by Larry Kramer
Who knows what early traumas gave birth to such as this?
On Washington Square, in his handsome apartment of stark white walls and carpeted gray platforms, pillows and hammock, stainless steel, and floor-to-ceiling books, where he sometimes (though not of late; why aren’t I reading them? or writing one of my own? what am I refusing to look at?) pretended he was Henry James, Fred was now deep into rehearsal.
“OK, kid, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I really love you, Dinky. I’ve missed you a lot. Your being away has made that abundantly clear. I can’t live without you.” No, that might scare him. Dopple & Diddy say “You must not need another person to complete your life,” even if I am spending every minute thinking about him. “I think we’re terrific together. Your fine mind. Our great times together. I know I’m a lot more successful than you are but we mustn’t let that get in our way. I know you want to make it on your own. Not be known as Mrs. Fred Lemish. But what else does a guy make money for but to help his loved one? A down payment toward building and sharing a life together. I’ll pay for you to go back to architecture school and you can pay me back when your success comes in. Which we both know it will. And I want you to come and live with me. That’s what I’m really proposing…” I wonder if it would be cute to get down on my knees here? I wonder if he really loves me? What if he says No? So he says No. I can understand that. He wants to keep it going slowly. He’s wisely said he distrusts overnight romances. Can I keep it going slowly? It couldn’t be going any slower and I’m going swiftly crazy. At least I just got a postcard. From Savannah. Wonder what’s in Savannah beside the old synagogue on the postcard? “To Humanism,” he wrote. That’s a good omen. Now let’s see, what else can I throw into my sales pitch? The hotel? I think I’ll hold off on that one till I need it. Always be prepared. Hope for the best and expect the worst, Algonqua’s creed. No risk no gain, ditto. He really is terrific…“You really are terrific. We can really go places together, places that two people can’t go on their own. I really believe that. You don’t have to answer me right away. Take some time to think it over. Just know that I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you and I hope you feel both of these things for me. Yep, take your time to think it over. Let me know tomorrow.” If I were a man courting a woman, would I be so nervous? How would Cary Grant woo, say, a reluctant Irene Dunne?
Then he went into his toilet to shit. He noted that the shit was falling in squiggles and this caused him, naturally, to be fearful. Had he once again come down with a case of last year’s fashionable disease, the galloping trots, known medically as amebiasis, an amebic dysentery, also known in the gay world as the P.R. disease, there being a good deal of it around (“of epidemic proportions,” Fred finally discovered from a Dr. Kelvin Knell)? Fred had caught it, not from foreign travel, but, so far as Mini Diary calculations could reveal, at the Everhard (“it is transmitted through feces and its fastest incubation, within eighteen hours, can only be accomplished by directly eating shit. Did you directly eat shit? Otherwise it takes three days.”).
Prior to that wretched experience, which took three months and a lot of potassium-replenishing bananas to sort out, his first encounter with the squiggles was four years ago when he and Feffer (Feffer the bright, Feffer the beautiful, Feffer forever!) were traveling across the U.S. in the Ford Mustang Fred had bought for the occasion, the occasion being not the trip but the wooing and winning of Feffer, with whom Fred was convinced he was in love. The cross-country captivity, during which their love was meant to be nurtured and grow, produced, yes, a certain affection on Feffer’s part for Fred (“I am helplessly and hopelessly in like with you”), and a very bad case of the squiggly shits from Fred’s end over Feffer. This was diagnosed by a hippy doctor in Taos as colitis, a nervous occurrence, God knows Fred had been nervous, as mile lapped mile and he was scared shitless, or perhaps this is better phrased as scared into shitlessness, was this actually happening to him: Love?!
And so now Fred sat peeping down on squiggles again, and he began to sweat, wondering what anxiety-producing iota is lurking in his subconscious to effect a return of the squigglies or which of his many triumphant conquests in or near a boudoir has returned the dread ameba.
Stop it, Fred! In your shit or out of it!
Was the God of Shits passing around a message?
Jesus, Fred, are you a case!
So ’twould appear that if Fred Lemish spent half as much time writing as he did hoping Dinky Adams would say “I love you,” he’d have a ten-foot shelf.
And if Dinky Adams spent half as much time legitimately planting and fertilizing as he did scattering his seeds to the winds, he’d be New York’s leading gardener.
Though, of course, as we shall continue to see, he already is.
…I want my cock sucked, I want my cock sucked…, Anthony finally, courageously, finishing his third joint, made entrance into the E & L.
The Hudson River Docks, the Erie and Lackawanna dockage area, Ellie to her friends, a huge black hole of Calcutta: interlardings of communal pierage, fingers jutting out to the water, pilings sinking, a wrought-iron inspiration with sagging seams, a mammoth cavern now useless to the outside world, a hoary giganticism—into this darkness, Anthony entered.
Lobster, brioche, asparagus hollandaise, champagne, baked Alaska, Abe’s stomach, perhaps even his heart, was not accustomed to such fancy fare. Later he would take a Gelusil, but for now, in such lavish surroundings, high up in the Pierre Tower, though a bit impersonal, no touch of home, he had enjoyed. Randy Dildough had been charming. A deal was certainly in the making. Abe felt wanted.
After cigars and coffee (Abe would be up all night), Randy got down to business.
“Tell me, Mr. Bronstein, about your property.”
Abe was ready. “Mr. Dildough, I must call you Randy, you are too young I should call you Mister, you have been so kind as to woo me after my big success with U.S. Mobsters, Inc., that I come to you first with my second motion picture, to which end I have engaged the same writer, also the writer of that fine film you no doubt know, Lest We Sleep Alone…”
“A fine film, a fine writer, though I do not know him personally,” Randy noticed that his words were peculiarly beginning to come out like Abe’s.
“You would like each other. Two fine boys. Fred Lemish is his name and he is currently writing for me an original screenplay property entitled Fathers and Sons and Brothers and Lovers, which is an excellent title and, with the addition of ‘Brothers and Lovers,’ one which the masses will not confuse with the fine novel by Turgenev.”
“It’s an excellent title. What’s it about?”
Abe sat silently on the uncomfortable gilt chair, now his back was hurting, so many men his age had conditions of deteriorating discs, looking out at the clouds drifting by, the stars appearing, the city lights twinkling, all so close from here, before deciding to plunge right in.
“It is about how some sons become gayish and some do not. You are understanding me?” And he brought his gaze back into the suite.
Though in his crotch he was beginning to sweat, always the true precursor of his nervousness, Randy answered snappily: “I understand.”
“I think it is time, don’t you?, for a movie about gay homosexuality. Not exploitation, mind you, I am not this kind of film maker. I want an honest exploration of this new kind of love which so many of us have not understood and which I am understanding is now all over the place. What do you think?”
“I will have to think about it.”
“As you know, my first film I financed myself. This second film is to be more expensively mounted and therefore I come first to you since your reputation in this field is preeminent.”
Randy coughed slightly, an unexpected frog in his throat. “What field?”
“The motion-picture field.”
“Ah, yes.” He frogged his throat again. “Well, I am very flattered that you came first to me.” He now ran his finger around the inside of his
collar at the back of his neck.
“This makes you nervous,” Abe asked, suddenly recalling Fred’s warning on Randy’s secret gaydom. “It is making me nervous, too, I must tell you. But I am also thinking that important things, the big things, are never easy and full of nervous. I have said something to offend you?”
“No, no…why are you even thinking this?…It’s just that the subject matter…stockholders…” Randy was trying to get a grip on himself, returning, after just a moment of uncharacteristic lapse, to his former self, which was, he realized, just what they were talking about “…it’s not what I expected, after Mobsters, so nice and safe, crime, you are outlining something very controversial, and as such requires thought and reflection and of course a look at your script by Mr. Blemish, and budget and actors, and, if I am not mistaken, this is still some time in the future, you are now only commencing activity, and hence is nevertheless a bit premature, the times not ripe, in terms of actualities actually arrived at, please come to me when…” why was he rambling on so, both speaker and listener wondered to himself?
“But you too are a fegala,” Abe said, so simply.
“No no no no no,” said Randy, rising from across the tiny table room service had wheeled in, “no no no no No…,”…when would they wheel big tables in?, “…it has been a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bronstein, and I hope you will bring your fascinating project back to us when it nears orgasm…”
“How can you live such subterfuge?” Abe asked, declining the implication to stand up. “When I am wanting a young and tasty poopsie, I am marrying her.”
“No, no, Mr. Bronstein, you are sailing on the wrong boat, it has indeed been a pleasure, please call again, do…” and Randy was now standing in front of Abe, hoping that by this closer gesture he would get the message and leave, wondering why he was not handling this episode with more cool, where was his legendary spine of iron, nerve of steel, mouth of tungsten, why was this man, who did not, simply did not, remind him of his father, the stalwart Ralph, affecting him so?
“Randy, please to sit down, I am sorry I am touching home base and I am not meaning to insult you, but do you not now even further see why such a film as this must now be made, to deal with this head on, confront it, take bull by your horns, and say: this is me, I am it, and no hanky panky, you only live life once, and we must try to understand, no more masquerade, to be a landmark man…”
“Mr. Dildough…aaaah Bronstein, please to leave my office, I am having other appointments, many minions waiting, backed up for days, I am not a faggot, never never never, please to leave and my best wishes to you and your fine wife…”
“You know Ephra?”
“No, I do not know Ephra!, now please get the fuck out of my office, ah, room, ah suite! I have tried to be polite and now I am going to be not so polite. Scram!”
Abe finally stood up, shook his head unhappily, looked at the young man. “How sad,” he said. “I think out loud, how sad! Now I see what problems I and you must now go through. The world must know!”
“Get out!”
“No prophet ever found it easy.”
“Immediately!”
“From Abraham, Isaiah, Moses even.”
“Out!”
“I get the picture.”
“You do not get the picture!”
“I go. With sorrow and sadness that you deny your heritage. You do not like yourself very much.”
“I do not like you.”
“You are a sad person, and miss the great chance to be a great leader.” Abe did not offer to shake his hand. He took his topcoat and left. I will be the leader. My Mission now comes clearer. I will help these boys!
And Randy? In his Tower pad, behind his closed cell door, leaning against it just like they do at the end of melodramatic scenes in his bad movies, clenched fist stuck to damp brow, chest heaving, all-over trembles turning into jerks, oh why am I punishing myself for handling this one so badly!
What to do what to do? If there were a hooker on his fluffed-up sofa at this moment, he might be fucked to death. Obviously better, if his new James Dean had only been discovered, they’d be flying down to Rio. He rushed into his towel-filled bathroom and tried to jerk off. But he caught his short hairs in his zipper and his Sulka underpants got in the way. Should he call R. Allan for a hustler? No, tonight’s the night he’d promised to meet Slim. Can I come twice? I’ll be lucky if I can come once. It was still too early to head for their rendezvous. He popped three Valiums and tried to take a rest.
And Abe descended, wondering why he was thinking of his Richie and where he was on the long lone road of life.
The aforementioned Boo Boo was at this moment walking the long lone road of his favorite fantasy, having awakened from the nap in his high bed, smelled the sheets, pretending someone else’s nice smell was in there, too, then journeying, courtesy of his legacy from Dr. Rivtov, into his free associations, running start to finish, something like this:
No, I will not go and work in the Bakery’s executive training program. No, I will not marry Marci Tisch. No, I will not do anything my Pop wants me to do. No, I will not do anything at all as long as I continue to receive my five hundred dollars a week allowance. Which will not be nearly enough to last me until I am thirty-five. At which time my first trust fund, left me by my bubba Nellie, and netting me sixty-five thousand dollars per year for life, falls due. Until I reach forty-five, when my second trust fund, left me by my Grandma Lopp, and netting me an additional one hundred thousand dollars per year for life, falls due. Until I reach fifty, when that prick, my Pop, slices me my first million. Fifty! I won’t be a Catch until I’m fifty! I’ll be an old man! I want it now! Now! NOW! While I’m still young and wreckless, devil-may-care!…
…these thoughts then metamorphosing easily (with diplomas from Choate and Yale, where he’d been Phi Beta Kappa and had done his honors thesis on Horror Films, Richard was no slouch) into thoughts of older gentlemen tying him up and restraining him from action, thus forcing up his flagpole, not letting him fight back, the flag now flying, as he, imprisoned in his own room, is not allowed the free expression to even piss and shit, Old Glory now furling in the breeze…such thoughts now splintering like those early devices in German expressionist films—shadows, masks, wipes, bleeds, super-impositions—into even more vivid fantasies of said older gentlemen holding him and embracing him and kissing him all over…and still not letting him arise to piss and shit…No, no! My God what am I thinking!…I won’t let myself go any further, I won’t, I won’t… and by now he was deep in sweats, reaching for his first identity support of the weekend, a tab of Dringe, lying on his high balcony bed still, he hadn’t rolled off and fallen six feet into the orchestra, but almost, oh God almost, he’d almost fallen off and down into those pits!
Then, the Dringe now perking, he continued jerking off, with eyes closed, and summoned presences of his favorites: Wallace Beery, Charles Laughton, Eugene Pallette, Sidney Greenstreet, Charles Coburn, all heavy older men rolling on top of him, their pressures all too pleasurable to bear, squeezing the life and breath and air out of him, until, until…he would come, his tentative little spurtlets causing him additional angst, why spurted he not in huge white fountains like geysered from all the dudes in all the fuck films he snuck in to watch, should he be taking more vitamin E?, he’d read in the Avocado that vitamin E made more spurt, and whiter, too, as against his own rather clear viscosity, but if he took any more vitamin E than he was already taking, he worried his insides might slip to his outsides. Mustn’t over do the lube job. All would turn white and plentiful in time.
But when!?
Soon…
After going through all of this, the now exhausted son and heir took a capsule of Certyn to meld with his tab of Dringe and climbed down from the balcony, down the spiral staircase, and into the pristine and expensively appointed lower spaciousness, done in the current black-and-white fashion that had so appealed to Mrs. Bronstein Number Four, upon whose embarkation the p
remises had been bequeathed by Abe to his second son “as a retarded graduation present,” and plopped his young and firm but pliant tush into the soft coffee-brown leather of the Giorgio Dong chair and pulled out from the left-hand drawer of the Arbeit & Minusculie stainless-steel-and-rosewood desk the folders and scrapbooks that contained all of his dreams.
Clippings and clippings and clippings. Scrapbooks of his childhood hobby, now his grown-up fantasy. Peer’s heir snatched. Notes under stones. Messages delivered by strangers. Midnight meetings under moonlight. Secret pick-ups in the woods. Ransom notes in test tubes. Graveyard assignations in the gloom. Lost ears of grandsons. Brooklyn man chained in closet; wrists and ankles bound with rope; three-quarter million demanded for release. Baker’s, no, banker’s son kidnapped by fake electrician. Nun used in whisking of Cadillac distributor’s son. Mobile Home Heiress buried alive in coffin with straw to Outside World. Hearst kidnappers demand two million dollars for free food. The Masticator kidnapping in distant Baghdad, wherein five bearded, burly men held the rich young scion for five million. The De Grungie (Swiss chocolate and ball bearings) child…seven burlies…hefty…swarthy…ooh the flagpole…four million and one half…the Lindbergh job, no, that had been a fuck-up…so many kidnappings all over the world…57 jobs in Italy last week alone…why kidnapping was positively fashionable…the obviously In Thing to do…Momma can read about me in Women’s Wear…play your thing out, Richie, play it out!…and then his favorite, the recent Bronfman job, right here in his hometown.
Then Richie would lean back even further into the Dong’s glove leather, still playing out his thing, and look at all the Bronfman clippings, that face not unlike his own, that father not unlike his own, and wonder how he, Boo Boo Bronstein, could use the same floor plans and bring about a better built house?!
To calm his overactive imaginings now getting so rapidly into hand, you can’t jerk off all the time, Richie, save something for the streets, the Outside World, for Fire Island!, he turned on the television, conveniently tabled on a plinth of white beside his arm. His drugs were perking, his mind was running free. He’d let his eyes stare upon the pictures, enjoy their patterns, as his new self and image and strength of mind began to tingle and to grow. Certyn and Dringe, and shortly, Festinate and a snort of Orange Fluff. And Millions! Such a lovely potion.
