City of Night (Rechy, John)

by John Rechy

  And he stared at me relentlessly in that way that makes me retreat from him on the bed, turn my face from him; that glaring uncompromising look which makes me think: He knows things Ive never spoken. And his words conjure phantoms of that insidious empty tomorrow; and I think of youth ebbing out, of youth equated with rebellion, rebellion with orgasm....

  “Now it’s you who arent supposed to care,” he said. “But, later, theyll be the ones who wont care.... In a way we’re all phonies, pretending sometimes not to care—out of fear; other times pretending to care more than we really do.”

  “I hate that word ‘phony,’” I told him. “After all, we only see what ‘appears.’”

  “I agree with that—but underneath, we know,” he said. “Certainly the hustler knows he hasnt created the legend of what he is in our world. Like all other legends, it’s already there, made by the world, waiting for him to fit it. And he tries to live up to what hes supposed to be: And, mainly, hes not supposed to care.”

  “And yet,” I said, “those times when you want to be taken as you think you really are, beyond the Mask—like for example earlier, with those two in the bar, before I met you—when you try, then youve exploded their dream of you. Youve shot right out of it, by revealing that you, too, are as terrified by the isolation as they are; and what should bring you together pulls you apart. Not even that other sharing can exist then.”

  Jeremy said: “I know someone who fell very much in love with an awol marine; he worshiped him, did everything for him. One day the man came home to find the marine ironing the man’s clothes. The man wanted nothing more to do with the marine—just like those two in the bar when you said what you did to them.... I guess you could say they had given up, to indifference—to the emotional masochism of our world, because of the unfair guilt thrust on it. (When I first realized I was homosexual, I prayed to be changed. I felt guilty, as if I had committed a crime—and the only crime had been in making me feel guilty.) ... But, yes,” he went on, “with those two, you left their dream, but you entered your own reality. And that can be much more important.”

  And as I listened to this man’s words over the sounds of the Carnival—the thundering street noises, the steadfast clashing and clamoring—I had a sudden feeling of having been dreaming for very long. Rather, of having been in someone else’s dream.

  And how many other dreams?

  How many of all the people I had known had ever begun to know me? Had even wanted to? Perhaps thats why I listen to Jeremy—to words which would ordinarily have sent me away -because he seems to want to know me, because even when the words themselves are cruel, they seem to be spoken in understanding.... Of course, I had hidden purposely from the others. Yes, even from Dave, who might eventually have said the same things, who had in a way prepared me so that Im able to listen to Jeremy now. And it had been at that point —when some of these same words might have been spoken by him—that I had fled from Dave.... No, not even the Professor, certainly, whose obsessive wordhunt "for me” had been merely for himself, by himself, of himself, discovering himself in his own “interviews” (as he measured out his life—or more exactly the length of his sustaining hope ... on a tape-measure) : no, he had not even vaguely approached me....

  The Professor.... Out of all those words—that torrential, tortured flow relating the interludes of his life—those few word-jammed “interviews,” what had the Professor revealed? A craving for love, of course. Yet ... and yet he had had it, had it in the malenurse whose name suddenly eluded me. But he had sought out, instead, as if in a dream, the fleeting contacts with the “angels,” who couldnt—or wouldnt—love him back—had sought them out knowing that, like a dream, they would fly away from him. And so he, also, had inherited that pervading suspicion; and he had fled toward desire, away from “love.” ...

  Invading the dreams of others who search in you not what there really is but what they want to find.... Neil ... the lost searched father trapped in sexual masquerade.... And all, all, all the others for whom one exists as an aspect, merely, of those unfulfilled dreams. Their lives—their days-long, years-long, life-long dreaming—continuing long after youve exited into someone else’s dream—having witnessed only a bare pinpoint of their lives, which will go on without you: continuing, those dreams, those terribly lonely nightmares, made tolerable, out of despair, only by their very recurrence....

  And how will I be remembered, if at all, by those hundreds and hundreds of nightpeople in that long goodbye that life turns into?

  And when I remember those lives—when I remember with longing and terror—when I wonder, in awe—will there be time enough? When I’ll be haunted by memories of those searching faces, will there be time enough for my own reality?

  I have merely breezed through other lives (like an emotionally uninvolved tourist! something accuses me as I remember all those I have fled from—but I reject the accusation), avoiding myself behind a mask as real as those which, now, soon, outside, in the streets, I will face.

  And is that why I—and others—have come to New Orleans, sensing the masked ritual of Shrove Tuesday?—is that why I sit here talking to this man, with his words turning lights into the darkest parts of me? ... And my own reality? Behind my mask, the thin mask of compassion, eventually what?

  I felt a strange longing-a violent, unfocused craving, as if my heart were screaming.... What can be the meaning of this furious unhappiness?

  My God but Im lonely!

  I thought that suddenly, and I looked startled at this man in bed with me, and hes staring back as if he had in a secret way shared in the disturbing revery of other faces; the faces which we attempt unsuccessfully to erase with new ones: which continue to haunt us as if in judgment for nothing really given, nothing really shared.... The dark, dark city.... The city of night of the soul.

  And in that moment I realized in astonishment that, no, I was not a part of Jeremy’s dream. It was my own reality which he is bringing out

  Feeling this—and feeling as if I were on trial and must prove something to him—I was able at last to speak now what had been lurking in my mind, nebulously, half-formed, as I had listened to his words:

  “Isnt it possible that wanting to be wanted ... or ‘loved’ ... could be as much an aspect of what you call ‘love’ as actually loving back?” I said. “I mean, in choosing someone to ‘love’ you—to be loved by—while that other person chooses you to ‘love’—doesnt one complete the need of the other?” And having said that much, impulsively, not caring to what extent I will reveal myself now, I went on: “I mean that to choose someone to be wanted by—loved by—may be one of the many, many shapes of ... ‘love’—if it exists,” I added guardedly. He was looking at me very curiously as I spoke. “If each side could be measured in emotional degrees—the one loving and the other accepting that love,” I continued, feeling suddenly as if I had to speak rapidly in order to be able to finish, “each side might balance the other. If someone is able to take ‘love’—and take it with intensity—with the full intensity of his ability—and someone else who can give it gives it to the full intensity of his, then one is hardly different from the other. Maybe youll say Im just defending an inability to love back. But if there is such a thing as what you call ‘Love,’ its shape must be as unpredictable as the patterns—...” I stopped. And I remembered this:

  So long ago! Those few, rare, treasured days! The strange, unpredictable patterns I had watched in fascination as a child—patterns created by the water as it poured from the aluminum tub in which my mother washed our clothes: the grayish water spilling onto the dry dirt in directions impossible to determine.... And I watched those patterns, on those pure, pure afternoons; watching those odd, intriguing shapes.... And then suddenly I remembered: the white sheets which my mother would hang up to dry in the Texas sun. And, drying, they flapped cleanly in the wind under the vast miles of equally clean sky.

  3

  Jeremy had lain there silently, as if this was something of wh
at he had wanted to draw out of me: a multitude of new—or perhaps merely submerged—emotions whirling within me: a vortex of guilt and sadness and excitement, now, and the most harrowing loneliness ... and something else: the bare acknowledgment that “love” (the mere acceptance of it, but love nonetheless, with intensity) might be possible. He said nothing, as if expecting me to continue.

  But I didnt. The words I had spoken had stirred other thoughts which I could not yet verbalize.... Looking at Jeremy, I was trying to conjecture a different direction in the journey I have embarked on. If I allowed myself truly to be loved—if I did acknowledge what I had just said—if I acknowledged love by merely accepting it—... ? I tried to imagine this: that miraculously I felt loved. And then? If that feeling proved to be false? ... That question, I knew, was based on that inherited fear—the wind which sweeps through our lives shaping our destinies ... eroding belief....

  If it proved to be false?

  I remembered, then, that once as a child I had watched our neighbor kill a chicken. He had severed the head with an axe. For seconds, the chicken’s wings had fluttered urgently, the headless body quivering—the motions doubly terrifying in that the protesting sounds that should have accompanied them could no longer come from the lifeless head. The only sound was the desperate flaying of those wings (just as the wings of that rooster had fluttered earlier when I had stood by the French Market mysteriously intrigued: that rooster’s wings lashing as if in protest against the impending slaughter).... And then, that earlier afternoon, from that chicken with the severed head, the blood had gushed from the neck—spilling out deep, deep, violently deep red through that opening as if to seal the wound that was carrying all life out of the convulsed body....

  Why, now, had I remembered that beheaded chicken?

  Bewildered, I looked at Jeremy. He seemed again to sense the whirling thoughts, which had carried me too far, too dangerously, too swiftly. And still resisting those thoughts—even after my acknowledgment of the bare possibility of love“—I grasped for the memory of the earlier moments of sex with him, as if that memory were an anchor in turbulent waters. But my mind moves swiftly forward—the anchor buried in shifting sand; and I think: Now, beyond the spilled sperm—if nothing more than sex is possible—are we like enemies in that spent battlefield of fugitive sex—in which there is every intimacy and no intimacy at all? ...

  My life was crammed with memories of that corpse-strewn battlefield. Those memories.... Mr King—pretending that he didnt give a damn (like me!—I thought suddenly—pretending like me!); cultivating a veneer of toughness (“I know judo like the best of them,” he had said) to shield the vulnerability —to hide, in him, the decency in order to cope with the world. ... Pete, pursued by nightmares of moviehouse scores.... Miss Destiny, perhaps this very moment plotting a new, impossible drag wedding.... Chuck, searching the lost horse. ... Jocko, a lost trapeze.... Chi-Chi, futilely defying the world—with a cigarette holder....

  I felt, one moment, a necessity to convey so much to Jeremy—now, immediately—as if he were my judge, as if I have to explain, to him, before I can free myself. Another moment, I feel that strong animosity toward him for having triggered these new, tumultuous thoughts—and the animosity recurs fiercely, inexplicably, when I hear him say now:

  “And so, at last, youve acknowledged that love might be possible.”

  I turned away from him, toward the window.

  The sounds outside are growing in volume, welling like a river preparing to flood. The forced merriment. Discordantly, some voices are singing within that great Outside. All those sounds are hugely unreal—as if they come from a radio, their true origin miles and miles away. The insidious, searching sunlight is seeping through the shutters, spilling on the floor, summoning both of us into an awareness of that Outside, where, soon, the Parade will begin.... But, inside, this room includes the World—which right now is my world and Jeremy’s

  And what is his world—his own reality? my mind questions insistently, knowing that the answer may be important if the drawing out of my reality is to be justified. What lies buried beneath the poise; the calm softly modulated knowing words as he digs beneath what he had overheard me say earlier at that bar? What lies beyond the declared lack of inhibitions? Is it all real? Or is it too a mask? Why is he in the carnival arena of New Orleans, during the naked sexual hunt?

  I asked him the question which I had withheld so long: "And what about yourself? Where do you fit? If you know all the things youve been saying, why are you here, for the Hunt?”

  He sighed, as if he had known all along that that would be the inevitable question. He answered slowly: “Because knowing it doesnt keep me from being a part of it—of all of it. It’s because Im a part of it that I do know it.... Yes,” he finished, "Im still hunting.” For the first time, he seems disturbed, deeply....

  “And you see,” he continued after a pause, “because Im still hunting, I cant help feeling—or wanting to feel—that theres something in you beyond all the earlier words and rationalizations. I felt it in that bar, when you wanted to strip your own mask. You wanted to be known for something inside of you—beyond the pose, the ‘appearing’—the not-caring. You revealed yourself to be just as lonesome—... as lonesome ... as I am.... And I sensed it,” he went on even more slowly, "when I beard you, just now, at last reaching for your own definition of ...” and now curiously it was he who paused before he finished: “love.”

  Now he said quickly: “I’ll be leaving New Orleans, right after Mardi Gras.... Back to New York. If you want, you can come with me. We can even leave now, before the Carnival is over.” He paused very long.

  And this then is why the money lies there waiting. This is why with words be has tried to keep me here—successfully—while the Carnival rages outside like fire out of control.

  “I’ll help you,” he went on softly. “I’ll help you—in every way.... But it will involve giving of yourself. Loving back. ... No,” he said (and was there resignation in the following words?), “maybe only accepting love, with the same intensity it’s given.”

  As a child, I was afraid of the dark, terrified the moment the lights went out I felt somehow like that now. Afraid of a type of darkness that would loom, paradoxically, the brighter the lights were turned on.

  Before the impact of his words can throw me off balance, I challenged him deliberately, like someone who must make a life-directing choice immediately: “What would keep me from going with you and walking out right away?”

  “If you went with me, I’d take the chance that it wouldnt happen. I have a feeling I know you that well.”

  “And the others that Ive always needed—that I might need again?” I asked.

  “I’d count that eventually, with me, you wouldnt need them,” he answered.

  “And if it ends?” I asked—and suddenly I regretted that question, which already I was correcting: “And when it ends?”

  “It ends,” he finished. “It’s ended—... many times before. ... But beyond that theres something else: which makes life livable: at the very least, the attempt itself—no matter how often repeated ... or, even, merely the remembrance of that attempt to share—in sex and beyond sex.... I think that you could love me,” he said quickly.

  I looked at him very long, and Im not sure what I feel: Resentment at his words? Or a hint of a kind of balm on the loneliness? ... A possible substitute for salvation....

  I got up from the bed and I walked to the mirror in the bathroom. (And I remember the times, the many times, when I had stood before such a mirror, forcing myself to think: I have only Me!)

  I still look Young.

  The streets outside.... The Carnival....

  In this room, the world is flaunting before me what could, if tested and found false, be its most deadly myth ... love ... love which, even at the beginning, was revealing itself as partly resignation; perhaps offering only the memory of an attempt to touch ... implying hope of a miracle in a world so sadly devoid
of miracles. Surrender to a myth constantly belied (a myth which could lull you again falsely in order to seduce you—like that belief in God—into a trap—away from the only thing which made sense—rebellion—no matter how futilely rendered by the fact of decay, of death)—belied, yet sought—sought over and over—as this man himself has searched from person to person ... unfound.

  I returned to the bed.

  “Well?” he asked me.

  And I was thinking: It has to happen—I have to be liberated again. No matter what kind of whirling his words have set off within me, I must undo it all.

  Yes, I knew suddenly ... as if it would be the last time ... that he must want me again, on my own terms—and that, then, his probing words, their impact on me (my own dangerous thoughts, even now, slowly threatening to succumb to what everything in the world indicates is the most murderous of all myths ... Love)—all will be erased....

  I took the money he had placed earlier on the table for me -the money which, I knew clearly now, had rested there as a test, and I put it into the pocket of my pants on the floor. Then I lay beside him. I reached again for his hand, and I placed it again on my body. And this time his hand was very, very, cold....

  His hand didnt move. And then I pushed it with mine. He turned sideways, toward me, and our bodies touched closely. ... For a moment I didnt move—and then I turned away quickly. I leaned back. Now the movements of his hands are his own.

  “This is the answer?” he asked, smiling strangely.