How Long Has This Been Going On (46 page)

"You let manager Lois catch you at it and you gonna get busted right out of the place. Wait, open up the top button on your pants. Yeah, and lower them a trifle. Let's see." Nodding approval at the effect, Jezebel went on, "Open-shirt look would be best with that green."

"How's this?"

"Gone have to graduate you past this egregious Lester to something more substantial."

"Like those white boys you're always chasing?"

"Not just chasing, catching. And
someone
around here has to promote harmony between the races, don't I?"

"How about a drink of the house water before we go?"

Filling a glass at the tap, Jezebel said, "Got to admit, I'm in the mood for a dance today. This fit right in with my plans. But what we
really
should be doing is marching through the city in organized might to demand reform, not dancing our asses off and scoring bish."

"Tasty water," said Louis, putting down the glass.

"That's it, don't listen. But someday it's got to happen. I can be poor and I can be loveless, but I ain't gone be no second-class citizen."

"So which would you take if you could choose—homo liberation or black equality?"

After a bit, Jezebel said, "Now, that's a funny question. I never looked at it so separate before." "Let's go to the dance."

"No, wait a moment as I collect my thoughts."

"Talk as we go," urged Louis, pulling the door open.

Walking downstairs, Louis went on, "Or put it this way—which do you think we'll get first, if we get either? What do they hate more, the different race or the different sex?"

"One thing about haters," said Jezebel, "is they don't feel good unless they're
omnivorous."

Chris, sharing a joint with Thompson and Chase in their dorm room, got a little giggly and asked them, "Who will dance a tango with me?"

"Not now," said Thompson.

"Not even later," said Chase. "It's a dance, not your high-school talent show."

"Oh, well," said Chris, deflated.

The two boys shared a look.

Fag hag,
thought Chris. Well cast but in the wrong play. I should be with Ty. That would be miscast but in the
right
play.

Paul was so excited to be in on the shindig for once that he decided to splurge and pick up some beefcake on Third Avenue as his date for the dance. Let those contemptuous youths see him with a handsome devil on his arm. They'll change their tune! And wait till they see us leaving together. Ha!

Riding the bus up Third Avenue, however, Paul began to fret. What if the hustler cheated him—demanded cash up front and then absconded? What if he stabbed Paul? There were stories. Besides, what does one say to a hustler in the first place?

In the event, Paul stepped off the bus and found himself immediately face-to-face with the most
extraordinary
young chap, with an easy smile and wicked eyes. Overbite! Cheekbones! Shoulders!

"Nice night," said the young man.

It
can't
be this easy, surely. "Yes, it's... lovely," said Paul.

"Saw you lookin' me over."

"I... was?"

"My name's Blue." Extending his hand.

"I'm dance. No, I
mean,
I'm going to a dance and my name is Paul and I'd love to take you with me. It's called 'Revolutions.'"

"Sorry. Got to work."

"Of course. I
mean,
your work would be... squiring me to the dance." No, that sounds girlish. "I mean, I'll
pay
you to come with me."

"Where's the dance at, now?"

"Downtown."

"How long'll this take?"

"Till you... want to leave...."

The boy nodded, thought, looked around, then back at Paul. "And date you after?"

"... Date me?"

"That's right."

"Oh. I see. Yes. Well."

"Cost you extra."

"Yes, of... Well, how much?"

"All you can spare and then some, is my guess. 'Cause I'm special."

"Yes, I see that."

"I like fifty."

Paul's face told Blue that that was not to be, so Blue added, "'Less you got a counteroffer."

Aching for this to work, Paul pulled out his money clip, counted his wad, and said, "All I have is forty-six dollars, and it's three dollars each to get in, plus drinks and carfare and—"

"Thirty'll do it for my time, all told."

"Dear me, that's cutting it so close."

Blue shrugged.

"Very well," said Paul. "We'll take the subway down, so speedy that way. Your name was..."

"Blue."

"You look so handsome and smooth in that vest. Wait till we parade in, I'll show those queens. I'll show them Revolutions!"

Frank was combing Eric's hair, trying to figure out what would be hot but not too alluring on an underage kid who was so starved for affection he'd go home with Godzilla.

"This is great," said Eric. "Me and big Frank at the dance. Boy."

"Hold still. I'm going to give you a haircut."

Wrapping a towel around Eric's shoulders, Frank took up the trimmingshears and snipped a bit off Eric's sides, leaving the top full, a look that only became common a generation later.

"I'm trying to give you a sophisticated kind of style," said Frank. "So people will think you're older."

"Yeah, you can trim me anytime, big boy."

Smiling as he brushed out the stray hairs, Frank said, "Where did you pick up that line?"

"Paul does stuff like that. He talks back to the TV. Like when some hunk shows up. Here's another one—this is during a western, and the hero comes in." Approximating Paul's slightly mincing air and snaky arm movements, Eric said, "Oh, cowboy, is it time for the roundup yet?"

Frank and Eric laughed together, then Eric turned and put his arms around Frank, silently entreating him for the hundredth time to let Eric stay in this magical haven where Frank lived. Gently disengaging, Frank said, "You look real sweet tonight. I bet you'll meet someone special at the dance, and your whole life will change."

The phone rang.

"Just give me two shakes, and we'll head out," said Frank, pulling up the receiver with "Yo."

"Frank?"

"Speaking."

"It's Larken."

Silence.

"Frank, I know you're startled. It's been years and everything, but I tried Information and there was only one Frank Hubbard. See, I met some friends for lunch and we decided to go to a movie. There's a porn house in the Tenderloin, and it was supposed to be this big jok
e-ez-vous
kind of thing. But
you
were in the movie, Frank! And I was... I don't know, seeing you again. Frank, you look so great! I'm half-bald and my stomach hangs over my belt a little, but you're plain old godlike, as if you froze at thirty-two or something. And, Jesus, Frank, the muscles on you! I don't remember you like that. I told my friends how you were my first beau, and they laughed at me. So I said, 'Just wait till the credits and you'll see his name is Frank Hubbard.' Only now you're Rod Lockin.... Frank, are you there?"

"Shit, it's good to hear you talk to me, Lark." Frank sat in the armchair, as Eric stared, wondering what was happening.

"I don't remember how we lost contact," said Larken. "We didn't quarrel, did we?"

"No, your boy friends kept putting me off and irritating me, so I... Larky, how are you? Are you still living in—"

"Yes, it's so dandy here, Frank! It's so really open! I mean, in the Mission or Polk Gulch, everyone knows what you are and nobody cares. They say gay guys are literally crowding the town. We may even take over."

"I've missed you, Lark."

"Frank—"

"I don't think I can say how much. I don't think I realized until now."

"Gee, Frank, why'd we ever get out of touch? So many times something happened and I thought, If only I could tell Frank about it."

"Same here."

"Boy, you were some show in that movie. The way that guy—the painter?—was watching you while you were topping him. And the look on you, guy! I guess that's why my friends thought I was making it up about knowing you. They didn't want to believe that I had... felt what that's like. And it's funny, because way back then I didn't have anything to compare you to, so what did I know? It was just Larken and Frank to me, us two. And I've had so many beaux since then, some really good guys and some cads, I guess. Some for a week and some for longer. But, see, Frank... see... none of them ever... I mean, they weren't you. And that movie—Frank, I was awed. I kept thinking, I had that. That incredible man liked me once."

"Lark, I want to see you. I want to always talk to you. Nobody listens to me. I've got these plans about another movie, a better one. Something about what we are, right? But when I try to tell people, they say, Why don't you just have two guys fucking? Lark, that isn't all that our life is about!"

"I would listen to you, Frank."

"You always did." Frank was weeping. "You're the only guy in the world who knows me at all. Because you listened."

"I'm neater now, Frank. Carpenter—one of my old beaux—was like a drill sergeant. You should see me unpack the groceries. The flour goes
here,
and the milk goes
there...."

Frank wiping his eyes. "That didn't matter, anyway." More tears. "Lark..."

"I'm very organized about cooking, too. I've always got tubs of potato salad and chicken drumsticks in the fridge for noshing. Sometimes I nosh right through the day and never have to fix dinner or anything."

"Would the chicken be well done enough for me? Because I recall the way you—"

"All these years, Frank—
all this time
—and you're still the only guy I know who likes his meat incinerated. Gee, I'd have to store a special batch for you, I guess, taped with your name. That's how Carpenter made me handle everything. Name tapes on our special foods. Like, he loved day-old salad. Or if there was only one portion of rice pudding left."

"Listen," said Frank, getting up a smile now, nearly laughing. "I've got a dance to go to and a world of eyes to fascinate. They're looking for me, and I love it, you hear me, Lark? But give me a number so I can call you tomorrow, and we'll talk. Right?"

So they did that, and Frank took Eric to the dance; but on the way, Eric said, "I can't believe I saw you crying." Frank replied, "I'm like anyone else. I get scared by the size of my disappointments."

Kingdom Come lay on the Hudson River, in a rehabilitated warehouse south of Morton Street, a wide-open space that Lois had broken into one large central dance floor surrounded on the south and west by wet bars and on the north and east by bleachers. The building's original supporting pillars were left standing to mark out the geometry, and balconies overhanging the side sections provided the offices, staff changing rooms, and spaces for private parties. These last proved an irritant on off nights, when couples would break in to neck and indulge in drugs of pleasure. The sight lines were awkward from downstairs, so these party spaces afforded genuine privacy whether one belonged there or not; but Lois could always sense when something fancy was going on, and would charge upstairs and throw everybody out.

Actually, Lois found it almost amusing how elaborate the sex could get up there in the darkness, especially on gay night; but the drugs outraged her. "Why can't they get high on dancing and beer?" she would ask. In the four years since she had opened Kingdom Come, it seemed as though the street touts would introduce some new and yet more unsavory delicacy every six months—"and fools rush in," said Lois, who in all her life had never touched anything stronger than wine and, once, a puff of weed, and who looked on with dour misgiving as, now and then, some gay brother had to be carried out of the place, babbling in narcotic delirium.

It was Elaine who suggested the vaguely Space Age motif of the decor—"so they'll know," she explained, "that they're not in the Peppermint Lounge or Arthur." They knew it, in fact, because of the clientele, younger and more simply dressed than the setters and toadies of trend who jammed the better-known discotheques. Lois had no desire to compete with those places, so often the living end this year and a morgue the next. Nor did she think Kingdom Come grand enough to deserve French. "Discotheque?" she'd say. "It's a dance hall!"

Gay night was her favorite, in part because there were never any fights, unless some joes slithered past the bouncer (a veteran with a practiced eye for Us and Them) to make trouble. Elaine liked gay night, too, because the boys struck her as pioneers, experimenting in the creation of a culture—unlike the habitués of Thriller Jill's, who willingly accepted rules that others had laid down. Jill's was so dark, gloomy but for the shrill banter of the warring queens. Gay night at Kingdom Come was colorful, like those handkerchiefs that some men wore in the back pocket of their jeans. The left pocket marked one as active, the right as passive, and the colors denoted one's particular sexual finesse. Blue, red, green, white, yellow: Who had originated this custom, and what did the colors mean?

And who was it who decided that certain songs were key items, slow dances for lovers, calmly radiant in each other's grip, and the rave-ups for narcissistic display, two men facing but never touching—confronting, perhaps, goading and reflecting? When the disc jockey chose an especially relevant title—the Tommy James ballad "Crystal Blue Persuasion," say, or the hectic "Grazin' in the Grass"—a great mass sigh would rise up and a people would stream onto the floor, finding identity in their anthems.

Nowadays, the lighting man is an essential element of disco technology, getting major billing on the flyers. In 1969, he was little more than an underling aiming a spotlight. Every now and then, as if making a gesture toward Kingdom Come's sci-fi atmosphere, Lois would flip a switch that threw a halo over the dance floor; there was as well an elaborate meteor-shower effect, made of countless tiny lights embedded in the ceiling. This was used most sparingly, because, as Lois put it, "The only one who gets anything out of it is the power company."