Tales of the City

by Armistead Maupin

  Michael was standing alone by the bar when Brian rejoined him.

  “Any luck?”

  Brian took a swig of his beer. “I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. She was weird.”

  “How so?”

  “Aw, forget it.”

  “C’mon. Gimme the dirt. Bondage and Discipline? Water sports? Satin sheets?”

  “She wanted to know if I was into … cockrings.”

  Michael almost shrieked. “You’re kidding!”

  “What the hell do they do, anyway?”

  “A cockring? Well, Jesus … lemme see. It’s this steel ring about … yea big … although sometimes it’s brass or leather … and you put it around your … equipment.”

  “Why the fuck would you do that?”

  “It helps you to keep it up longer.”

  “Oh.”

  “Isn’t life interesting?”

  “Do you have one?”

  Michael laughed. “Hell, no.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well … it’s just one more thing to remember. Christ, I can’t hang on to a pair of sunglasses for longer than a week.” He laughed suddenly, thinking of something. “I used to know this guy … a very proper stockbroker, in fact … who wore one all the time. But he soon got cured of that.”

  “What happened?”

  “He had to fly to Denver for a conference, and they caught him when he passed through the metal detector at the airport.”

  “God! What did they do?”

  “They opened his suitcase and found his black leather

  chaps!”

  Brian whistled, shaking his head.

  “It’s not too late for a cup of coffee at Pam-Pam’s.”

  “You got a date, man!”

  She Is Woman, Hear Her Roar

  SHORTLY AFTER SEVEN, BEAUCHAMP STUMBLED OUT OF bed and into the bathroom.

  DeDe rolled over and continued to breathe heavily, pretending to be asleep.

  This time she didn’t want to hear his excuse. She was numb from excuses, drained by the effort it took to believe in him.

  He had come in at 4 A.M. Period.

  There might not be Another Woman, but there were definitely other women.

  Her response to that fact must be forceful, reasoned and intrinsically feminine. She tried to imagine how Helen Reddy might have handled it.

  The phone woke her at nine-fifteen.

  “Hello.”

  “You asleep, darling?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “You sound down.”

  “Do I?”

  “Look … if it’s about the you-know-what … well, it’s a simple little procedure and you …”

  “Binky, I …”

  “It’s not like the old rusty coat hanger days.”

  “All right, Binky!”

  Silence.

  “Binky … I’m sorry, O.K.?”

  “Sure.”

  “I … had a bad night.”

  “Of course. Look … I called with a juicy one. Wanna hear it?”

  “All ears.”

  “Jimmy Carter is a Kennedy!”

  “Uh … once more.”

  “Isn’t that the absolute ripest gossip you’ve heard in months?”

  “Rank is more like it.”

  “Look … I’m only telling you what everybody was talking about at the Stonecyphers’ last night. Apparently there’s been some hush money paid to make sure that …”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Miss Lillian used to be Joe Kennedy’s secretary.”

  “When?”

  “Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport, darling. I think it’s a divine story.”

  “Divine.”

  “Well, it explains all those teeth, doesn’t it?”

  When she finally got off the phone, she headed for the bathroom with a shudder.

  A half-hour conversation with Binky was like eating a Whitman Sampler in one sitting.

  Avoiding the kitchen, she dressed hastily in a cashmere turtleneck and Levi’s, throwing on her Anne Klein suede jacket as an afterthought.

  She wanted to walk. And think.

  As usual, she went to the Filbert Steps, where the gingerbread houses and alpine cul-de-sacs provided a Walt Disney setting for her woes.

  She sat down on the boardwalk at Napier Lane and watched the neighborhood cats promenading in the sun.

  Once there was a cat who fell asleep in the sun and dreamed she was a woman sleeping in the sun. When she woke, she couldn’t remember if she was a cat or a woman.

  Where had she heard that?

  It didn’t matter. She didn’t feel like a cat or a woman.

  All her life, she had done as she was told. She had moved, without so much as a skipped heartbeat, from the benevolent autocracy of Edgar Halcyon to the spineless tyranny of Beauchamp Day.

  Her husband ruled her as certainly as her father had, manipulating her with guilt and promised love and the fear of rejection. She had never done anything for herself.

  “Dr. Fielding?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you at home.”

  “That’s all right. Uh … who is this, please?”

  “DeDe Day.”

  “Oh. How are you?”

  “I … I’ve made up my mind.”

  “Good.”

  “I want the baby, Dr. Fielding.”

  The Doctor Is In

  BEAUCHAMP DECIDED TO DRINK HIS LUNCH AT WILKES Bashford.

  There, amidst the wicker and lucite and cool plaster walls, he downed three Negronis while he tried on a pair of $225 Walter Newberger boots. He was fitted by Walter Newberger himself. “How does it feel?” asked the designer. “Heaven,” said Beauchamp. “Exactly the right amount of Campari.”

  “The boots, Beauchamp. You can stand up, can’t you?” Beauchamp grinned roguishly. “Only when absolutely necessary … Look, where’s your phone?”

  “There’s one in the mirror room.”

  Beauchamp lurched into the mirror room and dialed Jon’s office at 450 Sutter.

  “Hi, Blondie.”

  “Good afternoon.”

  “I’m in the neighborhood, Hot Stuff. Why don’t we rent a room at the Mark Twain and have a nooner?”

  “I’m quite busy right now. If you’ll check with my receptionist later, I’m sure …”

  “Oh, I get it!”

  “Good.”

  “You’ve got a customer in the office with you?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Is she cute?”

  “I’m sorry … I can’t discuss …”

  “Awww … c’mon! Just tell me if she’s cute.”

  “I have to go now.”

  “She can’t be cuter than me, can she?”

  The doctor hung up.

  Beauchamp laughed out loud, leaning against the stuffed cotton cactus in the mirror room. Then he sauntered back to the bar, where the shoe designer was standing.

  “Charge ‘em,” said Beauchamp.

  The Old Man was apparently still having lunch at the Villa Taverna.

  Beauchamp ambled into the executive suite and made a few mental notes to himself.

  The space wasn’t bad, actually. Clean lines and fairly decent track lighting. Once you got rid of those godawful hunt prints and tired Barcelona chairs, Tony Hail could probably do something really stunning with baskets and a few ficus trees and maybe some ostrich eggs on the shelf behind the …

  “Is there something you’re looking for?”

  It was Mary Ann, being very territorial about the Old Man’s lair.

  “No,” he said flatly.

  “Mr. Halcyon won’t be back until two.”

  Beauchamp shrugged. “Fine.”

  She stood stonily in the doorway until he had walked past her and back to his own office down the hall.

  That night Mary Ann submitted to an urge that had plagued her all week.

  She told Michael about Norman … and the wei
rd night at the Beach Chalet.

  Michael shrugged it off. “What’s the big deal? You’re a foxy lady. You break hearts. That’s not your fault.”

  “That’s not the point, Mouse. I just can’t shake the feeling that he’s … up to something.”

  “Sounds to me like he’s blowing smoke.”

  “What?”

  “Trying to impress you. Have you talked to him since then?”

  “Once or twice. Just superficial stuff. He bought me an ice cream cone at Swensen’s. There’s something terribly … I don’t know … desperate … about him. It’s like he’s biding his time … waiting to prove something to me.”

  “Look … if you were forty-four years old and selling vitamins door to door …”

  “But he isn’t. I’m sure of that. He told me he isn’t … and I believe him.”

  “He sure carries that stupid Nutri-Vim case around with him enough.”

  “He’s fooling people, Michael. I don’t know why, but he is.”

  Michael grinned devilishly. “There’s one way to find out.”

  “What?”

  “I know where Mrs. Madrigal keeps the extra keys.”

  “Oh, Mouse … no, forget it. I couldn’t.”

  “He’s gone tonight. I saw him leave.”

  “Mouse, no!”

  “O.K., O.K. How bout a movie, then?”

  “Mouse …?”

  “Huh?”

  “Do you really think I’m a foxy lady?”

  Not Even a Mouse

  THE CITY ITSELF, NOT THE WEATHER, LET MARY ANN know that winter had finally come.

  Ferris wheels spun merrily on the roof of The Emporium. Aluminum cedars sprouted in the windows of Chinese laundries. And one bright morning in mid-December a note appeared on her door.

  Mary Ann,

  If you haven’t made plans, please join me and the rest of your Barbary Lane family for a spot of eggnog on Christmas Eve.

  Love,

  A.M.

  P.S. I could use some help in organizing it.

  That news—and the joint attached to the note—boosted her spirits considerably. It was good to feel part of a unit again, though she rarely regarded her fellow tenants as members of a “family.”

  But why shouldn’t Mrs. Madrigal be permitted that fantasy?

  The Christmas party became Mary Ann’s new obsession.

  “… and after we light the tree, maybe we could have some sort of caroling thing … or a skit! A skit would be fabulous, Mouse!”

  Michael deadpanned it. “Great. You can be Judy Garland and I’ll be Mickey Rooney.”

  “Mouse!”

  “O.K., then. You be Mickey Rooney and I’ll be Judy Garland.”

  “You’re not into this at all, are you?”

  “Well, you certainly are. You’ve been running around for three days acting like Gale Storm organizing a shuffleboard tournament.”

  “Don’t you like Christmas?”

  He shrugged. “That isn’t the point. Christmas doesn’t like me.”

  “Well … I know it’s gotten commercial and all, but that’s not …”

  “Oh, that part’s O.K. I like all the tacky lights and the mob scenes and the plastic reindeer. It’s the … gooey part that drives me up the wall.”

  “The gooey part?”

  “It’s a conspiracy. Christmas is a conspiracy to make single people feel lonely.”

  “Mouse … I’m single and …”

  “And look at you … scrambling like mad to make sure you’ve got someplace to go.” He swept his hands around the room. “Where’s your tree, if you’re so crazy about Christmas? And your wreath … and your mistletoe?”

  “I might get a tree,” she said defensively.

  “It wouldn’t make sense. It wouldn’t make a damn bit of sense to trek down to Polk Street to pick out some pathetic little tabletop tree and spend two days’ pay decorating it with things you used to like back in Cleveland, just so you could sit there alone in the dark and watch it blink at you.”

  “I have friends, Mouse. You have friends.”

  “Friends go home. And Christmas Eve is the most horrible night of the year to go to bed alone … because when you wake up it’s not going to be one of those Kodak commercials with kids in bunny slippers … It’s going to be just like any other goddamned day of the year!”

  She slid closer to him on the sofa. “Couldn’t you ask Jon to the party?”

  “Hey … drop that, will you?”

  “I think he liked you a lot, Mouse.”

  “I haven’t seen him since …”

  “What if I called him?”

  “Goddammit!”

  “All right … all right.’“

  He took her hand. “I’m sorry. I just … I get so sick of the We People.”

  “The what?”

  “The We People. They never say I. They say, ‘We’re going to Hawaii after Christmas’ or ‘We’re taking the dog to get his shots.’ They wallow in the first person plural, because they remember how shitty it was to be a first person singular.”

  Mary Ann stood up, tugging on his hand. “C’mon, Ebenezer.”

  “What for?”

  “ We’re buying Christmas trees. Two of ‘em.”

  “Mary Ann …”

  “C’mon. Don your gay apparel.” She giggled at the inadvertent pun. “That’s funny, isn’t it?”

  He smiled in spite of himself. “We are not amused!”

  Enigma at the Twinkie Factory

  AFTER WEEKS OF WORRYING ABOUT IT, MONA FInally embarked on her secret plan to reunite D’orothea with her parents.

  There wasn’t that much to go on. She learned that Twinkies were made by the Continental Baking Company and that there were two locations in the Bay Area. One was the Wonder Bread bakery in Oakland. The other was on Bryant Street.

  “Thank you for calling Hostess Cakes.”

  “I … do you make Twinkies?”

  “Yes, we do. Also Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Crumb Cakes …”

  “Thank you. Do you have a Mr. Wilson there?”

  “Which one?”

  “Uh … I’m not sure.” She almost said “the black one,” but somehow it sounded racist to her.

  “Donald K. Wilson is a wrapper here … and we have a Leroy ?. Wilson, who’s a baker.”

  “I think that’s the one.”

  “Leroy?”

  “Yes … May I speak to him, please?”

  “I’m sorry. The bakers work the night shift. Eleven to seven.”

  “Can you give me his home number?”

  “I’m sorry. We’re not allowed to divulge that information.” Christ, she thought. What is this? A nuclear power plant or a fucking Twinkie factory? “If I came down there … tonight, I mean … would it be possible to talk to him?”

  “I don’t see why not. On his break or something?”

  “Around midnight, say?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You’re on Bryant?”

  “Uh-huh. At Fifteenth. A big brown brick building.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “May I leave a message for him or anything?”

  “No … Thanks, anyway.”

  D’orothea got home at eight o’clock, devastated by a ten-hour session before the cameras.

  “If I never see another plate of Rice-a-Roni, it’ll be too soon!”

  Mona laughed and handed her a glass of Dubonnet. “Guess what’s for supper?”

  “I’ll kill you!”

  “Hang on … pork chops and okra!”

  “What!”

  Mona nodded, smiling. “Just like your mother probably used to make.”

  “What a shitty thing to say about somebody’s mother!”

  “Well … your foremothers, then.”

  “Have you been reading Roots again?”

  “I like soul food, D’or!”

  D’or scowled at her. “Would you like me if I weren’t black?”

  “D’or! What a thing to
say!”

  After studying Mona’s face for a moment, D’or ended the discussion with a smile and a wink. “I’m just tard, honey. Les go eat dem poke chops.”

  After dinner, they lay by the fire and looked at color transparencies of D’orothea modeling Adorable Pantyhose.

  It seemed like a good time to tell her.

  “D’or … Michael’s asked me to go with him to a late show at the Lumiere tonight.”

  “Good.”

  “You won’t mind if …?”

  “You don’t have to ask my permission to go to the movies.”

  “Well, normally I’d want you to come along …”

  D’orothea patted her hand. “I’m gonna crash in ten minutes, hon. You go have a good time, O.K.?”

  Shortly after midnight, Mona’s heart was pounding so fast that the Twinkie factory might as well have been the House of Usher.

  The waiting room reminded her of the lobby of an ancient Tenderloin hotel.

  She rang a buzzer at the information desk. Several minutes later, a man who appeared to be a baker asked if he could help her.

  “Do you know Leroy Wilson?” she asked.

  “Sure … wanna talk to him?”

  “Please.”

  The man disappeared into the back, and another ten minutes passed before Leroy Wilson presented himself to a mystified Mona Ramsey.

  The baker was dusted with a fine coating of powdered sugar.

  And his skin was as white as the sugar.

  Anna Crumbles

  THE COUPLE TRUDGED UP THE DARK MOUNTAINSIDE along a narrow mud path that was slick from similar pilgrimages.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  She checked her watch. A man’s Timex. “A little before midnight.”

  Something other than the fog caused him to shiver as they moved through the eucalyptus forest. His companion seemed unperturbed.

  “You’re a stout-hearted woman, Anna.”

  “What’s the matter? Can’t keep up? This little jaunt was your idea, remember?”

  “I don’t know what the hell got into me.”

  She didn’t say anything. He looked down at her and brushed a strand of hair away from her face.

  “Yes I do, Anna. Yes I do.”