How Long Has This Been Going On (64 page)

"So, tell me, do you think you and I can write a score?" the Kid asked Walt over the coffee. "I mean, how do we know where the songs come?"

"They come where the feelings are. Where you
need
music."

"Hmm, yes, well. We have this character, the music professor Doctor Fleshgobaldi. So he gets a solo, I presume, and it's... what? About how he's this big fake, with jokes about Beethoven's Tenth and quotes from... What's that look on your face?"

"That's what they expect, Mr. Troy."

"Johnny."

"The songs should please them with surprise—tell them what they hadn't imagined, not what they suspected."

Johnny, corrected once too often this morning, was about to say something stifling, but suddenly—who knows why?—he reached out and brushed Walt's hair.

"Come on to my place," said the Kid, "and we'll look through it."

When they got there, the Kid offered Walt "some real coffee." In the kitchen, he went into a little number on the declining quality of that basic, all-American cup, on how easy it used to be to get good coffee anywhere. He was just about to reach When I Was Young—had his mouth all set, his head right into that Then versus Now mode—when he pulled back and shut up, because he's the Kid, and he's not ready to admit of a time when he was "young": for that means Now He Isn't.

Then Blue wandered in, nude and drowsy even after his shower, a towel over his shoulder, smiling at Walt as he passed on to another part of the house.

"Yes," said the Kid. "That's my live-in psychopath."

"I saw him in a movie," said Walt, quietly.

"Rodan Devours Harrisburg,
probably. They're talking of an Oscar, you know. Though I feel his performance in the title role of
Megalon Eats Gidget
..." The Kid saw the awe in Walt and trailed off.

"It was a serious movie," said Walt. "He was on top of every man in the film, and I could see he knew what he was up to."

"He's a pro, all right."

"Is he always here?"

"He lives with me."

"You must be content about that." Walt was walking around, nosing into things. "These are great theatre posters you have. I've never been to New York."

Blue came back. This time the Kid introduced them, and there followed a bit of conversation.

"Porn movies," Walt observed, "make you feel like a feeb if you can't have the same sex that the actors have. My political friends say that having very good sex is part of the Movement. They say every time we come it's a defiance of heterosexist oppression."

Walt had been addressing these remarks to the Kid, but now he turned to Blue. "Do you feel politically motivated in your work?"

Blue smiled. "It's just fucking."

Walt gravely nodded, as if they had agreed on an enucleation of a passage in Goethe. "Is it a torment, always getting hard on cue?"

Sleepy Blue looked as if Walt had asked, Is it a torment, always putting ketchup on your steak? But the Kid came in with "They keep fluffers on hand for emergencies."

"Fluffers?"

"To urge on their virility. Cocksuckers. Ready-men."

Walt smiled. "They do?"

Blue shrugged.

The Kid went on, "The trouble is, those two incorrigibles, Burger Queen and Flatterbox, have monopolized the calling. Let some anxious beauty take two or three seconds to get it up, and out rush Burger Queen and Flatterbox, mouths agape, throwing the studio into a tizzy. Yea, betimes they may hide behind a prop tree, crying, 'Fluffers on the set!' And out they pour."

"Do the other actors ever fall in love with you?" Walt asked Blue.

Blue, stirring honey into his coffee, looked inquiringly at the Kid.

"He's a very gifted young composer," the Kid explained. "We're working on a show."

Blue looked at Walt.

"I know I should fill out a little more," said Walt, as if rejoining some observation that Blue might be thinking of making. "And maybe a mustache to give me age."

"I think you look real sweet just like so," said Blue. "I don't want to be a feeb," Walt told him.

Not long after, Walt took a bus home, went upstairs, and knocked on a door.

"This is the house detective," he announced. "Do you have a woman in your room?"

He threw the door open: Tom and Luke were lying one-on-one, Luke's arms around Tom and the two of them grinning.

"Two
women!" Walt exclaimed. "Here comes the cannonball!" as he dove on top of them, to cries of "Hey!" and "Walt, darn it!"

"Don't pretend you were napping," said Walt. "But, listen, I think this is really going to work out about the job. And it's my
own
music! I'm a composer now!"

"Well, get that briefcase off my leg, anyway," said Tom. Luke kissed Walt's ear and said, "Congratulations." "Someday you're going to have to let me watch," said Walt, thoughtfully. "I need pointers."

"I sent you to a therapist," said Tom, getting up. "And what did you do? Hide under the bed!"

"I wasn't ready then."

Luke said, "You got a letter from Danny."

"Wow!
Where is it?"

"I left it in your room. And get your laundry together, because tomorrow's..."

Walt was already out of there. Letters-from-Danny days were serious business.

Dear Walt:

Danny is still trying to find a pianist so he can start up the act again, but nobody's as good as you were. It makes Danny impatient. He was auditioning this one guy on the
Show Boat
medley, and when they got to "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," the guy started jazzing it up and contorting it, so Danny put down his fiddle and shouted, "Did that come out of you?"

Your last letter worried Danny a little, because you sound really heavy about trying to have "ultimate sex." What even
is
that? I wish I knew. But Danny remembers all the nights he said he would do everything and get all blissed out. Then somehow it never felt all that great. I always tell him he shouldn't have let you move away. He should have begged you to stay or gone with you. Then we could all be together.

The letters would start with Walt-Danny things, then wander into local doings and chance tidbits such as "Win is dating Tom's old girlfriend Judith" or "Danny calls me 'Peanut.'" They always ended

Love, Claude

Evan was wearing the tight black skirt and the black leather lace-up bodice that shoved her breasts up and emphasized her long waist. "Looks should kill" was her motto. Two galoots drilling in the street gave her a whistle and the eye, so Evan stopped and said, "You like to fuck women?"

One was startled, wary; the other unraveled a smile and said, "Sure, honey, I like to fuck women."

"So do I," Evan told him, moving on, her heels clacking so loudly on the pavement they drowned out whatever the two guys were muttering after her.

Frank walked into the house just behind Evan, so of course he had to say hello in that amused way of his—because he knows she can't stand him. All right, at least he's gay, but will you give me a break from the he-man haircut and the cowboy drag? Christ, the guy must be fifty. That's one thing all men, straight and gay, have in common. They
never
give it up.

Letting Frank get ahead of her—Jesus, he's walking slow—Evan paused to light a cigarette till she saw Mr. Ironword come out of the second-floor apartment, walking the Ironwords' Highland white, Barkis. Cheese it, the landlord, Evan thought, ditching the butt and lighter in the hefty wallet she carried, held by a chain to a sort of watch pocket at the bottom left front of her lace-up. Tailor-made to her specifications, one hundred eighty-five bucks and worth it.

"Miss Zane." Old Ironword nodded as he passed; Barkis ignored her. Straight males, fuck the two of them. Evan lit her cigarette, inhaled deeply, head back on arched neck, like some goddamn dying swan. Lonnie Ironword suddenly appeared on the landing above her, but Evanplayed it cool. She and Lonnie are solid; he's about the only man she can stand. Believe it?—a
kind
male? But then, he's only twenty. Give him a few years and it'll be File my nails, bitch; and Swallow it, cunt; and Get on your knees and worship, squeeze.

"Hey, Evan," said Lonnie, heading downstairs. "How was the day?"

"Ha!"
said Evan, which was about as pleasant as she could get right after work. Reaching the third floor, across the hall from Frank's door, Evan keyed in, gave Alice the minutest of glances, plopped down and said, "Dis
gust
ed."

"I have a reading tomorrow," said Alice, looking up from her book. "For Chris Lundquist."

"Oh, him."

"I didn't expect you to be excited for me."

"So? When are you ever excited about what I do?"

"Nightly, in that bed."

"That's what's holding us together? The sex? That's all it is?"

"That's all it is," said Alice mildly, putting down her book.

"Come over here."

"No."

"Mmm, that soft voice. Sit in my lap. Rub my cheek and lick my ear. Open my clothes and make me wet. Whisper to me. Love me, do."

"Later."

Evan sighed. "What's that you're reading?"

Alice glanced down at the cover.

"What, you have to read me the title?" Evan challenged. "You don't know the name of the book you're reading?"

"It's a story collection. The title doesn't matter."

"What kind of stories?"

"Stories about women like us."

"They're writing dyke stories now? What's it called?"

"Women Who Love."

"Come here."

"Later."

Silent now, looking at Alice in a mischievous peering manner, Evan crossed her legs, swinging the top one heavily. "Actress, huh?" she finally said. "You actress."

"It threatens you."

"No, it doesn't
threaten
me. I just don't see why you have to... I don't know—"

"Meet people. Make comparisons. Enter someone else's world." "I don't figure why you would be named Alice. You're such a... such a dear little piece, folding into my arms. So lovely. Why aren't you Darla? Or Caprice?"

"You don't want me free."

"I want you over here, now."

This time Alice came.

"Oh yes," said Evan. "At last to hold you. Kiss me, Miss. That's it.... Yes, women who love, the feel of you. Your skin. I'm going to fuck you so beautiful tonight. You'll be a happy love slave, won't you? Oh, we're kissing... oh, yes. Mmm, more, Allie, more, because it's you and me. Say it."

"You and me."

"Like it."

"I like it."

Evan kissed Alice so deep and long she had to gasp for breath. "My Chinese bride," Evan said.

Across the hall in Frank's apartment, Larken—first-floor front—was heating up the soup he had brought upstairs to feed the exhausted Frank.

"I don't know what it is," Frank was saying. "I'm so tired all day long. I mean, it couldn't be... Skip it."

"Face it, Frank, we're old-timers."

"Yeah, well... God knows, it's almost impossible to keep your shape no matter how much gym you..." Frank groaned.

"What?" Larken asked.

"A funny pain somewhere. You know, Larky, I think I ought to give it up and let my body structure slide." He shifted position in his chair, groaned, shifted again. It couldn't be AIDS, Frank had started to say, though AIDS had overwhelmed many of the men Frank knew—men similar to Frank in their ruthless devotion to pleasure. But I don't have night sweats, or nausea, or those other things that you start out with. And I never got fucked. Besides, it just couldn't happen to me, right?

"I've been thinking maybe I'll give up producing porn," Frank concluded.

Larken, ladling the soup into bowls, said nothing.

"They don't need my kind of porn, Lark, and that's fact. It's not hulking daddies any more, it's little blond kids. Porn used to be about the imagination. Now it's an order of cute to go."

"Gee."

"At least video makes the tech easier. Used to be, you'd get whole scenes in the dark. Now it's just Turn on the light switch. This is good soup."

Larken, spooning up his share, just looked at Frank, as he invariably did now, in awe.
This man,
his eyes read. There's no one else like him. And I don't even care that I've been in bed with him.
Scored
him. I just care that I've known him. If he puts his arm around my shoulder and knocks his head against my head, I can beat off on that for a week. This man is so true, he could simply ask for the time and then walk into your dreams as long as you live.

"Frank," Larken began.

"What are these things floating in the..."

"Show me."

Frank did.

"Escarole."

"They taste healthy. I feel better already."

I love you, Larken continued, thinking it.

So, we have met most of the house on Hyde Street: top floor, Frank across from Evan and Alice; second floor, Lonnie Ironword and his parents, Philip and Neville; first floor, Larken in the little studio overlooking the street and, in three rooms at the back, Chris, who co-owns the building with Philip and Neville.

Chris is out tonight, having dinner with her boy friend, David J. Henderson. She calls him J. because she thinks his initial looks silly in the middle of such a weighty name; and he calls her Christine because he thinks she's too womanly to go by a boy's name.

They're at David's place, a smallish two-roomer on Russian Hill that revels in a state-of-the-art kitchen. David likes to cook. It always smells wonderful in his kitchen, aired-out and vegetable-ish, with the bowls of green and red peppers and tomatoes and shallots, and the file box of house-specialty recipes, and the industrial-strength spice rack. It's a real
place.

"Someday I'll live like this," says Chris. "With spotless surfaces and little bowls of things."

"You won't have the time," David observes as he peels an onion. "If you aren't directing, you're out drinking with the actors. Or you're holding a script conference or playing mother hen to some chap whose boy friend jilted him."