Looker

by Stanley Bennett Clay

  She got up and showered and coiffed her church curls to perfection. The mirror was not her friend.

  She looked into the face of a woman who was only half fulfilled, looked at her squarely, saw the face while she dressed in her Sunday finery, saw it as gospel music played on the radio while they drove to church, saw it as sisters in the congregation smiled at her, admired her, envied her, thought her so lucky to have such a fine man like handsome and caring Reverend William James Ellerbee.

  When brothers greeted them, she thought she saw signal-filled, conspiring glances between William and them. She saw that face of hers thinking that it saw it, too.

  She saw that damn face while William pitched purity and piety when she was so primed for pity. She saw it as she sat straight up during service, trying her best to maintain a preacher’s wife’s public decorum.

  When the choir sang out, the face sang out, too, begging and pleading for her to join in. And when finally she did, her hands shot over her head and cut right through the air. Her tears flowed like streams, her moaning syncopated by hiccups in gospel rhythm. The nurse’s attendants, armed with their smelling salts and restraints and their “There she goes again”s, took posts around her.

  By the time the service was over, she was both sober and sanctified, if not satisfied. She had a chance to rest from her sad happiness on the small cot in the sanctified lounge set up for these things. When she opened her eyes her husband was seated by her side.

  “How are you?” he asked, squeezing her hand gently.

  “I feel like some Lucy Florence,” she answered, hoping and praying the new DuPré Dixon would be where he always was, with his friend at their usual table, having coffee and sweet potato pie, ready to help her keep her man home.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Although Brando did not get into the details of the case, Omar listened attentively as Brando praised Jeanette’s strength and Clymenthia’s unwavering love and support. Brando’s eyes sparkled with awe, his hands painting the air with the details of human persistence. He leaned in close toward Omar, who leaned in himself, and confessed how scared and driven he was.

  “Brando?” came the voice that hovered over them.

  “Hello—” Brando looked up, and then stood in the presence of her and the man that stood behind her. She extended her hand.

  “Vanessa,” she reminded him.

  “Right. Vanessa.”

  “Vanessa Ellerbee.”

  “Yes, of course. Vanessa Ellerbee. Vanessa, I’d like you to meet Omar Stevens. Omar? Vanessa.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “Same here.” Omar smiled as he stood.

  “And this is William.”

  “Hello, William.”

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “Hello.”

  William was not as shy as he first seemed to be, nor as Vanessa had suggested. The way his eyes moved along Brando’s lean body did not go unnoticed, and the overtness mildly annoyed and bemused all three in his company in very different ways. Vanessa resented the lack of subtlety and was now caught in a lie, harmless as it might have been, regarding William’s alleged shyness. Brando’s sense of propriety was put off by the extended and intrusive gesture, and Omar was quite simply jealous as hell. Yet all three pretended to ignore the elephant in the room and continued to exchange mock pleasantries.

  “So what do you do, William?” Omar had successfully distracted William from his best friend’s crotch.

  “Pharmaceutical sales,” William lied. “And you?”

  “I’m a writer.”

  “Oh yes!” Vanessa chimed in. “Omar Stevens. I thought I recognized your name. I’ve read several of your pieces. I loved your piece on Keith Boykin’s down-low book in the LA Weekly. It made me run right out and get it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Of course I read J. L. King’s book first, though it’s not a problem I have to worry about.” She gently squeezed William’s hand.

  “So,” she continued, “where are you gentlemen off to from here? I’d love to invite you up to our place for cocktails.”

  “Thanks, Vanessa, but as it is, I’m already playing hooky from work I need to be doing.”

  “On Sunday?”

  “Yep.”

  “All work and no play, Brando…”

  “I know, I know.” He chuckled good-naturedly. “But I really need to take a rain check.”

  “Too bad,” William said with too much suggestion in his voice.

  Vanessa tensed and forced a smile. She then eased into their good-byes, then presented her card. “You owe us a visit,” she cautioned Brando with a slight peck on his cheek. “Doesn’t he, William?”

  “Absolutely,” William answered, absently licking his lips.

  “It’s been a pleasure meeting you,” she then said to Omar, suddenly remembering he was there.

  Finding the slight too amusing to be offended, Omar watched the couple disappear down the stairs, walk past the open stage space, and out the glass door.

  “Is it my imagination, but was sister girl trying to pimp her husband off on you?” Omar asked as he watched the couple walk toward the park and the Sunday drums.

  “How do you know they’re married?”

  “You know, for a damn lawyer, you sure don’t notice much. They had matching wedding rings, bro. You didn’t see them?”

  “I wasn’t paying that much attention.”

  “Well he sure was payin’ attention to you.”

  “Please.”

  “Now I know you noticed that. He was checkin’ you out so hard you shoulda felt his tongue on your balls.”

  Brando shook his head and smiled, though his mind was on Jeanette.

  Omar nudged. “So fill me in.”

  “On what?”

  “The odd couple.”

  “There’s really nothing to be filled in on, Omar. I met her at the Catch when I went to see Miss Zara. She said her friend, who was sitting across the room, wanted to meet me, but was kind of shy.”

  “Was nothin’ shy about that dude.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, you gonna go for it?” Omar pushed forward. “I mean, the brotha’s not bad looking at all.”

  “I don’t have time to be hooked up right now, Omar, especially with the case and everything.”

  “You can always take time for a hookup, bro.”

  Brando fluffed it off with a small flick of a hand.

  Omar realized that maybe he was trying too hard. Pawning his friend and secret love off on this woman’s fine husband was a masochistic exercise, giving away what he so needed to keep for himself.

  All those years he secretly suffered but put up appearances and cheerleadered fiercely when Brando and Collier became the perfect poster board couple for L.A.’s black gay community.

  And oh how happy and sad and gleefully mournful he was when their flawless reign ended.

  If only Brando could love me the way I love him. Perish the thought. Not even. Act on it? Not even.

  Omar regrettably realized he simply didn’t trust the friendship enough to tell the truth.

  Then what kind of friendship was it?

  Maybe a friendship as bogus as the love affair he always imagined. He loved Brando, yet did not trust Brando enough to let him know.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The district attorney for Los Angeles County knew that he faced an uphill battle—the strict precepts of law versus public empathy and perception. Who really was the victim in this case of The People versus Jeanette Bell? Although it could be argued that Ramon Jesse Alexander justifiably died at the hands of his alleged assault victim, it was not a clear case of self-defense. Besides, Alexander was a decorated war hero.

  Vigilante justice is a front-heavy oxymoron in the eyes of the law. What seemed clear to the D.A. was that Jeanette Bell killed her alleged attacker after the alleged attack, not a legal defensive move. She had taken the law into her own hands and a man died. Her actions were v
engeful at best, a vindictive response to scorn at worst; she was legally culpable. The People versus Jeanette Bell had all the markings of an open-and-shut case.

  But this was L.A., a city that rarely convicted celebrities, even celebrities by association. The D.A. knew he had to put his best man on the job. And the best man for the job was a woman, Marion Madrano, a celebrity in her own right.

  Marion Madrano was the Gloria Allred of the D.A.’s office, passionate, publicity savvy, tough on crime, a champion of women victimized and abused. And that was of the utmost importance. No one else could better neutralize the built-in sympathy Jeanette Bell would most assuredly attract than the beautiful Latina legal star who worked herself up from the ghettos of Boyle Heights to the highest levels of City Hall, becoming one of the few conservative city officials in Mayor Villaraigosa’s inner circle. What Gloria Allred, representing Amber Frey, had done for the late Laci Peterson and to Laci’s murderous husband, Scott Peterson, Marion Madrano would have to do for this poor war hero, and to this woman of means and privilege who slaughtered him over possibly consensual sex. But at best, that was a crapshoot.

  Marion Madrano met with Brando, Jeanette, and Clymenthia to offer a plea bargain of manslaughter. She did not need for this case to go to trial. She knew the liberal forces of the city would go into overdrive, that women, gays, and lesbians everywhere would unite through emails, chat rooms, rallies, talk shows, public demonstrations, Court TV, and Oprah in support of the defendant, a beautiful, Carnegie Mellon-educated femme fatale tailor-made for the camera.

  Los Angeles was the land of the Simpsons: Bart, Jessica, Ashlee, and O.J. This was where the star of In Cold Blood stood trial and was acquitted of the cold-blooded murder of his wife of contrivance; where Michael’s Neverland nursery trumped Disneyland. This was Kobeland, Magic’s Kingdom, and Clintonville. The only crime in L.A. is to be lacking in entertainment value. A public trial for this kind of defendant was like a walk down the red carpet for a movie premiere at the Kodak Theatre.

  But the plea bargain was flatly rejected and Marion Madrano was pissed. Uncharacteristically losing her cool, the frustrated officer of the court accused Brando’s client of wanting to face charges in open court to publicize a cause.

  “And you want her to cop a plea to silence her,” Brando shot back with unusual force.

  Prosecutor Madrano returned to her office and contemplated the cards she had been dealt. It was now a matter of figuring out which cards to play.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  All these people come here from other places—Detroit, Philly, Chicago, Brooklyn, whatever—and they all complain about what we do out here. And we L.A. people, the real L.A. people, we let them trip like that. They sit up here and never leave, just complain, laying up under our fuckin’ palm trees, under our fuckin’ year-round sunshine, in our mothafuckin’ paradise. They all laugh at L.A. and can’t wait to get here. Plastic. They call us plastic. Well at least we’re real plastic…East Coast, arrogant-ass, bitter mothafuckas!”

  Omar was drunk and ranting and feeling sorry for himself. Shane had finally given up on him and was moving back to New York after first calling Omar every fake-ass-airhead-shallow-old-young-wannabe-

  la-la-land pootbutt in the book.

  Omar never really realized how much he cared for Shane. He never gave himself the chance to find out. And now with Shane gone, the very thought of not having him around left Omar pissy and pathetic.

  Brando didn’t say much. He had met with Omar this night to tell him that their Sunday-morning get-togethers at Lucy Florence would have to be curtailed, that their hanging out, clubbing, would have to be pulled back until after the trial. But suddenly hearing Omar’s lament over this new development in his life put Brando in an emotional dilemma.

  “Hell. Fuck it!” Omar declared. “Lovers come and go! Friends are forever!” He looked into Brando’s sympathetic eyes and smiled a sad and drunken smile, then lifted his glass, urging Brando to lift his. “To friends,” he continued.

  “To friends,” Brando repeated.

  They clicked glasses gently. The ping hung in the air, illuminating the silence they now shared, a silence that hid feelings neither could verbalize. Under the dark amber lights, Brando saw a rarely seen yet oh-so-familiar look on Omar’s face, that little-boy handsomeness that always appeared whenever Omar was sad and drunk, the look he saw whenever he and Omar were drinking and Omar drifted off into thoughts of his Grammy.

  It was Tuesday night at the Study, that reliable watering hole just above Hollywood Boulevard on Western Avenue, where black gay men of all ages could always find a friendly shoulder to cry on and sympathetic bartenders heavy with the liquor and generous with a listening ear. Somebody had put on a half dozen Sade tunes. The droll from the box was relentlessly, poignantly forlorn.

  “Did I tell you what happened to me last year at the hotel for ATB?”

  At the Beach, L.A.’s annual black gay pride celebration, brought together some twenty thousand community members and their heterosexual allies from all over the world every Fourth of July weekend. The social convention featured well-organized seminars, networking events, banquets, barbeques, book signings, club hopping, and the centerpiece all-day beach party at Point Dume in Malibu. The host hotel was always sold out early, as much of the socializing took place there.

  Omar always made sure he booked a room early. Better to be in snatching distance of the visiting honeys. And now he was in confession mode.

  “Did I tell you what happened?” he repeated.

  “No. But if it’s too embarrassing maybe you shouldn’t.”

  “Well it is embarrassing.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t be telling me.”

  “Hey, I don’t give a fuck. Shit happens and you just have to face it like a man.”

  “Okay, well then tell me.”

  “You know how all the young guys gather in the hotel lobby, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well at about three AM they expel them all from the lobby. So the kids all go up to the third floor and they just roam the hallways. So some old queen comes and bangs on my door and says, ‘Chile, they roamin’ the third floor.’ And I know exactly what he means. So I get up, shower real quick, throw on something really nice—some Armani and shit, some khakis—and head down to the third floor. The kids, about five hundred of them, are barreling through the hallway like bulls on a Barcelona street. Hotel rooms are open, parties are going on, a little bit of everything is happening. So I join in and get swept up into the herd. Now as I’m being swept past this group of boys standing on the side, I hear this voice snickering: ‘Look at that old queen out here trying to hunt up some young trade.’ ”

  “Oh my God!” Brando laughed.

  “Bran, I heard that, looked around, and realized I was the oldest thing in the hallway. I was the old queen he was talking about.”

  “I am so sorry,” Brando apologized.

  “So I went back up to my room, never to be seen on the third floor again.”

  “Well that’s what you get for being such a chicken hawk.”

  “Yeah, but what am I supposed to do? I can’t help that I like what I like.”

  “Grow up, Omar. Grow up.”

  “That’s a psychological impossibility.”

  “You are such a fool,” Brando said, with just a touch of envy.

  “But before I left the hallway, I saw who it was who said it.”

  “Who?”

  “Some bitter boy I fucked once and never fucked again.”

  Brando marveled at the simplicity of the statement.

  “That was his way of getting back at me. But I’ll tell you one thing. Now that I’ve had that third-floor trauma, I can guarantee you, I’ll never go through that again. That’s why I gave up on Griffith Park.”

  “You gave up the park?”

  “I gave up the park. I don’t need a whole school of twenty-five-and-unders reminding me how old I am and how old I’m getting.
”

  “So are you saying you’re giving up on the young?”

  “Well, I can’t totally deny my nature, but I’ll just not lurk around their nurseries, their natural habitats. That’s much too tempting.”

  Brando found himself smiling as he remembered the days when he and Omar were twenty-five-and-unders, out of school for the summer and living the lives of two Southern California black surfer boys, gleefully trolling the Venice Beach boardwalk, gawking at impossibly chiseled bodybuilders flexing muscles and shirtless, golden, sweaty basketball players selling wolf tickets and executing court steps Twyla Tharp would love to steal. Splashing in the Pacific and riding the waves just north of the Santa Monica Pier was Omar and Brando’s daily duty; clubbing till daybreak in every afterhour venue still jumping, from the Rage in West Hollywood to the Executive Suite in Long Beach; passing out next to each other in the house Omar’s Grammy left him, waking up wondering why limbs were twined; morning hard-ons peeked through boxer slits, spooned like old-time lovers, and not wondering. In those days they weren’t that concerned with boyfriends and romance. They had each other, and that was good enough for them.

  Omar had already started writing articles on artists like Prince, Michael Jackson, DeBarge, Vanity 6, and Kool & the Gang for teen fan mags Right On!, Black Beat, and Seventeen. The publicity department of every major record label kept him supplied with concert tickets to every act that performed in the city. Omar and Brando were press regulars at the Greek Theater, the Hollywood Bowl, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, the Long Beach Arena, and the Roxy on the Sunset Strip.