Faggots

by Larry Kramer

  And everyone mumbled: “Amen.”

  “So tell me honestly, Anthony, do you really like it?” Irving struck a peacock pose. He put one hand on the crush bar and stuck one up as if he were gazing out to sea and he smiled at the portholes as if even they were winking back their full approval.

  “Stunning, Irving. You really bring it off,” Anthony’s eyes were still looking for young Wyatt, also out at sea, who had been dancing in his arms in the mellowness of a closed-eye moment of butterscotch, only not to be there an open-eye later.

  Hans said: “Tonight, Irving becomes a man!”

  Anthony shrugged, then put a sad and protective arm around Winnie, as he thought: My boss a leather queen. Oi, Irving, we are the half-people in the half-art run by the half-talented, the stunted, it ain’t as good as the real thing, where is my real thing?, Fred and Ginger didn’t dance in Toilet Bowls! Wyatt, wherever you are, come back! But he said: “Yes, Irving, you’re a vision.”

  And Irving looked around him now, too. Where was his Dinky?, to see me on my blackhood night and be most approvingly surprised!

  “Ladies and Gentlemen! On our Junior Stage, past Dixie Disco, to the left of Lusitania, adjoining Rancho Notorious, and outside our Fucketeria, rush rush rush and give your attention to our next scene of the evening—The Mister Thick Dick, Mister Long Dong Contest!”

  That did it to Ephra Bronstein’s kishkas. Dicks and Dongs! She knew what they were!

  First Peetra and that newborn pisher in Paris. Then the Mizrachi mess (it simply did not pay to be so charitable). And now this place. Which made her sweat. She did not like to sweat. She did not like to sweat and she did not like to see so many fine fellows dancing with fine fellows. Why had she insisted that Abe bring her here? Particularly an Abe she was finding most difficult to communicate with in her golden years or any others. Ach, it took so much energy to be a part of toute society! Perhaps she should just retire to her Candlewood Lake and take some final vow of withdrawal like the nuns. Dicks and Dongs and Abes and Pishers and Sweat! She had rushed to powder her nose and have a quiet drink of water.

  Now this.

  Not that this Ladies Lounge of some place…she could not bring herself to say it…the Johnnie Bowl…, which was inexpensively decorated in pink paint only and concrete floor since after tonight it would probably receive little use, overwhelmed her…

  But something which called itself a Nancellen Richtofen did.

  This very tall drink of water sat opposite her, staring and smiling and staring some more, always talking, chatting inexhaustibly, then even a hand, ever so gently, on the knee…She was handsome, in the way that that nice Claudette Colbert had been handsome, if not so tall, and she was piercing Ephra with deep-blue eyes of intelligence and unwavering interest, all of which, or rather none of which, her current B’nai B’rith course on “Fully Utilizing the Energies of Your Golden Years,” had cared to deal with.

  At first, Ephra hadn’t noticed her. Then she noticed her a teeny bit. Then she noticed her a great big bit. Then she thought she was appalled. Then she decided she was not appalled. Then she decided that, Mama, wherever you are with your tennis racquets and sporting goods (had not Poppa parlayed a few baseball bats into the Number Three sporting-goods company in the country?, unable to become Number Two or One because golf and tennis were still then gentile games and “they” preferred to buy from their own kind, Wilson and Spaulding, so goyish), Mama, please to forgive me, but I am an old lady, also number Three, no, Number Four, no, Not Even in the Counting, yes, I am an old lady who wants some Number One Good Times before I die. And was God not giving her a last clue on what she’d been missing all these years?

  For the intense interest on the part of this younger woman was giving the older one hot pants.

  “You are not Jewish?” Ephra found herself meekly inquiring. Did our Ephra have an unknown thing for shiksas?

  “No. A German name. An American girl.” Nancellen’s voice was calm and evenly pitched and direct and honest. She knew how to cruise. She also had a penchant for older women, her own mother, now boarded up under her own stage out there in California, having been a cunt. Now here was Mrs. Ephra Bronstein, a mother-type certainly, and not without resemblances to her own—handsome, trim, chic, with only a superfluity of bosom in excess, a desirable excess, yes a most classy exterior, the riches of the world on the outside of her, is what I want on the inside of her?—yes, Nancellen, as her many conquests could tell you, was not one to beat around the bush, or rather, was one to do just that. She also was, at thirty, feeling the pressures of advancing age. Most of her Lesbian friends were now settled down, as opposed to most of her faggot friends, who never seemed to roost, and she was tired of being the single woman at all those dinner parties. Her career as a Bendel’s model had led her to a job at Catholic Charities, which had led her into feeling much warmer toward herself. So perhaps she was ready for a relationship.

  So she continued her plunge. “I am going to call you my Q.M. My Queen Mother.”

  “I am begging your pardon?” Ephra was not well-versed in chat. Yes, everything this evening was totally incomprehensible to her. Why, only a moment ago three little minties had rushed right into this very Ladies Room and felt her dress and its fabric’s texture and begged her to tell them where she’d bought it. Boys interested in dresses! But then had come Nancellen to the rescue. With a “Knock it off, you fairies!” So effective. Nancellen. Such an American name. Had she been there waiting all along?

  “Tell me, my Q.M., have you ever been to bed with a woman before?”

  Ephra looked up as several further male intruders, this time naked sprites, their ding-dongs bouncing up and down, rushed in and then rushed out with happy cries of silly glee. So these are Fairies, this is Fairyland. Did just being here require a different tongue and language?

  “Please,” she finally said, “please don’t talk such things, you are giving me excitement and now all I feel is confusion and I want my husband, Abraham, who is never with me when I need him.” And up she stood.

  Nancellen, sensing that such seeds planted must be harvested, or at least watered, as soon as possible, immediamente, pronto, schnell, otherwise the drought sets in, winter comes, love dies, stood up with Ephra.

  “Mrs. Bronstein, my Q.M., I think we might be meant for each other. It may not be tonight, for I sense this not the best of moments to show you the tender love you are obviously missing. But I shall find you. And you will have had time to think. And yearn. And to fantasize your Nancellen. And to be ready for her when she calls. And should you by any wild stretch of your journeyings be in the vicinity tomorrow of Fire Island Pines, I live on the Ocean at Sunburst.”

  Then Nancellen bent down to kiss the soft top of the Seligman and Latzed coiffure, and to touch the Dorothy Grayed soft cheeks, and to run her own long unpainted fingers o’er that ample B.H. Wragged bosom which had known much life. Ephra shivered. And it was not a shiver from cold.

  Then the tall one left the short one, standing alone. Again alone. She went out to seek her Abraham. She could not find him. So, what else is old? So she went home. Yes, home again. Alone.

  Though he was trying to feel and look chipper in his old and most favorite De Pinna seersucker, Abe was not succeeding. He felt far less jaunty than his suit. I am a new Poppa. How do I feel about that? How do I feel about a new son? She can’t have him! She’s a no-good! She will give him a bad name! She only blackmails me into larger alimonies! But what do I do with him? Ephra does not want him. Ephra will not even discuss. What do I do with such a mess?

  He had wandered off the beaten track and into the murky, shadowy, smoke-filled darkness that was the intimate meeting room known as Rancho Notorious. Looking around him, as best his gaze could penetrate, he began to feel even less jaunty, less chipper, more seared sucker. Men dressed like cowboys or in shiny black outfits were lined up, standing immobile like cigar-store Indians, stares fixed into space, not looking at each other, not smiling, not sayi
ng Hi and Hello, What’s New, How’s the Family…Yes, they are looking like things or pieces of meat on a rack. And none of these companions appeared to appreciate the sartorial splendor of seersucker. Abe had received many a withering eye.

  Yes, the place was dark, in the way pogroms were dark, though nobody seemed to be complaining, everyone seemed to be milling about without protest, what do they see in each other?, how can they see each other?, their faces come and go as the mirrored ball up there turns around; here is a handsome young fellow in denim, right now I should be in the denim business, with on his baseball shirt “University of Miami.”

  “Miami? I’ve been there many times,” Abe tried to chat. “What did you study there, if I may ask?”

  Miami, big and hunky and not meant for ordinary men, looked at Abe, then quickly looked away. Then, as if some vestigial rule of politeness, to such an older, fatherly type, unaccountably reasserted itself, he mumbled: “Political Science.”

  ‘That’s very important today. What sort of work do you do, if I may ask?”

  Evidently I cannot ask because Miami has walked away. In political science he will go absolutely nowhere.

  Have I seen enough? The dancings? The schvartza boy singing in a dress? The crowds rushing to see two fellows play with peepees? Now I have heard whispering of doings “Behind the Green Door.” Location scouting or not, I am not up to Behind Green Doors alone. Where is Fred? Who is meant to meet me here and take me there? And where are the nice nightspots where in the old days you just sat and drank some vodka and a pretty lady sat on top of a piano and sang her sad songs about love?

  He’d looked for Ephra, not too much, just a little, that was like the old days, too. Why couldn’t he make up his mind what to do with that woman? After all these years. Was she like some old suitcase he just couldn’t throw away?

  Once again he began thinking about, and wondered why he was thinking about, his Richie. His Richie who had so rarely given him anything to think about. He had said many times to Ephra: “I’m perfectly willing to pay attention to Richie if Richie would only do something worth paying attention to.” That Richie had somehow managed to get into Choate and Yale, Abe attributed more to his own name than his son’s abilities, and that he managed to get honor grades at both institutions Abe attributed to cheating. The last time Abe, if pressed to remember, had given the lad any true thought was when he was a lad, thirteen, and entering the son’s bathroom by mistake (he had been away for a marriage and not known Ephra had reassigned the toilets), and perceiving a revoltingly heavy odor, and looking questioningly at his younger, and allowing his gaze to trail down the boy’s naked body, he inquired why the genital area was overlaid with smelly mauve cream. The son, sheer terror rendering speech impossible, turned his face to the wall. Abe bent down to retrieve from the floor a depleted tube of depilatory and then smacked Richie as hard as he could, splat! with one hand, splat! with the other hand, until the tuchas of his younger son and heir, at that moment hairless, was truly very red.

  “How will you become a man! Life does not come to the hairless! When will you learn to grow up! When will you learn to become a conniver like your Pop!” were all the words Abe could call upon to yell.

  Yes, that was the last time, and why couldn’t Richie have been like Stephen the football player, Stevie the Class President, Steve the champion intercollegiate boxer, Steve-ala the successful lawyer with that nice wife and sonny in New Jersey and why am I thinking about my boys in such a place as this? All my boys!

  It is difficult to be philosophical in such a place. That black shiny stuff is leather! So much leather. Such a goyish fabric, leather. Though certainly none of these zombies is Jewish, particularly with such a sign on the wall as: WELCOME S.S. BERLIN!, with drawings of men’s goggle-hooded eyes and motorcycles, such goyish transportation, motorcycles, and an arrow pointing to something called “Cherry Grove,” which sounds most American to me.

  So the Nazi invasion returns! So Hitler lives! Nothing has happened in space and time. I hoped I would not live to see it again.

  His son, our Richard, would not, at this current moment, be in agreement. He was beyond space and time. He was beyond three dimensions. He was beyond care and woe and fear. He was Certyned, Drayled, Festinated, Orange Fluffed, Magicked, Codinexed, Misdayted, and a few Othered. He felt wonderful. And he had made a new plan!

  Everyone in this Toilet Bowl was his friend. “Hi, Tiger!” some bald pate yelled in greeting. “Hi, Tiger, yourself!” Boo Boo yelled in greeting back. Yes, tonight he even had enough courage to take a flyer up Park Avenue to growl at His Eminence himself, to leave with the doorman the note in his back tush Levi pocket, like some process server evicting, at last!, the one remaining holdout rent-controlled tenant who’d refused to move. Yes, he, Tiger, would do that. Yes, he would. Yes, he would.

  Yes, tonight I’m growing stronger, Boo Boo is becoming a Man!

  What a place this was! He left the slumming straights and was allowed by a black guard to pass Behind the Green Door. I’ll just take a little look. As a sort of prelude to my pits of sexuality. As a warm-up for Fire Island tomorrow. Rumor has it it’s all here. Somewhere. I’m only taking a peek. Being an explorer. Explore these inland waterways. I always wanted to travel. Jackie O they call this one, eh?

  He counted fifty urinals standing up. Along with all those men in front of them. Seems innocuous enough. And he thought there were fifty, although he could be counting double. But in the adjoining sister suite, the Radziwell Annex, he was perplexed to count the fifty urinals lying down. He wasn’t lying down. The urinals were. Along with all those men in front of them.

  “Hello, Uncle Richie. What are you doing here?”

  Uncle Richie knew the voice and knew the form and knew his fifteen-year-old nephew, Wyatt, and plotzed.

  “What am I doing here?! What are you doing here!”

  “Hiding.”

  “From what?”

  “Er…I’ll tell you in a minute. Do you come to places like this often?”

  “Places like what? How the fuck do you know so much?”

  “Er…I’ll tell you in a minute. Uncle Richie, as long as you’re here, why don’t you show me your thing.”

  “I think I’m having an anxiety attack.”

  “What’s an anxiety attack?” Wyatt put his Uncle’s hand against his crotch. The Uncle did not take his hand away.

  “Feeling your nephew’s cock is an anxiety attack.”

  “So you have been to places like this before. I’m glad. Now we have something in common.”

  Boo Boo gagged.

  “What’s the matter, Uncle Richie?”

  “Where did you get…that?”

  “It is kind of big, huh?” Wyatt proudly took it out for closer admiration. “It’s ten inches. I’ve had it about a year now and I charge ten dollars for it and I have $2,579.63 in my Morristown Friends School savings account.”

  The Uncle double-plotzed. “Jesus, Wyatt, how the hell do you ever expect to get into Yale doing things like that!”

  There were a few groans from adjoining clumps of shadows doing things to each other. Richie protectively tried to shoo them away from his young relative. With his free hand.

  “It’s OK, Uncle Richie. I’m quite experienced.”

  “Wyatt…you’re a fucking freak!”

  Wyatt didn’t want to, but he began to cry. It was beginning to close in on him that the Big Boys’ World might be a lot more to handle than he’d been accustomed to having handled. It had been much easier just charging for it in the dark. But now he’d fallen in love with an older man who seemed to be in constant rather nervous states (didn’t it get easier when you got older?), only to be dancing in his arms and look up to see my own grampa walking along the edge of the dance floor, causing me to burp, grab my crotch which suddenly hurt, then run and hide in this place, only to discover my very own Uncle who seems to be in worse shape than Anthony. Yes, Wyatt began to cry. “Don’t you like it, Uncle Richie?�
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  “What the fuck are you crying for!” Boo Boo was not sympathetic. Though the two of them had never been close, Wyatt had, indeed, always looked upon his uncle as something of a necessary evil, he never remembered Wyatt’s birthday, and Richie was jealous that his brother, Stephen, loved his own son more than he’d ever loved Richie, nevertheless they were still kin, so Boo Boo shook Wyatt by the shoulders and berated him once again: “What the fuck are you crying for! Are you crazy! You’ve got something that every man in America, the world, the Entire Universe Since Time Began, would give his left, right, nut, his tits, hell, his soul for! Stop it, you silly ninny, and get down on your knees and thank God!”

  Wyatt started to get down on his knees and thank Richie, but Richie pulled him back up again.

  “Stop that!”

  “I just wanted to see yours!” “Why aren’t you using it on a girl?! You’ve got to use it on a girl!” “I showed it to one and she fainted! Have you shown yours to Marci Tisch!?”

  Richie sighed. He understood. Poor little fella. Poor big fella. “Well, listen, Wyatt, I don’t know what to tell you. You know any older women?”

  “Uncle Richie, I don’t think you’re very well-adjusted.”

  “Listen, Wyatt…,” the Uncle was trying very hard not to get hard, not to get excited, not to lose his drugged-out state—which this evening he’d calculated had cost him twenty-seven dollars even, no sales tax on drugs, and would have cost him only twenty-two if he’d brought more Magic last night, but The Gnome had already upped the price after his new line’s successful launch—and tried not to look at that hose pipe still dangling out below, and not add the size of it to his owner and equal that both of them were his nephew and twice as big as his and…

  “Uncle Richie, you have a hard-on.”

  “You little pisser!”

  “Where?…where?…” someone croaked from the darkness.

  “You little son-of-a-bitch freak!”