Hold Tight Gently

by Duberman, Martin

  In portraying his mother’s conflicted loyalty, Essex had also found a title for his novel: “Standing in the Gap.” He spelled out its meaning: “Are you willing to stand in the gap for your loved ones? Can you go prepared for anything and be afraid of nothing? Are you willing to stand in the gap for your community? Are you willing to stand in the gap for the pregnant juvenile black girls? Are you willing to stand in the gap for the black males dying faster than eagles? Are you willing to stand in the gap for the crack addicts, the rape victims, the emotionally and physically abused, the criminally insane, the disenchanted, those stricken with AIDS?”

  After Essex completed the first draft of the novel, he sent it to Frances Goldin for her opinion. She read it carefully and sent him back a frank assessment: “As it stands at this moment, it suffers both from structural problems and rhetorical overkill. . . . There is far too much unconvincing dialog and too much lecturing. . . . The book needs more story-telling.” Frances knew her comments would come as a blow to Essex and she urged him not to be “dashed” by the criticism, adding that she wouldn’t have spent so much time reading and writing about the draft if she “didn’t think you were up to great end products.”12

  Proving her commitment, Frances managed to secure a two-book contract for Essex from the conglomerate publishing house of NAL/Dutton/Penguin—which included an advance that allowed him to move into a somewhat nicer apartment. One contract was for a projected anthology of short fiction by black gay men, which Essex tentatively entitled “Bedside Companions,” describing it as aiming “to acknowledge and affirm the ways Black gay men support, sustain, and love one another through these critical times.” He wanted the collection to “chart territory beyond the coming-out stories and the political treatises on racism. . . . [It] intends to more closely examine home, friendship, family—immediate and extended—lovers, ‘brothers,’ and the impact life’s joys and sorrows have upon these relationships.” He appended to the announcement the warning that “No gratuitous sex, violence, misogyny, or sexism will be considered.”

  The second book in the two-book contract was for the tentatively titled novel in progress, “Standing in the Gap.” The acquisitions editor at Penguin was Peter Borland, and after he read Essex’s first draft of the novel, he sent him a long critique that essentially confirmed Goldin’s opinion. Borland reiterated her view that “Standing in the Gap” had the potential to become “a wonderful, literary, important novel,” but to reach that goal, he felt a considerable revision was essential. Most radically, he wanted Essex to change the novel’s point of view, shifting away from its current “floating third-person semi-omniscient P.O.V.,” which he didn’t find “particularly engaging.” Another large problem, Borland felt, was Essex’s “tendency to let the narrator or your characters editorialize or preach.”13

  My own reading of “Standing in the Gap” coincides pretty closely with the Goldin and Borland critiques, especially in regard to the novel’s tendency to engage in hectoring lectures that too often substitute for plot and character development. As well, lengthy and repetitive descriptions impede the narrative, and such dialogue as exists in the novel is often pitched at such an artificially inflated level that it’s difficult to associate it with the way people actually talk. There are occasional pleasures to be had in the novel’s inventive use of language, but they tend to be buried under a defective structure. The book basically alternates between scenes in a dying “Eddie’s” hospital room and those describing earlier experiences with his mother and his friends. But a subplot in the novel—the story of Eddie’s closest friend, “Tyrone”—gradually takes over the narrative, and it’s no longer clear who or what the novel is centrally about. The confusion is heightened by a final scene centered on Tyrone’s murder at the hands of a closeted hustler, an anachronistic close that diffuses still further a narrative that thematically had initially focused on the plight of a gay man with AIDS. “Standing in the Gap” has some deliciously sassy moments and more than one skillful scene of erotic encounter. Overall, however, it cannot be judged a success. Alas, Essex was never allowed the luxury of time to revise and work through the novel’s shortcomings.

  Essex took Goldin’s and Borland’s criticisms well, and even wrote Goldin that he was “actually looking forward to the work required to create an excellent novel.” He’d recently been accepted as a visiting scholar at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities in California, and hoped to work on the novel during his residency, which began in January 1993. In the meantime he sent Goldin a batch of new poems which he hoped she could get published, under the title “Critical Care.”

  Unfortunately, her reaction was again negative, though she couched her bottom-line verdict that “we do not see this as right for a trade publisher” in soothing praise for how “moving and lovely” she found some of the poems. She expressed her willingness to submit the poems to Alyson, the gay publishing house, but thought—apparently picking up on Essex’s mention of his own early self-publishing outlet, Be Bop Books—a better solution might be for Essex to let Be Bop issue the poems: “There is no advantage to you,” Goldin wrote, “to have us handle it as the little money it can earn should not be further diminished by our agency commission.”

  If Essex felt sadness or anger at these assorted rebuffs, he responded graciously. He did let Goldin know that his presentation at the Getty of “an overview” of his projects had been “very well attended by scholars and staff. The rumor is that they have not had so many guests for what are essentially private talks.” But he’d also detected that among the “traditionalists” at the Center, “there is some skepticism . . . concerning the presence of someone like me”—perhaps in part a reference to his lack of scholarly credentials, but more likely an allusion to feelings of discomfort at having a black person, openly gay, in their midst—a reading Michelle Parkerson confirms. She was in L.A. shooting a film at the American Film Institute when Essex was at the Getty, and they got together twice in Santa Monica, where Essex introduced her to the Reel Inn, a wonderful seafood restaurant. He complained to Michelle that “some of the housekeeping staff at the Getty Center had very homophobic attitudes.” In any case, Essex did his best to ignore the “skepticism”; instead he spoke glowingly about the wonderful apartment he’d been given and the “dependable and thorough” assistant he’d been assigned. He also made the firm decision to start saying no to invitations to speak, and in general to slow down.

  At the midpoint of his yearlong residency, Essex’s health worsened. The doctors he consulted diagnosed “intractable sinusitis” and “massive stress burnout,” but when Essex discovered that his T cells had fallen to 23, he knew perfectly well that the underlying culprit was AIDS. “I am not too frightened,” he wrote Frances Goldin, “but simply stated . . . all is a mess right now.” He signed the letter with his standard “Take care of your blessings.” For once, an interviewer asked Essex what he meant by that recurring phrase. In response he wrote, “Some of us bake wonderfully, write, paint, do any number of things, have facilities with numbers that others don’t have. Those are your blessings. Some of us are very strong and candid and some of us are nurturers or combinations of all of those things. Just be aware of what your particular things are and nurture them and use them toward a positive way of living. That’s simply what I mean.”

  In truth, Essex’s own determination to maintain “a positive way of living” was beginning to fray. He had little energy toward the end of his stay at the Getty, and his spirits were only “fair.” As a result, the pending anthology and novel were necessarily put on hold. When he did feel like working, he turned to what had always mattered to him most as a writer—poetry. And before leaving the West Coast, he did manage to complete a new series of poems, which he called “Vital Signs”—focused on the actuality of his advancing condition.

  8

  Breaking Down

  Richard Dworkin was trying to figure out what to do about Mike’s “disinterest in having se
x.” The love between them was never in doubt, but Mike, according to Richard, always had some reason for avoiding sex on a regular basis. Though he’d often and proudly proclaim that during the 1970s he’d been a “slut” who’d had three thousand men up his butt, of late he’d been feeling little or no interest in sex—with Richard or anyone else—though Richard would always be game. Mike (as Richard puts it), “was too busy, he was out of town; he was too tired; he was too sick; it was all these things. And there was just a point where I had to do something.” Mike told his close friends a different story. He tearfully confided to one of them that his anal fissures made it necessary to “go slow,” which put a damper on Richard’s enjoyment and made him reluctant to have sex. Whatever the case, Mike, according to one of those friends, “felt like a failure as a partner and as a person.”1

  In any case, a point came in 1988, at the annual Garden Party benefit for the New York City Gay Center, when Richard met a young schoolteacher named Carl Valentino. They hit it off and went home together that same night, even though Carl was due to leave the very next day for summer vacation. When he returned to the city in the fall, he and Richard again got together, and that was the beginning of an affair that went on for about a year and a half. Carl had grown up in Brooklyn, the son of a grocer, and was somewhat active in gay politics, preferring to work behind the scenes. Carl was the kind of person who volunteered to be in charge of the table at an event, or to arrange with a deli to provide food for a committee meeting. He wasn’t interested in getting the credit or becoming well known.

  Richard made no effort to conceal his relationship with Carl from Mike, since they’d always been aboveboard with each other about everything, and in any case had never sworn fidelity on the altar of monogamy. Still, Richard sensed that on some level the news had upset Mike (a sense confirmed by Mike’s close friends, to whom he confided his pain about Richard’s affair). Perhaps feeling some guilt at not meeting Richard’s sexual needs, Mike publicly professed himself happy that Richard was getting laid regularly—it took the pressure off him, he said, and their own relationship seemed more relaxed.

  Richard was even happier. He had a devoted domestic life with Mike, and a good sex life with Carl. Everything seemed to be working out so well that Richard decided to introduce Mike and Carl to each other. That could have ended in disaster, but in fact the two liked each other. Both were outspoken, honest, and straightforward, and they became friendly; Carl started volunteering at CRI, and then at Mike’s behest joined its board. But as with all Gardens of Eden, the snake in this particular grassy mound soon broke through: Carl fell deeply in love with Richard, who began to return the feelings.

  Carl was the first to verbalize discontent: “I want somebody of my own,” he’d tell Richard, “this arrangement is crazy.” At the time, Richard and Mike had been renting a loft at Duane and Church Streets. After protracted problems with the landlord, and unable to afford litigation, they decided to accept the relocation payment he offered and find another apartment. The real estate market was booming in the late 1980s, and when they finally found a place on Eighth Avenue between Twelfth and Jane Streets, the rent was $1,800 for twelve hundred square feet. They took it, but knew they’d have to find a third roommate to help with expenses. Both of them thought of Carl, but he wanted no part of the arrangement, telling them they were out of their minds! Soon after, Carl broke off the affair with Richard. (Carl would soon become the “gay husband” of the famed avant-garde vocalist and composer Diamanda Galás, herself an AIDS activist and member of ACT UP.)

  Two weeks later, Richard—though in no sense a superficial person—met Patrick J. Kelly (“PJ”), one of the head psychiatric nurses at St. Vincent’s Hospital. Earlier, Patrick had been a member of the all-male drag troupe “Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo”—a gay male cultural institution still going strong in 2014. At the time they met, Patrick, who was HIV-positive, was, despite sixteen-hour shifts at St. Vincent’s, somehow managing to finish up a master’s degree at NYU and, as well, wrote occasional dance criticism for Dance magazine and for New York Native. He was (in Richard’s words) “extremely intuitive, nonverbal; very smart that way, a whole different kind of intelligence. He was like the anti-Mike. Mike was extremely verbal, logical, rational, linear; and Patrick was the complete opposite. The two of them together were everything I could ever have imagined.”

  And so it began again, with Patrick and Richard sexually compatible and Mike sexually out of the picture and not having sex with anyone else. Patrick lived in an apartment building on Cornelia Street that was going co-op; he had the choice either of buying his place at the insider’s price or of getting out. By today’s standards, the down payment on the apartment was low, but it was still too high for Patrick to afford by himself. Early in 1991 Mike had gotten a $10,000 advance for the paperback edition of Surviving AIDS, so he and Patrick bought the place together—and then quickly resold it at a profit. That left Patrick still needing a place to live. What followed was an intricate set of readjustments.

  As Richard knew, Mike had long wanted to leave New York, especially after he was diagnosed with KS. Part of his wish was to put the tensions of AIDS activism behind him, along with his inability to say no to people. His phone rang constantly with assorted requests: “Look, I know how over-committed you are, but it would be really helpful if you could come to just this one meeting”; or “my friend has just been diagnosed and is terribly depressed, could you spare a half hour to talk with him?”; or “we need you to be part of a delegation here, or to appear as part of a panel there—and could you let us know by Thursday?” Mike was too soft-hearted and conscientious to say no, which meant that he was constantly stressed-out about falling behind on his commitments—since he also sat on the boards of several AIDS organizations and was periodically on tour with the Flirtations. When he got the KS diagnosis, he felt for the first time that he wasn’t going to survive AIDS, which underscored his wish to get away from his multiple obligations.

  For several years, he’d let Richard know that he wanted to move to Los Angeles. Richard had been reluctant. He liked New York more than the West Coast and relied on his involvement as a drummer with various bands for both an income and a creative outlet. And then there was his involvement with Patrick. Mike agreed to let Patrick move in with them, but only on the condition that if Mike felt uncomfortable or unhappy with the arrangement, Patrick would have to move out. Richard feels, in retrospect, that, on an unconscious level, Mike agreed to the move as a way of making it easier for himself to leave for L.A. It had been intensely important to Mike from the beginning of their relationship that Richard promise never to leave him, and Richard had reassured him in that regard many times over. Neither of them had dreamed that Mike would be the one to leave.

  He made the decision to move to L.A. within a month of Patrick moving in. It greatly upset Richard and he offered to ask Patrick to move out. But Mike showed no sign of wanting to work things out. He was determined to move. If Richard wanted to join him, Mike said, that would be fine, but whether together or alone, he was definitely moving to L.A. Richard (in his words) “felt trapped, and was really angry about it.” Mike had never before been unwilling to talk over a problematic situation and seek a solution for it; now he “just clammed up.” For his part, Richard felt torn: “I felt that I had brought Patrick into this situation, and was responsible for him in some way, so I couldn’t just say to him, ‘Okay, bye, I’m moving to Los Angeles.’ And I didn’t want to move to Los Angeles, anyway.”

  And so at the end of August 1991—while Richard was playing a gig in Lugano, Switzerland—Mike told everyone that he was “taking a hiatus from the fray.” He packed his things and left. In L.A. he stayed briefly with Richard’s brother, who helped Mike get settled. Among the few people on the West Coast he knew even slightly were the writer and therapist Doug Sadownick and the performance artist Tim Miller, co-founder of the prestigious theater space PS 122 in New York City whose innovative solo p
ieces Sex/Love/Stories (1990) and My Queer Body (1992) were highly influential.

  Once back in New York from Europe, Richard felt “really angry and really unhappy—it was one of the most unhappy times in my life.” Mike tried to normalize the situation, but Richard, by his own admission, “was being stubborn and gruff, having none of it.” He wrote Mike an angry letter, then quickly followed it with another saying that “what’s so extraordinarily sad to me now about that angry letter . . . is that you may not be sure that I know what a sacrificing, good-hearted, caring, generous, loving person you have always been . . . But I do know, Michael.”

  For Richard, the relationship with Patrick, without Mike, somehow “didn’t work as well.” Patrick as “the anti-Mike, was fantastic.” With the three of them together, Richard had felt he had it all. But when he and Patrick were left alone together, the space where Mike used to be felt empty and “huge.” As Richard was well aware, the situation wasn’t fair to Patrick: “He wanted to be with me, and I wasn’t totally there.” To make ends meet, they had to take in a roommate, and when Richard went off again on tour, Patrick found a guy who was not only into voodoo, but was also a scam artist. He ran up phone bills, bounced checks, stole their stuff—and then abruptly disappeared, owing them a considerable sum of back rent. And then Patrick himself started to fall ill and soon developed KS.2