Monkey Suits

by Jim Provenzano

  Not that he didn’t still want sex. It just didn’t seem complete anymore without the final taste of another man’s sperm, something he gave up the day he moved to New York. Lee’s main sensory organ during sex was his tongue. He liked to lick in the taste of a man, breathe in the air. If he couldn’t slurp a man in all the special places, it never seemed complete. I like you but I don’t trust you so get your dick away from me when you shoot. He’d felt it, the backing away, as if sperm were an alien acid that might burn through flesh, bed, and floor to the apartment below.

  Brian had been different there too, almost swirling their bodies in it, commingling after coming, dipping his finger in his own and licking it like a cheesy porn star, or dabbing playfully at Lee’s spurts. Most others seemed so scared.

  “Get over yourself,” Lee said aloud. Finally succumbing to the flashing light, Lee listened to messages from his mother, a recording from a magazine subscription telesales automaton, a call from Alex the booker at Fabulous hiring him for another job, a message in Spanish from someone looking for a plumber; and Marcos.

  “Details, girl! Details! I’ve been wantin’ him for months! You bitch! How did you manage? Call me or die!” Click. After their first failed night of romance resulted in giggles, the two had bonded to instant sisterhood. Marcos had become his mother confessor.

  He called Marcos, who was in a mad rush to get to an ABC dinner at the Burden Mansion. Lee heard a loud clunk.

  “Sorry, dear,” Marcos apologized. “I’m ironing my shirt and my lines got tangled. So, tell me, is Peter as hot as he looks?”

  “I hate that word. Hot.”

  “Ooh, did you have a bad time?’

  “No. He was nice.”

  “Sexually nice?”

  “Perfunctory.”

  “Oh. That happens when they go to the gym too much.” They laughed. “So, are you gonna see him again?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, you’re still hung on the creature.”

  “Who?”

  “You know, miss ex-slut now happily married in Brooklyn.”

  Was that what Brian was doing? What did Ed have that Lee couldn’t offer, or was it just what Brian said, a chemical thing. “Ed calms me down,” Brian had said. “You get me all excited. I have to quit.” How were they living together? Did Brian still sprawl over the bed, cuddling until morning? And why did Marcos always seem to know more about Brian than he did?

  “I am not stuck on him.”

  “Oh, yes you are, I can tell, and I suggest you get yourself a detox lover to wash that man right outta your bed sheets.”

  “Can’t say I’m not shopping,” Lee said.

  “But you’re looking in canned goods, darling. Try the produce section. Gotta run. Peter Jennings is expecting me.”

  Lee lay back again, knowing he should call Fabulous. He needed the money, but hesitated. The work had become a blurry dream of rushed trains, re-ironed white shirts, and lost bow ties.

  Serving food wasn’t the problem. He’d worked in restaurants for years, since that first awful job at a Burger Chef in Bloomington. What made him hesitate was the odd flashes he’d get, wondering what would truly happen if he suddenly pretended to suffer a spasm in his elbow, causing a tray of peach sorbet to cascade over the shoulders of Al D’Amato. What would happen if his serving fork were suddenly flung at Liz Smith, only to land, prongs up, in her cleavage? And would he ever be able to stop laughing?

  6 Doing Good by Having a Good Time

  All New York was aglitter last night at the Annual Gala for Life Benefit at the World Financial Center, which raised over $100,000 for the New York Memorial Care Giving Fund. Christie Brinkley, Joan Didion, Robert DiNiro & Tookie Smith, Harry Hurt & Susan Forrester, Itzhak & Toby Perlman, Elinor Guggenheimer, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Jay McInerney & Marla Hansen, Alan C. Greenberg, Carolyne Roehm, Milton Petrie, Oscar de la Renta, Blaine Trump, Bernadette Peters, Adam & Katherine Rothschild, Tina Brown, Glenn Bernbaum, Nan Kempner, Anne Slater & Jerry Zipkin and other guests enjoyed the salmon and chicken breast dinner by who else? Fabulous Food.

  Ed Seabrook tossed the newspaper onto a pile of old Sunday Times sections and dog-eared Village Voices. “They didn’t mention a thing about how drunk that Board President was,” he said, while he finished his avocado and sprout sandwich.

  “What?” Brian called out from their bedroom.

  “Nothing. Ritchie, are you working tonight?”

  No response. They were late, as usual. Ed walked to the bedroom to see Brian frenetically grabbing clothes. Ed had picked up his fresh laundry that morning, finished lunch, and was already packed. He watched as Brian wreaked havoc upon their bedroom like a small brush fire.

  “C’mon, we’re late,” Ed said. Brian looked at him, then brushed past him through the door to the refrigerator, where he gulped juice from a carton and grabbed a few slices of bread.

  “You didn’t eat yet?”

  “I’ll get some at work.”

  Ed sighed and crossed his arms, then turned back out to the loft/living room area. “Ritchie!” he called out.

  “He’s not working tonight,” Brian said.

  “He’s not paid his part of the rent, either,” Ed scolded as he walked out to the large open section of their communal living space.

  Ritchie Hurst stood in his corner, his hands coated in mud. He devoted his attention to a small swirling funnel on a spinning table. He wore his sculpting jeans, which he rarely washed, and a clay-smeared denim apron over his bare chest.

  “Didn’t you get booked for the party tonight?” Ed asked, distracting Ritchie.

  “Yeah, but I called off.” He glanced up briefly, then back to the rotating clay his hands worked to smooth into a pot.

  “Do you have a rent check? We’re a week late.” Although Ritchie’s name was on the lease, the responsibility of payment usually fell to Ed, the most efficient of the three.

  “Sure, I’ll get it to you tonight.”

  “Fine. See you later.” Ed returned to the kitchen, but Brian was gone. He heard running water and found him bent over the bathroom sink, brushing his teeth. Sometimes he felt like a mother, managing this thrown-together household.

  “C’mon. Let’s leave Miss Noguchi to her work.”

  “Mfmms,” Brian mumbled, toothpaste spilling from his mouth like minty fresh hydrophobia.

  After the door slammed behind them, Ritchie washed his hands and made a few phone calls. No, Magna Gallery was not accepting slides now, but he could make an appointment with the curator. No, she wasn’t in. He got more of the same runaround from a few other upscale SoHo galleries. He knew this wasn’t the way to do it. He’d seen the manipulators, the publicity-hungry artists and slick conversationalists at openings, gesturing smoothly with one hand, a glass of Chablis in the other. He wasn’t up for that game, at least not yet.

  Too restless to resume working, he walked over to his ten-speed bike, which hung from a few one-by-three boards nailed to the wall. He checked the tires for air. His usual means of transportation was also his main form of exercise. Gym workouts had begun to feel inane as well as annoying, what with all the cruising going on between gay men, who mistook him for one. It seemed so much more useful to get somewhere while seated. Peddling over the Brooklyn Bridge on late evenings after parties, he would peek over his shoulder as New York’s skyline shrank away, a glowing dark hive.

  He glanced at a map of New York City he’d tacked to the wall next to his bike. He’d methodically dabbed each spot in Manhattan where he’d worked a party with a yellow highlighter. The now familiar grid was dotted with little glowing spots.

  Ritchie Hurst considered himself a sculptor with a special hobby in catering. He was ninety-five per cent straight. The bisexual parts were located between his legs.

  He didn’t mind the constant company of gay men. They were always good for a compliment and a bit of harmless flirtation. Living with Brian and Ed was better than any situation with straight men or women of
either disposition, he believed. Ed cooked occasionally and Brian was always good for a few games of hoop at the nearby playground. They were butch enough not to care about an occasional mess, but gay enough to eventually clean it up if he didn’t.

  The friendship with Brian, begun a year ago during Ritchie’s early Fabulous days, had gone over the line on occasion. He’d twice allowed a drunken Brian to blow him, despite his beliefs that it was a betrayal to Ed. Even if Brian and Ed were both men, they were sort of married, weren’t they?

  “It’s simple,” Brian had explained to him late that August night as they downed a six-pack of Rolling Rocks. Brian spilled admissions about a few of his indiscretions. “Ed’s monogamous and I’m not.” Ed was in Boston for the weekend with his parents. Brian was horny. Ritchie was drunk.

  With a slow back massage and some convincing words, Brian finally managed to coax Ritchie’s sizable serpent out, up to attention, and toward a gush of release into his mouth. To Ritchie, it was embarrassing and quick. Brian had thanked Ritchie profusely, buttoned his fly for him. The two made a pact to keep it all a secret and never do it again.

  At least they kept the secret.

  In this three-person household, sex or not, constant games of two against one prevailed, with Brian the apex of any argument. Brian was comfortable in this position, having been raised with two older brothers. But here he had Ed to manipulate like the patient lover he was, and Ritchie to threaten with what he secretly called his “blow job glare.”

  In addition to their tenuous roommate relationship, each had their share of “serious career management problems.” Brian had unlimited potential, if only he could figure out what to do with his beauty. Ed was improving with his body work technique, a combination of Pilates, Shiatsu, Swedish massage and general ego building. He was slowly building a clientele willing to be worked over by a non-certified masseur. Most of his clients were poor and exhausted dancers, offering complimentary tickets to their latest multimedia beach performance in lieu of payment.

  Ritchie sat back on a beaten sofa he’d bought years ago at a flea market. He scanned the walls, a dull white. He’d often thought of painting a mural. The sketches were somewhere. The inspiration was nowhere to be found.

  He did find inspiration in his ceramics. He had good hands. His work had begun to take on an inexplicable Egyptian motif. His new pottery works were dubbed “beautiful” and “fantastic” by admiring friends, like Ed’s, each too impoverished to make a purchase. Gallery people viewed Ritchie’s work in slides and prints. A few had come to see his pieces in the loft and at the kiln three blocks from the loft. The owner of a tiny East Village gallery had made two commissions and an offer to exhibit his work.

  He thought of escaping back to college, getting a Masters. “Think of the young freshmen girls and intense lady professors,” Brian had teased him. But he needed New York, even if it didn’t need him. The museums, each a gold mine of inspiration, were what originally pulled him from his home in Youngstown. During a high school trip to New York, he had toured the Met Museum for two days. He didn’t know he’d end up spending so much time near the great works, serving food instead of making sketches. At least he could still gaze at an Etruscan bust every now and then.

  He flipped through his small phone book and dialed another number.

  “Hi. This is Therese. Speak.” Beeeep.

  Daunted by the curt message, he stuttered a greeting.

  “Um, Therese, Ritchie Hurst. You mentioned a movie, um, Film Forum’s showing that Bertolucci you talked about. Gimme a call.” As he set down the phone, he noticed the clay fingerprints, but didn’t wipe them off.

  Jesus, you have to be a radio announcer or give phone sex just to get a date, he thought. He returned to his pottery, trying not to think of Therese or the general state of his romantic life.

  New York women constituted a sea Ritchie could rarely fathom. Like his gay friends, the wild sexual days from college had definitely taken a nosedive, and AIDS wasn’t the only thing to blame.

  Ritchie hadn’t had a date in two months. The last was a nice, smart assistant-assistant to Leo Castelli. A good conversationalist, even after two dates, she never invited him in. A few weeks of lingering phone tag assured Ritchie that their schedules were working very hard to prohibit anything more.

  He saw her again at Ear Bar one night, with another man. He was with Ed, Brian, and a blind date Ed introduced him to. He wanted to leave the three of them, ask her to dump her date and go off with him, just like in a perfume commercial or The Graduate. He didn’t, but remained polite throughout the evening, and upon getting his date into a cab, pointed a finger at Ed. “Never do that again. Never set me up again.” The boys obeyed.

  After that recent ordeal, Ritchie consigned himself to the fact that his hands were better equipped for handling forms of clay rather than flesh.

  7 Flat marble swirled in a circle at their feet, an unsteady waiter’s downfall, they were about to be warned.

  Philipe stood silently atop a milk crate, waiting for their attention. The captains, Neil Pynchon and Ron Bellows, an older senior waiter with a dashing pepper-speckled beard, each stood at Philipe’s side like guard dogs.

  Philipe held a silver knife high up in his hand. As the warm light from the library reading racks fell behind him in silhouette, the sanctity of his pose was broken by the rushed footsteps of two young waiters who’d spent a few too many minutes primping in the men’s room. “Write down ze names,” Philipe muttered to Ron Bellows, who glanced at the guilty faces and jotted their names in his notebook.

  His arm held high, clutching the glinting knife, Philipe continued.

  “Zere is a sound made by ze unfortunate combination of marble, silver, gravity and clumsiness. I call it ze Hell’z Bellz.” The knife fell. The clatter pierced the air, echoing through the stone hall. Several waiters cupped their ears. Some burst into laughter. Philipe cracked a grin, awaiting their return to silence. Neil retrieved the knife.

  “I trust that is ze last time I will hear it tonight.” He looked over his clipboard. “Now, for your table assignments ... Mistah Wyndam?”

  Lee raised his hand.

  “You are at table one wiss Mistah Rook, who is your A waitaire.”

  Lee scanned the crew for a familiar blond head, almost as pale as Ed’s. He saw Kevin Rook’s sharply chiseled face. The two made eye contact. Lee was elated to share a table of high rank with Kevin, whom he always considered untouchably handsome, especially in the changing rooms when he stole glances at his tightly sculpted muscles.

  “Mrs. Kennedy will be dining at your table,” Philipe said. “I trust you are both Democrats?” The workers giggled again. Philipe continued through the list of table assignments, naming the headwaiter and his or her assistant.

  Since Kevin had risen to the rank of serving a VVIP table, mostly through his good looks and tenacity, he stood relaxed while half the staff served cocktails and hors d’oeuvres on the Library floor below. Lee still fluttered inside with a mild anticipation. Had he risen so soon, or was this merely a test? He glanced around the space, one of three arranged in shelf-lined studies of the Arents Collection, the Berg Collection and their room, the Art, Prints and Photographs Division.

  “I could do with a few hundred of these precious tomes,” Kevin softly blurted.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. Did you see these?” He picked up a novel, a recently published work by a recently lauded novelist, Drew Van Sully. One had been placed on each seat.

  “Mmnnn. I’ve got dibs on whatever they don’t take home.”

  “This got a good review somewhere,” Lee said, clutching at a conversational straw. “Thicker Than Water. It’s about this gay swimmer who’s got AIDS and goes to Egypt.” He wanted to make a good impression on Kevin, but too-handsome men made him stutter and sweat.

  “Oh, yeah, I heard about that.”

  Lee set the book down. “Are you working the MOMA party next week?”

  “Oh no. I’m going to Washin
gton. Actually, Maryland.”

  “Oh, what for?”

  “Didn’t you know?” Kevin broke his waiterly stance. His eyes lit up quick as a gas flame and he became suddenly enthused. “ACT UP’s taking over the FDA building.”

  Lee had seen the posters around town and noticed a few news articles, but was embarrassingly ignorant about the group’s activities.

  “This may sound dumb, but what for?”

  “Don’t feel dumb. You just need information.” Kevin excitedly explained about the organization’s plans to shut down the lumbering administrative building to protest its lethargy in approving AIDS drugs. “We’re eight years into an epidemic and they’ve only approved one drug, and that’s the most expensive drug ever made. And it wasn’t even made for AIDS. It’s an old cancer drug that’s been sitting on the shelves for years.”

  The speed with which Kevin talked excited Lee. Deceptively embodied in a blonde gym bunny was an encyclopedia of treatment programs, drug trials, and toxicity rates in pharmaceuticals. For all the incomprehensible talk, Lee couldn’t help but notice how being so over-informed made Kevin ... sexier.

  “You should go with us,” Kevin suggested. “It’ll be great fun.”

  “Don’t they ... arrest people for that?”

  “Oh, sure,” Kevin shrugged it off. “That’s the fun part, sharing jail cells with hunky boys.”

  Lee grinned at the idea. He’d seen the type on the street; short hair, Doc Martens, black bomber jackets. They had seemed distant as another species, and Kevin had simply invited him in.

  “I don’t know how you can be so radical and do these jobs,” Lee said. “I mean, what if you were working some party full of rightwingers? What would you do, handcuff yourself to a chair leg?”

  “Maybe.” Kevin grinned. “If I had legal support. Besides, we serve those people all the time. See, the problem with a protest like that would be the focus. Everybody’s got something to scream about. It’s much stronger when you bring a couple hundred of your best friends.”