skipped. I knew whom the picture would be of: “This—Is—Robbie,” he announced. (I saw a handsome youngman sitting on a foreign car, squinting at the sun, smiling widely as if someday he would own the world; as if the world for him was a mirror. But even in the picture he seemed to resent the brightness of the sun, greater than his own.)

  “I have here,” the Professor sighed, hugging the album closely again, “the indefinable shape of love—to which, dear child, you must not deny my adding your photograph. . . .” I wondered suddenly if. I would photograph with the same hard look.... I remember Mr King: “Pictures in a fuckedup album.”) “Yes, Love, indeed,” the Professor said, “which has many forms. Who loved the most? I? They? Who was the taker, who the giver? Who can tell? Someday—at the last of my Research—I shall know.... Now,” he said, “take the chair and come stand near me—please. . .”

  I placed the album under the heavy book with the Professor’s name on the cover. I could feel the bulging eyes on me as I lifted the book, slipped the album under it on the shelf. I went and stood by the bed.