How Long Has This Been Going On (45 page)

"It's funny about guys and their types," Frank said. "How some of us go for big virile guys and others like some grinning kid. So what's your type, anyway?"

"I like someone who is kind to me."

"Is that how you think of me? Kind?"

"You know you are," said Eric, holding Frank tight.

"No one ever calls me that, you know? All they ever see is Pleasure Daddy."

"I would do anything with you, Frank. Anything you asked, to make you like me."

"I already like you."

Shivering momentarily, Eric held Frank yet tighter, and Frank held the boy truly, wishing the best for him.

The two sat together for a while, silent, limp, resting.

Then Frank said, "This is what our movies should be about."

"I think 'When are you going to get married?' is my all-time favorite, though," Henry was telling his older brother, Tony. "You notice, not 'Are you getting married?,' implying that you have some choice in the matter. No—
when
is it going to happen, because marriage is inevitable, isn't it? Choice? There's a
choice
? This really
amazing
assumption that because I am given orders I am going to carry them out!"

"Yes, but," Tony told Henry, for perhaps the thousandth time in their lives. "They're conventional people, that's all."

"I could be lying on a couch making out with a boy friend, running my hands over his skin, our jeans bursting open with everybody-fuck hotness, and they'd be sitting there asking me when I'm going to get married."

"Well—"

"What's funny about it is, they only want me married so they won't be embarrassed when their friends ask about me. I'm supposed to placate their
friends'
idea of acceptable behavior? Do you realize how ridiculous these people are?"

"Still, telling your mother to... how did you put it?"

"'Stick it up your flaming asshole, you stupid bitch.'"

Henry's brother laughed ruefully. That Henry. "I concede that they can be a terminal pain. But what does it accomplish to be rude to them?"

"It's part of the training. I make the penalty for nagging at me so expensive that they learn to hold it in."

"It didn't work, did it?"

"That's why I got rid of them."

Henry's brother laughed again, shook his head. "Henry," he said, "you can't get rid of your parents."

"You know," said Henry, keeping his voice low and looking at his brother spang on, "everywhere I turn there's some heterosexual telling me what I can and cannot do. I'm getting bloody fucking sick of it."

They walked on for a bit in silence. Beach, late April, a bit of a wind up, Jersey Shore, Henry's traditional first weekend in May with his brother's family. Who cares where they are? It's the words that matter.

Tony finally said, "Well, there's no law that says... Okay. But doesn't it feel funny?"

"Does it feel funny that I no longer have anyone in my life who nags and criticizes and hacks away at me? No, it doesn't feel funny. It feels great."

"You don't miss them at all?"

"They drilled away at me for some twenty-five years, and every time they struck I got a little more alienated. What would I be missing? I don't even
like
them any more."

Henry stopped walking. He said, "Look. Don't you realize what an infuriating nullification of everything I am that 'When are you getting married' shit is? You think it's just parents being bossy, don't you? No. Parents being bossy is 'Wipe your feet.' 'When are you getting married?' to a man who is gay and out is a deliberate assault on his very right to exist."

"Henry—"

"Don't you ever listen to anything, you?"

Henry's voice was still low but his face was savage. "You're like them," Henry went on. "Is that it?"

"Jesus, guy, calm down. I've always sided with you, haven't I?"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry.
Damn.
But you see the passion this subjectarouses? If I tell you I'm gay, then gay is what I am, and every observation you make about me from then on must take that into account. You can say, 'I hate you because you're gay' or 'I like you because you're gay' or even 'I have no opinion about your being gay.' But you
cannot
say, 'When are you going to get married?' I can deal with the bashers on one side of us and the cops on the other, because some of us are going to try to change the laws of the land so that people like me can enjoy a little live-and-let-live. But I will not deal with anyone who denies my very existence. Hear me, Tony—I
will not do it."

"Saved by the bell," said Tony, nodding up the beach at his wife and twin four-year-old daughters, Lee and Gemma, the kids scurrying delightedly toward the two men. "Here's Rebecca and all the little Szymanskis."

"What's your secret, anyway?" Henry asked. "How come they could never get to you?"

"I laugh at them. They're... What's that word you always use?" "Dildo."

"No."

"Cock ring?"

"Henry, will you give it a rest? It's the word that means cheap and silly."

"Tacky?"

"That's it. Tacky."

The little girls swarmed over Henry and Tony, clamoring a report of the day's events and a preview of the evening.

"We're having popcorn for supper!" said Lee.

"And peas," Gemma added.

"Not to mention fried chicken," said Tony's wife, Rebecca.

"Henry," cried Lee, pulling on her uncle's arm, "let's go in the water."

"No," Gemma countered, on the other arm. "Sand castles
now!"

Rebecca winked at Henry. "'Happy families are all alike,'" she said.

It's eleven o'clock on a Saturday night at the Everard Baths, and the joint is jumping hot. A small horde waits in the little coffee bar till rooms become available, and word has it that many notorious circuit beauties have checked in tonight. The mood could be described as "feverish but worth it."

Insatiable Martin staggers in, towel around his waist, grimly dreamy. He has just had three of the best-looking men in town, one more or less after the other, and he's ready to leave. Just a little coffee to steady himself and

... Oh, was that Helmut Bettendorf who just passed the doorway? Is he here tonight, too?

"I've never had him even once," Martin reminds himself, leaving the coffee to cool as he slithers off.

The Kid so enjoyed his weekend in Sea Cliff that he canceled his return flight to San Francisco and stayed out at the house with Elaine while Lois returned to the city.

Seeing Lois off was a sentimental moment for the Kid. We're talking twenty years here; we're seeing glances over the shoulder at the F.B.I, turn into gay nights at a dance hall. Lois just grumbled away, however.

"She's convinced that, five minutes without Lois, and everything collapses," Elaine told the Kid.

"I just don't want those rascally bartenders robbing me blind."

It worked out well, because Elaine wanted time off, by herself, to ponder how best to traverse this crossroads she had reached in her career; and the Kid proposed to explore the local terrain on the house bicycle, a green Raleigh that Lois used for errands. Now and then over the week, Elaine and the Kid took walks, gave each other a cooking class ("You want to learn how to erect a cassoulet in two hours flat?" the Kid asked; and Elaine replied, "It's my dream come true"), and watched television like critics, drunk on their own commentary.

Saturday night was the big gay dance at Kingdom Come, and Elaine and the Kid were to train in that afternoon. Over lunch—chunks of homemade sourdough bread and the last of Elaine's chicken-carrot-mushroom soup—the Kid said, "You still do everything so beautifully. You react with affection and you observe so generously. I read
Love and Money."

"Good God, a fan!"

"I was with a friend, and suddenly—this is on the street—he said, There's this book I can't go on living without reading, and he dragged me into City Lights and picked out this really
chic
piece of goods. And there's your name on it. I felt a shiver. As if something were beckoning to me from... I don't know. From some great force behind the scenes, combining us all. Like the way we're so famous for spotting each other? It's as if your book spotted me. So he bought it and I bought it."

"And read it, my Jerrett Troy?"

"Don't be shy, you know I loved it. You're a marvelous writer. But why are we all just...
suggested
? So many lines made me want to... You know? It's as if we
were
there but we
aren't
there."

"Well, we're in the next one," Elaine replied. "Except my publisher... Oh, every author uses that word when what we really mean is my
editor.
There's no great consortium atop you. It's one person, sink or swim. Anyway, my editor isn't happy with the new Elaine Denslow. What would you do if someone ordered you to..."

"Clean up the Act? Never."

Elaine smiled. "You live so purely."

"You want to know what's really youthful? You and Lois. You two inspire me—one couple having sex for twenty years."

"But you men think there's nothing to our sex in the first place. I imagine you: With no
member
going into her, what can it be worth? Ha, you blind souls."

"Enlighten us."

"I will admit that Lo does
at times
operate with a rubber contrivance shaped not unlike a penis. Even so, manipulation of this certain object utterly outclasses anything comparable in the flesh and will of man, at least as I experienced it."

"I always figured Lois for a top of death."

"A woman knows a woman's parts. So a woman can... well, 'fuck' a woman... You heard my quote marks?... with an insider's perspective. Remember, I was married. I've been with a man. The whole eight years, I came perhaps ten times. Are you shocked, I hope?"

The Kid shrugged, smiled, played with his fork.

"Now," said Elaine, "I come ten times in a weekend."

"I used to think that, to the heterosexual corporation, the most terrifying aspect of the gay thing as a whole was this image they have of a man screwing a man. Now I think a woman screwing a woman must terrify them even more. It's such a merrily nonchalant nullification of their power."

"Never. Those boardroom smoothies have no idea of what goes on in the ladies' room. Now, Johnny." Elaine checked her watch. "We've perhaps four minutes left.
But.
What of you? Could some strong and handsome man be waiting around a corner? I ask if there's any lovely doom written on your slate."

"Listen. I've had them top, bottom, and sideways. And
no one
ever caught me. I'm uncaged. I
have
to be—I'm Pan, remember? The boy who won't grow up?"

Elaine considered this.

"I knew you'd see it my way." The Kid looked at
his
watch. "Don't we have a prom to get to?" he asked.

* * *

Henry was doing that open-closet and pawing-through-the-drawers routine, where one stares and stares at one's clothes, trying to hit on Just the Thing that, combined with Just the Other Things, will transform one into the invincible, irresistible Universal Type. Dress up? Dress down? Show skin, feature the haircut, emphasize color, what?

Henry called Jim. "This is Sacred Acts' first dance," Henry said, "and its officials have got to show class. What are you wearing?"

"Jeans and a white T-shirt," said Jim.

"You're so smart! Why didn't I... It's clean, it's fundamental. It says, No one owns me. It says, Gay life is as basic as applehood and mother pie. It's the boy next door. It's—"

"Actually, it's just more comfortable to dance in. Especially later on when we go shirtless."

"Shorts would be even more comfortable," said Henry, wondering if he dared.

"No," said Jim. "The look is construction worker, cowboy, trucker. You never see them in shorts."

"Jeans and a T it is," said Henry.

Andy couldn't decide on the right tie. He wanted Henry to be proud of him, to welcome him into the fraternity—particularly tonight, on the eve of Andy's moving day.

Andy was elated, glowing with self-esteem. Henry had insisted that Andy move on the sly, without telling his parents—the less they knew, the less they could control, Henry said. Knowledge is a weapon, Henry said. Andy decided to tell them anyway, but to face them down no matter what they told him. Better to defy them than conceal from them.

And I
did
defy them!, Andy exulted, while balancing the green striped silk tie against the solid red cotton tie. I can stand up to them now. Maybe I shouldn't have given them the address—but how can you move without telling your parents where?

Working a handkerchief into the pocket of his blazer, Andy thought, At least my mother stopped mashing at me when I told her the address. In fact, she got, well, almost quiet. Pleasant, even, and sort of thoughtful. Maybe she's finally accepting that I am my own man.

* * *

No T-shirts or blazers for Jezebel:
This
night, he's going to
trip!

Going to pick me up some sweet piece of bish, too, he thought, staring in the mirror, turning, adjusting. Some scared-ass white boy in the mood to slum. Cream him all night, then kick him out forever.

Louis buzzed from downstairs; at the apartment door, he gave Jezebel a quick up-and-down and said, "Man, you are tight this evening. You are going for action, I can see."

Jezebel had moored a black mesh shirt over white sailor's pants, topped off by a Greek fisherman's hat. Louis, however, had pulled on any old thing, and Jezebel said, "This your idea of party apparel? You need color, you need jive!"

Louis shrugged. "I'll probably end up with Lester, same as always. He doesn't care how I dress."

"Lend you my green silk shirt," said Jezebel, pulling open a drawer, "so you can upgrade your selection of sexual partner. Don't dance too much and get it all mildewed."

"Dance?" Louis snorted, trading shirts. "I'll proceed to a quiet corner with Lester and have our usual heart-to-heart grope."