by Larry Kramer
But there was a disturbing announcement from the Outside World to penetrate his pleasure. In Paris, the announcer of the news reported, Mrs. Bronstein Number Four had gone and done it. She had popped another son and heir! Another Bronstein boy to share the booty!
So, filled with courage and revenge, that old pal, Pop, has fucked me once again!, Boo Boo pulled out paper and picked up pen and pique and pitiless passion, and began to write.
The day of reckoning had come!
Timmy knew right away that he would not be satisfied for long with the likes of R. Allan Pooker.
“Room and board and twenty-five dollars a week. I get to photograph you for five hours each day without your clothes on.”
R. Allan ran both Stud Studios and One Touch of Penis Modeling Agency. He looked as expected for this dual role: fifty, seedy, nicotined, with sparse hair, bushy eyebrows, and a drool that increased in lubricity when it liked what it saw. Which it now did. He had never, in his entire lifetime, by any stretch of anyone’s imagination, been attractive, handsome, even personable, and hence his mission to bring beauty to the world was set young. He drooled early.
Timmy was standing naked, calmer than he thought he’d be with so many witnessing eyes—R. Allan, Durwood, Paulie, a few slags who appeared from the studio’s salacious shadows, the hustlers on call tonight: Vladek, Cully, Midnight Cowboy—looking at him. Timmy sensed that they would not be looking at him in the way they were if he were just some average-looking kid. Too, he had looked at R. Allan’s portfolio before disrobing and considered himself to be of a higher caliber. When R. Allan had said: “All right, son, let’s have a look at you,” Timmy had dropped his fears and dropped his drawers and yanked off his “Washington D.C. is for Lovers” T-shirt and kicked off his Keds and socks and stood there, proudly, knowing that he was better than everybody around him. And the others just stood there, gaping and letting him so be.
Durwood proudly bobbed his head paternally and sent additional nodding looks in the direction of R. Allan, who nodded back and at one point, when Timmy successfully complied with a request to strike a particularly seductive pose, R. Allan even blew Durwood a kiss along with mumblings of: “Good job, good job.” Durwood used this moment to sidle over and request a bonus.
It was at this moment that Timmy made his demand: “I won’t allow my face to be seen. The back of my head is OK.”
There was silence. Durwood kissed the bonus good-bye. Stud Studios was not known for backs of heads.
But R. Allan, his eyes never leaving the sight of young Timmy’s young crotch, replied: “OK. No recognizable face. I understand, son. But you’ll have to trust me when I shoot you in front. You will trust me, won’t you?”
“Until I learn otherwise.”
Durwood couldn’t believe it. He also couldn’t believe it, later, when R Allan slipped him fifty dollars extra.
“What’s this? A fifty? Jesus, Mr. Pooker. Jesus, holy hell.”
“You’ve done very good, Durwood. He’s the most beautiful young man I have ever seen. His beauty is such that I shall be inspired to do great work. Michelangelo, you know, was also concerned with beauty. I consider my mission similar to his.”
“Right! Great work! I just know you can do it, sir. I think I’ll go out and buy a few things. Maybe show Timmy the town. You don’t mind that, do you?”
R. Allan nodded his permission, lost in thoughts of Timmy’s perfectly clean planes and lines. He felt inferior in the presence of even just the thought of such sculpture. He knew that few had ever been so beautiful in youth as Timmy Purvis. Therefore his new star would make him a great deal of money and bring pleasure and not a few jerks off to clamoring customers around this huge and hungry world. He would feed this world. He would launch this rocket. He would be as Stiller to Garbo, Milton Greene to Monroe, Ron Gallela to Jackie Kennedy. He would write him a grand scene for tomorrow’s shooting with Paulie.
In the dormitory-style bedroom, two double-deckers, a window overlooking Bedford Street, the noise from the Christopher Street spillover traffic filtering up, the bedspreads brown-and-white checkered and not unlike the one he’d left behind, Timmy watched Durwood stare at the fifty-dollar bill as he held it in front of him and marched around the room quietly following it. Then he silently took Timmy in his arms and kissed him gently. Timmy allowed it, almost languidly. He knew it meant nothing to either of them.
Paulie looked troubled. “Durwood, you always told me we would never be bringing anyone out. People got to come out of their own free will. I ain’t having any of that on my conscience.”
“That’s what I’m attempting to ascertain, dummy. I am attempting to ascertain if we would be bringing him out or if he is already out or if maybe we would be, like, doing him a favor by showing him how.”
Timmy spoke: “Please don’t worry. I feel like stars are watching over me. I don’t think they’ll let me do what I don’t want to do. Now Durwood, now Paulie, what’s in this town for me to see?”
Durwood was suddenly intimidated and, without his lead, so was Paulie. And at this moment R. Allan summoned them to the phone.
Anthony Montano lay flat on his back in the darkness of the Erie and Lackawanna terminal and wondered why. He then recollected that those three joints had been of Mantanuska Thunderfuck and had been ingested to courageously propel him inwards and had done just that. So, while he might in a few moments just be able to pull himself up and climb those stairs and begin his search, he would, for the nonce, and to better ward off thoughts of imminent, surrounding dangers, or wretched concern over how to break the news to Winnie Heinz, compose an Ode again until strength, health, and muscular agility returned.
Ah, home away from home, ah black hole of Calcutta, ah windswept, storm toss’d, fire-ravaged skeleton of former grandeurs! That you are still standing!, with your three stories gutted yet still here. Holes in you for entrance, holes within your stockings, fetid waters underneath, your bottom twisted and rippling like wooden waves, You Are a Woman! Our Ellie, Barbra, Kate, Bette, Diana, Marlene, Tallulah, Judy! Survivor, standing after all these ravages upon your face and body, from users and abusers of your finery, but still submitting, still bearing outrage, how many pints, quarts, gallons of semen spilled into your pock-marked skin?…now, now…into your tent creep this warm night, creep any night, crawling in and into this biggest womb and void of spacious blackness, total darkness, tread carefully, don’t trip, holes are many, beams are loose, floorboards missing, and oh the river is wide, and cold, and schmutzig, and beneath me, oi, also this building has no back, this lady wears a strapless, feel movement around me, who knows how many?, two thousand?, two hundred?, two?, me and my murderer?, me and my next beloved?, what a fantasy trip, I don’t have to see you and you don’t have to see me, you are John Wayne with real hair, and so up up up, I am now getting up, ignore handpainted fluorescent warning: LAST JULY A GUY WAS MURDERED HERE AND ROBBED OF HIS CARTIER WATCH AND STABBED IN THE GUTS with under-scrawling: “Glad to hear someone’s got guts,” up up up and…as I grow more bold, does not a proud woman inspire a return of strength, she’s made it, I Can, Too, sing it, Barbra: “He’s my man and I love him, no matter that he’s left me,” sing it, Greta: “Mein Mann ist mein Herz und meine Liebe und mein Leben,” sing it Vera: “There’ll be birds of love and laughter, when you come back after,” sing it, Edith: “Mon homme, mon homme, mon homme, mon hoooommmmmeee,” and Barbara, fat Barbara, our new cookie, sing the anthem: “Who’s going to make me gay now?,” yeah, girls, you made it, so can I, my heart’s still beating, my tits aren’t sagging, my pecker’s hopefully still pecking, I’ve made it through another winter, now I deserve a break today, go out, go up, go show them that I’m still Alive! Show them that I’m still gorgeous and still gutsy and desirable, and while I may be going down the tubes, I’ll go down getting my cock sucked as I start another year of life!
This place is a fucking football field!
Play Guts Ball!
The last city orgy of the
spring season was held at the home of Garfield Toye, a gay activist and member of the law firm of Harbinger, Kildare, Bronstein & Sport, who was not expecting to hold it. He had saved this night for his friend, Nancellen Richtofen, with whom he had planned to attend the New York debut of the Russian basso, Nicolo Loosh, in a performance of The Daughter of the Regiment. But Nancellen had called this afternoon and said, and only a bitch dyke could pull a trick like this and get away with it, that she had come up with a hot date for the night so could she please use the two tickets herself, thank you very much, I’ll see you Sunday at the Island, good-bye, and that was that. Garfield had a free evening on his hands. He considered going to the baths, Friday being two-for-the-price-of-one night at the Club, which meant a preponderance of younger fellows taking advantage of the economy and—and this is what decided Garfield on staying home—a larger number of older timers trying to take advantage of them. Besides what was the point of having a Central Park West penthouse in the sky if not to stay at home, make a few phone calls, and ask some friends to drop in for a quiet evening chez moi. Word would be passed around with speed, and by nine, or ten at the latest, he would have an apartment full of humpy numbers. Garfield just loved being a faggot in New York. One got things done so quickly here.
Winnie Heinz came bringing a Gentree shopping bag, which he said contained only a few old sneakers, and Troy Mommser, who was Winnie’s creative director at Heiserdiener-Thalberg-Slough, came with several other models from the Hans Zoroaster Agency: Lork and Yo-Yo and Carlty, 1) sandy, 2) dark, 3) blond, tall, and handsome, the very best, no doubt about it, Hans certainly had the eye, and Maxine came alone: “Laverne’s with Robbie Swindon, who’s now courting him, now that they are both divorced from former entanglements; I don’t know where Patty is; he said he’d meet me here,” and Blaze Sorority came, too, though Garfield wondered who had called that cunt, who could never keep his mouth shut, in print or out of it. Garfield fully expected to open the Avocado next week and see his entire life and guest list exposed. Oh, well, might as well relax and enjoy it.
A call to One Touch of Penis had brought Vladek, Cully, and Midnight Cowboy, Penis’s top three in billings, all for free, they must be horny now that summer’s coming, Long Island’s beckoning, and business is falling off. They brought three youngsters, including that Paulie whom Garfield had paid fifty to only just last week, he sure is looking pale and run-down, and also including one of the most beautiful morsels Garfield had ever seen, he thought he heard his name as Timmy, and one look at that Junior Adonis and Garfield knew he’d never afford the likes of that forbidden fruit. The three kids went off into a corner with Troy Mommser, who always was a quick worker, and who seemed to be passing the early grass this evening, plus a little angel dust, judging from the smell of things. Garfield watched as Timmy Gorgeous inhaled on, could it be his first encounter with the weed? This was hard to believe, but the lad was obviously receiving instructions and doing as was told. So we have a new girl in town, thought Garfield, his mind then automatically reminding him: corruption of the morals of a minor—ten to twenty…, then eyeing Maxine and hoping that tonight he wouldn’t change to drag.
The black contingent arrived, headed by Morrison van Gelding and Hubie Snint. They both were hulking figures you’d cross the street to avoid if you didn’t know them but Garfield did and knew they both were pussy cats. Blaze, New York’s reigning schwartza queen, at the sight of so much black flesh, practically expired in the excitement of his anticipation; Garfield knew where that one’s mouth and/or asshole was going to be after lights out. Morrison and Hubie each had a cute little white boy in tow, like their prize pugs on leashes: Morry’s was called Wilder and Hubie’s was called Slim. Slim was evidently just in from the Coast where he was a math teacher and he’d met Hubie and Hubie’s eleven-inch wonderful instrument while cruising Central Park. Morry said he had informed a few of his black friends at Legal Aid about the event and that Garfield might have some additional dark meat soon.
So, all in all, what with the ones he’d called and the ones they’d called and the ones who had been called by them, Garfield knew his doorman would clock about eighty single gentlemen in before (a new record) nine-thirty. Through the portals came, among others, five attorneys, three art directors, seven models, ten would-be models, twelve said-they-were-models, one journalist, three hairdressers (one specilizing in color), two antique dealers, one typewriter repairman, one manager of a Holiday Inn, one garbage collector, two construction workers, one toll collector from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, three policemen, two firemen (one from out of state), seven hustlers (three full-time), one elevator operator (Garfield’s landlord’s son), one bass player, five doctors, twelve students, one ethnic dancer, two restaurateurs (one fancy, one shit food), one judge (rather old, but Garfield had to remember business), one newscaster, one weather man, one football player, one folk singer, four truck drivers, twenty-nine on unemployment, eleven unidentifieds, and the new assistant Orthodox rabbi for a congregation in Seattle. And these were just the starters. The evening had all the earmarks of an eventful one, and Garfield, already busy in the maid’s room with a Puerto Rican efficiency expert, was thus occupied when Winnie Heinz, from across a crowded room, fell in love with Timmy Purvis.
Timmy did not know that anyone was looking at him. He did know that everyone was looking at everyone else, as he was, too, much like you rummaged through the loose tomatoes at the Safeway to locate the one you liked the best. There was so much to look at, his mind was such a jumble of impressions, that he knew he might as well just relax and go with the evening, because it was already too exciting to make much sense of. His head was beginning to have the light buzz he was told to expect by Troy, who kept injecting the thin cigarette into Timmy’s mouth and telling him to “suck, suck, you gorgeous number, and hold it in like this,” and then expanding like a peacock to illustrate, and Timmy, since he was feeling so wonderfully good, figured that he was now experiencing his first “high,” which he had heard about in Mt. Rainier, but only heard about. Troy seemed to be paying that little bit of extra attention to him and he sort of liked the way the big man—not fat, mind you, just large and hefty, in his handsome business suit and aviator glasses—did so. He was old enough to be his father, if only his father had had the sense to be as attractive and worldly and well-dressed and to smell of nice cologne and just-brushed teeth, and Timmy was a bit surprised to discover that a tingly feeling was appearing not only in his head and arms but in his crotch as well. He found himself relaxing into Troy Mommser’s warm, enveloping arms.
“Oh, you little darling,” Troy sighed as he nibbled at Timmy’s ear and then kissed him warmly on the lips. It was Timmy’s first true kiss from another man on a non-familial level. It wasn’t bad. And in such a nice, comfortable, homelike apartment, too.
“Come on, you beautiful thing,” Troy said, practically picking up the young package and carting him into one of Garfield’s homelike bedrooms.
Winnie watched all of this and his heart sank. Why was he not in the right place at the right time when it mattered? Why had he not brought his own dope this evening? Where was his own angel dust? He could have turned the little kid on. Oh, he was beautiful, and his heart wanted to hold him, no, he wouldn’t walk over this one in boots or have him walk on him, he just wanted to hold him and kiss and cuddle and go for weekends in the country and swims in St. Thomas and make a life together, my goodness the entire gamut of a fantasy future was jelling before him. What is happening to me?, Winnie worried. I’m not like this. And I don’t even know his name. And he doesn’t look Jewish. And I thought I was pegged into yids. And he’s off with Mommser. Oh, well, Troy is a nice man, my friend. If anything, the kid will be bored to death with such a nice guy before long. So, swallowing his impatience, he joined a little cozy corner foursome that included a black kid wearing a Star of David round his neck, to kill the time until the moment when his cutie would be free.
In the dim-lit bedroom, king-sized
walnut, pulleyed drapes to match the walls, and four inches of Bigelow underfoot, Timmy was naked in Troy’s arms. On the king-sized walnut. Troy’s big strong barrel chest, warm with soft hair, was something he wanted to curl up against forever. It was safe, he just knew it—was this what it was all about?—and he wanted it to go on and on and on and on. They both tried to pretend there was no one else in the room, not too easy a task when there were twenty or so, each busy in his own way. But if one could ignore the grunts, the smells, the sounds of suckings, the patches of wet sheet, the three hustlers, Viadek, Cully, and Midnight Cowboy, practicing a muscle-flexing gymnastic triangle by the headboard, the three models, Carlty, Lork, Yo-Yo, forming an observing triptych at the foot, yes, models all, and paid for the same thing, plus a busy Paulie, who should be home resting for his big scene due tomorrow, darting about looking for his own future, plus Maxine sticking his head into groupings, searching for Patty and wondering if it might not soon be time to change, then one could more or less imagine that one was more or less alone.
“You sweet little thing,” Troy mumbled once again in Timmy’s ear. Timmy was aware that the range of descriptive appellations being piled upon him was beginning to grate, but he said nothing in reply. At this point Troy heaved his big self and reversed positions so that he could suck young Timmy’s young cock, while placing his own huge thing close enough to the lad’s mouth so that it might get the same idea. Troy was certainly enjoying himself—young flesh was always a treat—but he did wish that the handsome thing were just a wee bit more experienced and didn’t just lie there so passively and would The Gnome be here tonight because his supplies of dust and dope were running low. The pretty ones are always bores in bed, Troy thought to himself, realizing that he was in a position, as Heiserdiener-Thalberg-Slough’s creative director, to know, choosing as he did all the male anatomy for their masculine accounts, of which there were many, H-D-S being New York’s butch agency, not only Winston, but all of those other rugged ads where half-naked guys cavort in the surf with either menthol sticks or underarm deodorants, or else the more clothed lumberjack approach where humpy numbers run through pine trees with axes to proclaim their regularity due to some natural ingredient, or else some incredibly butch Hotness who could never, never, be a hairdresser stands there with comb and scissors and slyly intimates that only her hairdresser knows for sure—Troy had created these all and had had not a few of the models before, during, and after conception—wasn’t God good to him, then and at this moment, what was it with him that he so attracted youth?—was it just that he looked like what everyone wanted for a father, without the threat or the control?, he kept his mouth shut, he liked to laugh, he didn’t get possessive, and being dressed by Paul Stewart when everyone else was dressed by Army surplus made just that extra bit of difference.
