Faggots

by Larry Kramer

  He is of course now friendless. Such power does not allow for true friends. He has smiled rarely, offended many, and wound up King of the Pile. He has made Marathon Leisure Time Number One. He is now the leading purveyor of America’s film and television entertainment.

  He sits, so high up there, sipping a Kir from a glass of Baccarat, waiting for Abe Bronstein, sooner or later they all come to Dildough, minioning to his feet, taking another sip, musing on his favorite pet project: he would find a new James Dean; another sip, pausing to reflect that his own personally supervised potential blockbuster of Bronty, The Last Survivor, the story of a dinosaur from another world who gets into a bit of trouble in this one, was premiering just this very day from coast to coast; another sip, and then an unsettling thought: What do I really want?, followed by: I could be President…of Pan-Pacific, certainly…but why not my country?…I obviously possess qualities others do not, and then the crepuscular realization, mustn’t let it in, oh, here it comes!: Why is there such contrast between what I might be and what I continue to be?…Why am I not utilizing to the fullest my abilities?…Why allow I my inner fantasies to propel me…the other way?…Why am I not becoming a part of a plot that would change my life, instead of plots about…dinosaurs…and cocks?…Yes, what do I really want? I have everything already, how can I surmount the fates, take bigger and bigger risks, the ones that could set the world and not my rocks atingle and aglow, bigger and bigger crap games, propelling me further and further…to…where?…and what?…and…whom?

  And then…the final thought…: Do I want…can I have…am I capable of…a friend?

  No, I must not do this again either.

  On his way to the locker room upstairs, Fred had stopped and had his cock sucked in the basement toilet of his beloved West Side Y.

  He had had to pee, and had headed directly for the open urinals, looking straight ahead (always look straight ahead at open urinals, because they are undoubtedly fronted by disreputable sorts), and he had noticed, by chance only of course, and only out of the corner of his eye, a handsome young man, in tight jeans and body-hugging T-shirt, with welcoming brown eyes under dashing, waving locks of black, fronting the next stall, standing right beside him, this creature for a fantasy, looking with those eyes from under those locks over the partition down upon Fred’s cock. Fred could hardly pee.

  But could Fred not succumb to The Romantic Spirit?! The boyish open-eye-edness of young Coleridge, the noble nose of thoughtful Wordsworth, the brisk and winning way of wiry Keats, “I have been half in love with easeful Death,” no, that’s not apt, the innocence and charm of slender, shambling Shelley, “Love, love, infinite in extent, eternal in duration,” that’s more like it!, the zenithic swagger of dark and moody, Lord-ly Byron, (who hated his mother and whose daddy died most young), (and who felt himself an old man at only twenty-eight!)—all this and these were standing beside him, with a pinch of the Paul Newman’s thrown in. Lord Newman was looking at his cock!

  And now he was stepping back and waiting for Fred to do the same, waving his thing with his hand and reaching down to take Fred’s, then leaning his head close to Fred’s so that they could kiss, then reaching round him and holding Fred in a hard, tough, heman’s embrace. Ah, yes, the Romantic Age and Spirit!

  Suddenly a third man jumped out from one of the toilet stalls behind them. Fred jumped, too, but Byron-Wordsworth-Shelley-Coleridge-Keats obviously knew that the newcomer was an old-timer, not much to look at any way, certainly no threat, with the messy look of a perpetual student, no front runner, who, in any event, sat down at B-W-S-C-K’s booted feet, by the urinal’s Ubangi lip, and proceeded, from the floor, to suck that bardic cock, Lord Newman now bending over to suck Fred’s, at the same time—all at the same time—breaking open a popper and ramming it into Fred’s nose so that his orgasm, summoned hastily by the excitement of this Forbidden Moment, now flushing through him (along with further fantasies that it was Dinky’s mouth down there around him), all of this and these and them sending him through the roof in a way that no ordinary licit sexual encounter had in recent memory, what a way to begin a workout at the gym!, here it comes, Dinky baby, I’m whooshing a large load right out of me and into you and…

  Fred stuck his thing back in and rebuttoned his fatigued marines. What had he done? He could have been caught. And arrested. Intelligent human beings do not go around doing it in public johns. With or without a muse. Or do they? Anyway, this one just had. Come on, Fred, admit it felt good. He recollected, from that seminal volume by Trudge & Naster: “The warring conflict in man between the intellect and the libido shall never be twinned.” From this he now took comfort.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled to the kneeling poetaster, who now looked less like a Paul and more like a Herbert or a Harvey, a middle-aged derrick in a young man’s rig, who waved So Long, Honey, as he continued to be ministered to by Young Messy Student, who was now the popper’s recipient, and walked out, thinking to himself, OK, there’s nothing in the world like a good blow job, nothing in the world, particularly a covert one, yes, it felt good, and upstairs he went, to his locker and the early-evening crowd of worker-outers, joggers, lifters, gymnasts, squashers (with naked humpy bodies in the steam room later for dessert), in profusion, goodie, yummy, to smoothly jog his daily three. He’d had the pause that refreshes. Yes, today he’d tried two new things. A golden shower and a tea-room. His investigations were proceeding nicely apace. Progress was being made.

  The jogging was followed by the pumping of iron, unh, phew, fush, straining, another rippling muscle for Dinky, my definition increaseth every day, two hours a day’s more than I ever spent with any shrink, uhn, umk, add another bench press, pucker out those tits for him to pinch and suck, leg raise for the stomach’s smile of beauty, arm curl, want my arms as big as his, unhh, yunk, rretch, no gain without pain, fewh, plutz, nunh, Dinky where the fuck are you? I’m waiting impatiently. Uhnh. Phew. Zlink. I’m ready for love.

  At precisely this moment when Boo Boo Bronstein is considering being kidnapped, a handsome young stranger arrives on our scene. The good Lord giveth one just when He considereth a taking away. Ecology liveth.

  At 7:03 P.M. of this Friday Memorial Day weekend, Timmy Purvis arrived at Port Authority Bus Terminal on Continental Trailways 101 from Mt. Rainier, Maryland. He walked in, looking at the signs: Authority, Asbury Park, Adirondack, Amber Lantern—everything began with A. A new beginning.

  Timmy had come to New York to have fun. He was sixteen years old and he knew that what he had been having in Mt. Rainier, Maryland, had not been fun. Though it was considered to be a suburb of Washington, D.C., it was as far away from that metropolis as the poor are from the rich. Timmy’s folks were poor, but of course noble and upright, and for Timmy—a perceptive one for sixteen, but then so many things are starting younger these days—dowdy, dull, and just not on the same vibrating wavelength. He knew this when he would look at his Ma’s big cow brown eyes or his Dad’s lined and honest face and he would say to himself: Who are these people, I don’t want to be like these people, I don’t want to be like anybody in Mt. Rainier, Maryland, ever, ever, ever. Imagine complaining about the price of food and getting up at 6:30 every morning to go to work.

  Thus, a departure was in order and the sooner the better. He just up and did it, with a sense of direction, spirit, and commitment that would do any organism proud. He left them a note: “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Purvis, I am now sixteen years old and desire to be my own man. I shall continue my education in the World. Please don’t hurt and please don’t look for me. I don’t want to come back. Good-bye and fond remembrances, Timothy Peter Purvis.”

  And to New York he came, without giving his past, his Ma, his Pa, a second thought. He briefly considered changing his last name, to make the break more irrevocable, the return impossible, but he decided not to for the moment. Later perhaps. Or perhaps he might want to change his first name instead. Major alterations could wait. And whatever happened, it could only be an improvement o
n Mt. Rainier.

  Timmy arrived in New York a virgin, again not such an unusual statistic these days, though from television and movies he knew all about sex and all the possibilities available to him, divisions and subdivisions, paragraphs and headings and fine print. At this moment he was unconcerned about the totality, or which clause he might elect. He did know one thing: he knew he was exceptionally attractive. People would look at him on the street and continue looking, even when bumping into someone. Sometimes these lookers were women, but he noticed that he liked it more when they were men. He hadn’t learned yet to use this to his advantage, though he had premonitions he was walking around with a useful tool.

  He was five feet ten inches tall, with dark-brown hair and that open handsomeness which formerly was called “Arrow Shirt” but is now called, for some reason, “all-American,” and then only by the halt or lame. His skin was that deep white which tans nicely and is associated with health, vigor, keeping regular, drinking milk, chewing Wrigley’s, using Colgate, and walking in Keds. At this point he had been trained for little but bodily functions. What will he learn in this biggest of our big cities? Will such beauty as walks by the name of Timothy Peter Purvis grow up to be as profitably adept with his physicality as the Winston Man, and as internationally sexually desirable as Winnie, the young Paul McCartney, or the late James Dean?

  He walked through the terminal, through the arcade, through the waiting room, and toward the john, for he, too, had to pee.

  “Jesus,” Durwood said to Paulie. “Look at that number.”

  “He’s going to the john.”

  “We better follow him.”

  The Port Authority was being tended to this evening by Durwood and Paulie, talent scouts for R. Allan Pooker, pornography man and head of Stud Studios.

  Yootha Truth and Miss Rollarette were there as well, Yootha clutching his ratty fur coat to his thin black body as if it were December, which, for Yootha, who has not eaten in several days, it was. Miss Rollarette, in tatty white organdy dress, a flat-topped granny hat with waving poppy, and his Tinkertoy magic wand, was resting his roller-skate-clad feet from the long run uptown from Pier 48, on the Hudson at Christopher Street, where he had been visiting with the boys, waving wisdom, and watching a few blow jobs in the late afternoon waterfront’s light.

  “Miss Fairy Godmother,” Yootha looked over to Rolla, “I would do anything for one dollar ninety-eight.”

  “You’re too skinny, dear. Blacks are now acceptable as sex partners but your competition grows fiercer as your people push themselves into uppity mobility. You must get your act together.”

  “Honey, fuck off. To get my act together, I need bread. Both kinds. I need clothes and I need exercising at the gymnasium of my choice. Also, I can no longer steal foodstuffs from the A & P. They know my ravaged face.”

  “Your problem is one which faces many of our boys. Would that the social-service organization I plan to establish when my fairy comes in were already a reality. I would dispense funds immediately to aid you. How’s Forty-second Street?”

  “No longer rewarding. I believe a civic clean-up has been undertaken.”

  “Bloomingdale’s?”

  “I can’t go in Bloomingdale’s looking like this!”

  “True. Have you tried the public lavatories? I understand the Black Duchess has been doing acceptably at Thirty-third Street on the IRT.”

  “I get sick of loitering at the loos. The smell is so rancid, Rolla. I am not a tea-room queen. Besides, I am looking for a more lasting relationship. And I don’t want no man who looks around toilets.”

  “Poor baby, poor baby. Miss Rolla understands.” He touched Yootha’s sunken shoulders with his wand.

  “Won’t do no good, won’t do no good,” Yootha mumbled.

  In the toilet, Durwood was peeing to the right and Paulie was peeing to the left of the urinal that was receiving Timmy. Timmy knew that something was up. He’d noticed the two young faces noticing him. They looked kindly enough, a year or two older than he was and plain, if neat and confident. Though why they were descending upon him in a toilet when they could just as easily have spoken to him either before or after was something he did not understand. Until he noticed they were looking diagonally down as he shook his penis of its last remaining drops.

  “Not bad,” Durwood said. “A winner.” And then, looking at the winner’s face: “About sixteen, I’d say.”

  “Not bad at all,” Paulie agreed, zipping up his pants, not having peed at all, and walking with Timmy to the sinks. “My name’s Paulie, this here is Durwood, and we think you are one hunky number. Wanna go and get a drink?” Paulie had recently moved here from Florida and had met Durwood in just this very way.

  Timmy stopped to wet his fingers under the faucet. He looked at both of their faces in the mirror, a trick he remembered from not a few Movies of the Week, and tried to study them as he considered.

  “I didn’t expect anything to happen so quickly,” he finally said. “I’m not even out of the bus station. I don’t even have a place to stay. You guys queers?”

  “Yeah,” Durwood said. “We are also faggot talent scouts. We sit here in this bus terminal looking for interesting new faces fresh from the outside world. You play your cards right in this city and you will be rich and famous in a way that neither one of us will ever be. You’re, like we say, a winner.”

  “My name is Timmy.”

  “Tim. Tim sounds better. Shorter. Butcher and to the point.”

  “I don’t know,” Paulie said. “Sometimes people want Timmies instead of Tims.”

  “Paulie, you’re starving to death as a Paulie. It’s a ninny name. I told you time and again since you hit this town to change it to something smart like Brad.”

  “Brad.” Paulie wrinkled his nose. “I’m no Brad.”

  “Come on, Tim. Let’s go across the street to the A & O and have us a talk. They have a great sound system.”

  “Maybe a Tyrone. Maybe a Humphrey. Maybe even a Dinky,” Paulie added, thinking of the handsome bearded guy he’d fucked with every night for an entire week just last month in Miami, before Paulie got fired from his job as attendant at the Club Baths, where the fucking had transpired, when he should have been changing used sheets, and thus not being on the premises the eighth night when the stranger said he’d come again. But he had waited outside and he hadn’t shown, so that, he’d guessed, was that.

  Durwood shook his head. “Paulie, wise up.”

  Timmy smiled at Paulie. Paulie blushed.

  “You are gorgeous,” Paulie said. “You really wipe me out. I’ve never seen anything like you. Stuff a towel in my mouth and shut me up.”

  Now Timmy blushed.

  Paulie shook his head. “Oh, babe.” He let the words slip out, a little cry of sadness and happiness, both at the same time, that someone he was meeting, someone so beautiful, could also be so innocent and shy and inexperienced and was this what he himself had been like how many weeks ago?

  And Durwood said: “You are lucky in your first new friends. Boy, are you lucky.”

  In the main waiting room Miss Rollarette and Yootha followed, with their eyes, the progress of the trio of young men crossing the floor and toward the 41st Street exit.

  “They went in there two and they come out of there three,” Yootha observed.

  “Miss Three is a confection. They’re going to the A & O. Come, Yootha, I shall buy you a glass of milk.”

  It was early for the Alpha and Omega. By eleven it would be packed with young dancers, the ones without the money or the connections to enter Balalaika or Capriccio, and certainly persona non for Fire Island Pines. But all of those places were like Paris; they represented nice spots to visit…someday. Here, in this unrejuvenated ballroom left over from some earlier dreams, everything was a bit more basic. It was cheap, in the way cheap was understood: no admission charge, and the waiters, who hustled you like crazy to drink, didn’t throw you out if you didn’t. Here the clothes were a little fla
shier than downtown, the heels a little higher, the hues a little more pronounced. Spanish, Cuban, Puerto Rican chic is defined a little more specifically on their own turf. And who knew but that there might be the odd old sugar daddy who arrived at midnight and noticed in the dark the sweater’s sequins or the eyelid’s glint.

  Right now there were only about fifty guys in the place. The music was loud and ample, a wholesome job of it; the bass and treble were not as ideally separated as Balalaika’s important system, where Patty had spent heavily to approximate sonic boom, nor as insidiously addictive as Capriccio’s even more lavish set-up, where Billy Boner, who also owned this place, had dictated speakers simply everywhere for raising consciousness higher and higher and higher. No, here there was only music, undoctored, dished up loud. But since it was certainly an improvement on the Maryland Teen Scene and Youth Club, Timmy was impressed.

  He and Durwood and Paulie were already seated with Cokes when Miss Rollarette skated across the dance floor to their ringside table.

  “Permit me to introduce myself, young fellow,” Miss Rolla said to Timmy, touching both his shoulders with his wand in the act of knighthood. “I am Miss Rollarette and I can be seen all over town. I skate back and forth in this my kingdom and it gives me pleasure to welcome a new citizen.”