by Larry Kramer
Then Bilbo climbed up on a table and officially proclaimed: “I pronounce this party and this summer as of this moment Launched!”
And Bilbo and the table both fell down.
And at this moment, Fred thought he knew why he persisted.
A further melee was occurring around Tarsh and Mikie.
“You borrowed my douche and didn’t clean it out,” Tarsh had teasingly said to Mikie.
And Mikie, whose drugs were not yet working, which made him very cranky, could not believe his ears. “I number one didn’t borrow it, and number two if I had, which I wouldn’t have because I have a douche of my own, I would have cleaned it out, because everyone knows I’m very clean, and anyway how could I have used it when I haven’t been fucked in weeks!” And then he started to cry. For how could his beloved Tarsh, who always led them with such good advice, be so threatening to him now?
Yes, at this moment, Fred thought he knew why he persisted.
As faces turned to watch both Bilbo righted and Mikie slighted, Randy Dildough slipped quickly up and pulled Timothy Purvis softly away and into a cranny off the kitchen and there he took him in his arms and kissed him with all the passion and need and longing and commitment he was now prepared to make. And Timothy Purvis, desiring to be free of Hans, whose perennial tongue and hands were now and again and still approaching near, just over Randy’s shoulder right, allowed himself to be kissed by Randy and responded with all the passion and need and longing and commitment he was now prepared to make.
“You silly child!” Hans Zoroaster, with his best heroic gesture of Do or Die, tried to pull the boy away from this unknown scavenger.
Wondering if he should slug an older gentleman, Randy was about to do so when impeding hands meant just for him slipped round his neck as well. Dordogna, a Do-or-Die-er, too, had approached this gathering of the hands.
Hans continued: “How can you throw me all away! People will kneel at your face! People will say ‘He reminds me of Winnie Heinz!’ For I am giving you the place in my stable of your true beloved Winnie Heinz!”
So Dordogna, her arm now safely through her Randy’s, commenced an incantation all her own. “Do you know, Rancé, I was talking this very afternoon to your Chairman, Mr. Musselman, Mr. Pip Musselman, who is an old and valued, cherished, very personal friend. And do you know, Rancé, we said such nice things about you! He was so happy to hear we, too, were friendly. Although I gather you have a troublesome film about a dinosaur. Such a cute idea, a film about a dinosaur. Perhaps it will catch fire in the suburbs. Would you like to see the rest of the house?”
Randy nodded dumbly, because he could see in the vista, the horizon, the mirage in the crystal ball just three feet before him, one old man kneeling in front of one youngster and said youngster now holding said older man’s hand. Randy, for this moment, personally felt extinct.
Yes, would the convergence of all ill auguries never cease!
Fred leaves for his journey. Rockets, eh? Well, I’ve got rockets, Dinky’s got sparklers, and that will have to do.
Richard Bronstein didn’t have rockets. But he wanted some. Rockets for courage, apotheosis, metamorphosis, anything at all that would help him move along. He felt awful.
When he’d finally summoned the courage to pick himself up and off the beach and have a look around this Forbidden Island, he’d found all his worst fears transmogrified into flesh. Oh, so much flesh! Everywhere! Everyone was Mr. America. And he hadn’t been able to be even a Mr. Soho Loft. His workouts hadn’t worked out at all. He wished he’d brought his tape measure so he could check to see if his muscles had deflated. He couldn’t look anybody in the eye. They can see I’m a loser. They can see I’ve got the smallest cock in captivity. They can just see it! He tried taking off his shirt, with the hope that his upper torso might induce a customer into pulling his package down from the shelf. I guess it’s because I don’t have a sun tan. They all have healthy sun tans. I’ve been staying indoors much too much. I’ll bet they’re all rushing off to candlelit dinners for eight or ten. I don’t have any place to eat dinner. With friends. Can I learn to eat spaghetti? No, Richie, that would be running away.
If his body wasn’t in the pristine condition he’d desired for this revelatory ordeal of a weekend, his mind wasn’t so hot either. He obviously had not been thinking too clearly these past few days. Or else he had been thinking much too clearly. He couldn’t decide which. The clearheadedness of his decision to undertake his undertaking in the first place had been made under drugs and now he wasn’t so certain he could be so clearheaded without some more. For his clearheadedness might be running down. But he’d taken more than he had ever taken. Certyn and Orange Fluff made it easier to believe. But he wasn’t so believing at present. And another hit of Certyn hadn’t helped. Maybe another hit of Magic. Maybe he’d run into The Gnome. Like he’d run into Garfield Toye.
Boo had slipped into The Marketeria with his shirt back on and his head down again to purchase the necessary sustenance for underground living. They had been sold out of Drake’s Yodels so he’d had to settle for two dozen Devil Dogs instead. If Pop comes at midnight like he was told to and I’m buried and Wyatt stands on top of my grave until Abe agrees to fork over the one million, that shouldn’t take more than one hour of haggling, Pop is so stubborn, which means one Devil Dog every two and one half minutes. I hope Wyatt is a good negotiator. He seemed to know so much in The Toilet Bowl. Everything seemed so logical in The Toilet Bowl. I wonder if they have free shrinks in Australia. Oh, God!
For there at the check-out counter was Garfield Toye. That gay activist and member of his brother’s law firm. Who had always given him the knowing eye in Stephen’s office. But to whom he’d always given the bum’s rush. “Don’t shit where you eat, Richie,” had always been his motto in Stephen’s office, where he signed papers for his various trusts.
“Richie Bronstein, as I live and breathe!” Garfield had positively exuded, his suspicions now confirmed.
“Unh, hi, Garfield.”
‘I’m certainly glad you and yours are finally getting it together. I’m really proud of you!”
“That so. Any particular reason?”
“I just ran into your Dad and I think it’s wonderful that you’re all out here en famille! A family that plays together stays together. Truth and honesty are best! I invited him over for a drink to my house on Sunburst. Why don’t you come, too? I’ve simply got to rush now or Nancellen will be furious! It’s the last house on the right.”
So Abe was here and the die was cast and the cast wanted to die.
And where the fuck was Wyatt? Who was meant to meet me on the beach at ten. It’s ten. Have I lost my helpmate? We were meant to have a dress rehearsal. So I could try on a hole for size.
So Boo Boo was beginning to feel like he did when he was a kid running around the apartment, was it Fifth Avenue or Park Avenue then?, in his ballet tights with a paper bag at midnight on December 31st to catch the New Year and bring it in. But he’d never caught that fucking New Year and did anything this weekend look like he was going to improve his record?
But then he bent to pick up the shovel and watering hose and poncho. And there in the sand was a penny. A penny alone was a lucky penny. In those New Year paper-bag-catching days, he also loved to pretend when he found a lucky penny that just by picking it up he’d find another one under that. And so on. Until he had all the pennies in the world. And then he’d be rich. Which he was about to become tonight. At midnight! A lucky omen!
“Hello, Uncle Richie.” Wyatt approached his crazy uncle from out of the darkness.
“Where the fuck have you been!”
“I had to throw up a couple of times.”
Well, thought Boo, don’t lousy dress rehearsals always mean an opening-night hit?
So, grabbing Nephew and load of implements, he allowed the former to guide him and his latter, recollecting from somewhere “and a little child shall lead them,” hoping he’d soon be leading himse
lf, toward that more propitious spot in The Meat Rack where he was going to dig his grave.
Fred was walking the same ocean’s ledge, but further along, near The Grove, toward Dinky. He was now Chinese Water Torturing himself with why he was walking there. Why can’t I stop? Why do I still want him? All my years of therapy, why can’t I fit all the pieces of this puzzlement together? Why can’t two intelligent men rationally discuss the matter? Why am I refusing to look at his…peccadilloes for what they are? Perhaps that Dennis was an old friend with whom he had a pre-existing engagement, which he had overlooked in the heat of the banana. Oh, come on. What about all that in-and-out-and-over-and-above The Scene shit and all those items in the Wicker Exhibition that I’m choosing to overlook in the same tumidity? Inter-Chain. Leather. Dennis. Letters To and From the World. “Neurotic anxiety comes from a libido that has not found full employment.” Most helpful. We’ll both get jobs. We both have jobs. Me to be a dogcatcher and him to run away from the pound. Two cocks jet-propelled by fear. I think I should go on unemployment. Stop analyzing so much! I can’t. That’s like asking me to give up chocolate. But I have given up chocolate. More or less.
And then he was lapped by the overbearing vision of Algonqua, which stopped him in his sands. He saw her in the black and whiteness of his Washington Square; she had paid him a recent visit; she had been sitting in her bathrobe, her legs spread wide apart, unconsciously, of course, providing a view of Mommy’s interior regions to son’s shocked and embarrassed eyes.
And she had been talking about Lester.
“He loved me, dear, I know that, and he needed me, I know that. Yes, he was dependent on me and I know, deep down, he loved me and I helped him. I might have thought of leaving him, but we didn’t do things like that in those days and, anyway, I had made my commitment. He was the man I had picked. He had so many wonderful qualities. So I said to myself I will try and make him strong and successful, because I am strong enough for both of us. Everything would be all right.”
And Fred, whose most persistent childhood fantasy had been that he might be relieved of the two of them in an auto accident, and have brother Ben for a father, had wondered who this Pollyanna was talking about. Wonderful qualities? Lester?! He had wanted to yell at her: You manufactured a marriage that wasn’t there! an “us” that never existed!
He hadn’t so proclaimed and now here he stood, on the sands of Fire Island, deep in waterfront coverage, on his way to Dinky Adams, wondering why, and realizing that she might have been him, Fred Lemish, talking about the Dinky Adams he was on his way to.
At this cross-sands of insight, knowledge, and, dare we hope, Growth!, Fred was accosted by a short young man with a sweet face and a nice body and a kindly way. He had come straight up to Fred under the rising moon and said: “I’ve been looking for someone like you all of my life.”
Fred thought: Another druggie, though he’s cute.
“I mean it. My name is Leon. I can tell about these things. I can sense them. I’m never wrong.”
While he proceeded to put his arm around Fred, draw him into embrasure, then down to the sand, he also managed to relate that he was, truly, a Canadian multimillionaire, from one of the oldest families in that country, and that if Fred would come live with him and be his love, Fred would never want or need. “You’re wonderful. You’re just my type. I need a lover just like you. Let’s go back to my place. I really like to get fucked. Do you like to fuck? I just know you’re the one. I just know it. I’m never wrong.”
“Are you on drugs?” Fred asked.
“Heavens, no! You don’t do any of that either I hope. But you know, years ago everyone drank too much. Now it’s drugs. Drinking was much more messy. I drink. Although not now of course. Now I’m stone cold sober. Let’s go to my place.”
Fred tried to be polite and kind. “I’m already in love. I’m sorry.” And he attempted to pull himself up and away and on to Dinky.
But Leon was persistent. Many millions obviously gave him courage. “I’ll wait for you. Just tell me where. I’m very patient.”
“I said I was already in love.”
“I know you did. I don’t care. It has to be over sometime. I’ll bet it’s not working out. You’ve tried the shit. I dare you to try the real thing! I’m only here till tomorrow.”
“Please excuse me.” Fred was up, but Leon was holding on to a leg from below.
“Toronto’s really very close. And I just love New York.”
“Come on, let go!”
“I don’t want to.”
“Good-bye, Leon.” Fred finally managed his freedom and was starting to head Groveward.
“I’ll find you!” Leon called. “When I find someone like you, I don’t let go just like that!”
Fred stopped and said to him: “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I don’t have to. I can tell.”
Fred started walking again. Jesus. He sounds just like me. And what did I know about Dinky?
Yootha Truth, who had a partial share in a house on Shady, and who would be making a guest appearance tomorrow night at The Ice Palace, was sensing a need for change.
“I think Dolly Parton sings for America and I would therefore like to sing like Dolly.”
Rolla did not agree. He skated nervously back and forth across the worn linoleum floor. He thought the status quo should remain status. Things were going very well. There was already money for the bank. “How can you sing like Dolly Parton? Dolly Parton is soft and white and bouffant blond and biggest tits. She is southern white voluptuous. You are black dinge trash, gruesome and guttersnipey. Your growing legion of fans identifies you with the sewers and toilets from whence you came. You cannot disappoint them, Yootha. It is a good image and not one to tamper with.”
“It’s time to change all that.”
“People will talk. They’ll say Yootha Truth is turning her back on her own kind.”
Yootha Truth turned oceanward as he carefully chose his next words. The ocean cannot actually be seen from Shady, but it is not all that far away.
“I’m proud of all the things we’ve done, Rolla. But I’m just so proud of the new things I’m going to do. I don’t ever want to leave faggots. But I don’t think it’s fair for anybody to put limitations on a person. You put limitations on yourself, and I don’t feel I have any limitations. I feel I can do anything I believe I can and I’m going to give it a good shot, with I don’t care who’s in my way as my attitude. Yes, I am Yootha Truth of the Faggots, and that’s what I’ll remain. But people outside must hear my music, my true, real music, and I must do my very best to find it and let them hear it and the new real me. If they ask me if I’m a turncoat, I can only say I’m Yootha Truth.”
Adriana’s empire had emptied, “my goodness, don’t they run off quickly!,” she said running off quickly, after them, to the next party, was it the Oriental one?, in her ball gown, she hadn’t time to change, leaving Randy with Dordogna, Jacente’s tape still playing endlessly, now seductively, Dordogna thanked the God of Music, and she took Randy’s hand, he seemed to take it willingly, what else could he do at this moment in time?, a friendless arsonist facing a disastrous dinosaur, Timothy-less on an island of Timothys, and she led him into the tent-draped sanctuary that was Adriana’s Moroccan boudoir, scene of her ancient triumphs, where they lay back on large Casbah pillows thrown not casually here and there across the floor. Then, like Paul Henreid, she lit them both joints and they huffed and puffed and held the relaxing smoke deeply inside of them.
“Peace at last,” she said.
“Peace at last,” he shivered.
Randy looked up at the ceiling of gauze, softly puffing its own self in and out with the ocean’s entering breezes. One of these breezes brought with it The Smell of His Mother’s Lap. He had not had this sensation since he was a child, when he would fall asleep with his face in her crotch, rather pungent it was, like marigolds that were twelve days old. He had queried Dr. Lure why The Smell of His Fathe
r’s Lap did not wrinkle his nose in the same way. Dr. Lure had added this all to his article on “An Unusual Case.” No, he must not succumb to memories. He must fight against the past.
“Do you know,” he started, “I wonder if it would really be profitable to find a new James Dean? Perhaps interest in him has peaked and subsided. And didn’t he grow old unattractively? He was handsome in East of Eden, but by Giant he was a wreck.”
“You know, I think you are absolutely right. I didn’t know you were looking for him, but I entirely agree.”
“And I read somewhere recently that he had false teeth.”
“Completely unattractive. I agree.”
She was pleased with herself. Already they were in agreement. Such a distinguished houseguest corralled so quickly. She must contain her excitement. Act One of her new drama, perhaps even Act Two, was here upon them. Could she somehow bring it off…a happy ending…red hair in the sunset…Act Three…?
He was trying to conceal his stage fright. Deep down he hoped she would show some concern for his rocky (in one way, not the other) condition, did he require a re-call to Dr. Lure?, well this was a re-call to Dr. Lure, though how she was to know he was butterflies inside if he said nothing, if he remained the inscrutable stone face beside her, if he never gave of himself even a teeny bit, he couldn’t answer, nor could he answer if asked what he would specifically like her to do, expect her to do, should he be in the position of making the request, which, if he only knew it, he was, there was nothing this woman would not at this moment in time do, to please him, to put him at his ease, which he was not.
