How Long Has This Been Going On (69 page)

They went to Kaffee Klatsch, a trendy, "fern bar" version of a coffeehouse, which Alice haunted for the cucumber sandwiches and which Evan refused to set foot in. It was handy—just two blocks from the house—and wonderfully deserted in the afternoons, when Alice liked to have a bite, and think, and ready herself for Evan's Return.

"Actually," said Alice, after they had ordered, "I find it interesting, the way Chris manages the natural tension of rehearsals. Most directors I've worked with—in college, mainly—kept trying to bottle it up, so it would build and explode. Chris tolerates it. Because you can't bottle it up. It's
there
and you
can't."

"She's quirky," Fay agreed.

"Well, this is what I notice: As soon as the tension builds, she'll give it a shove and release it. Things never get out of hand, you see? With other directors, I've seen some terrifying..."

"'Geschrei,' they call it."

"I have enough geschrei at home. The woman I live with. A real stone bull." "Tell me everything."

Alice laughed. "No, it sounds too grim and decadent when you talk about it. And I hate the fighting. But there's something oddly appealing in the lovemaking. We go in for rough style, I have to say. I enjoy being..."

"Dominated?"

"More than that. Evan does the heavy things to me in such a loving way, it's a kind of higher bliss." Alice smiled. "That must sound terribly nuts to you."

"I've always wondered what it would be like with a stone bitch. I keep hearing the la-di-da about women tops, but all I've known is the push-me-pull-you type. You know, you do this to me, I'll do this to you. A round of kissing. Then we'll both do that..."

"I'm sure it's heaven with the right woman," said Alice. The food had arrived, but the two went right on, oblivious of the waitress. "Still, so many times before Evan, I found myself merely acting aroused out of politeness."

"Mmm, like marriage."

"With Evan, I never act. It's cards straight up on the table."

"I don't mind acting," said Fay. "I've been acting all my life."

Alice nodded. "Playing hetero."

"Not just that. In high school, I acted white. I was Barbie. I quit the Pep Squad because they developed a cheer based on a ghetto street rhyme." Fay shook her head ruefully. "I may still have a little white piece in me somewhere."

"That's why you're such a wonderful Suspicia. The village bitch scheming to jeer her rival and own the town—that's the whitest part going."

A moment, then: "You think I'm wonderful,
really?"

"Everybody does. Oh, it's you versus Johnny, day after day, and we can see him hating you for being so sharp, and loving you because it's for the good of his play."

"He's an odd boy," said Fay. "Sometimes it's like he's seen it all and sometimes he could have just stepped off the bus from Yuba City."

"He's one of those amazing people who were out when they were twelve or something. Can you imagine, in those days?"

"Someone's staring at you on the street."

Alice turned to look through the plate-glass window at Evan, standing on the sidewalk, expressionless.

"That's Evan," said Alice calmly. "She'll probably kill me for this." "Invite her in."

But Evan had proceeded on her way. She preferred to fight at home.

In the house on Hyde Street, Lonnie Ironword was sitting in front of Evan's door, rock cackling out of his headphones. He smiled and rose as Evan came upstairs. "Can I talk to you?" he asked.

"Exhausted. But all right, especially if it's parents-bashing."

"Not to bash them exactly," said Lonnie, pushing the headphones down to his neck. "But they're really in my crack about Dana. My girl friend?"

Dropping the mail onto a table and pulling off her jacket, Evan let out a snort. "Mr. and Mrs. Permissive?"

"Oh, it's all what-do-you-call-it... nuances. And, like, they suddenly go so radically
silent
on you. Look at us, we're doing the brood about you. Your future, your potential. I mean, give me a, will they please?"

"So Neville and Philip are parents after all," said Evan, enjoying the idea.

"It's Dana's family. Like, she lives in Daly City and her brother's in jail."

"For what?"

"Does it make a difference?"

"Don't get New Age on me. Could have been a drug bust. Could have been rape. You think that doesn't make a difference?"

"And they're always signaling how proud they are of me. Because I turned out clean. It's like they're daring me to get into trouble."

"So you're going to?
Smart."

"It's just... Dana's like an adventure. She's so
unlike,
you know? She puts danger into my life."

"She's lez," Evan decided.

Lonnie smirked. "No, 1 couldn't say that."

"You
animal!"
Evan cried, in fake disgust. Seriously, then: "You're doing it safe, right?"

Lonnie made a vague gesture.

"Reckless.
Don't you straight trash ever listen to anything?"

"Well, I'll, like, mosey along..."

"You just hold your horses," said Evan, advancing on Lonnie. "Are you boning without protection?"

"No." "Yes, you are!"

"That's so quacked, Evan! I'm not even in love with her, I just—"

"What's
that
got to do with it?
Ignorant!"

The door opened, and Alice walked in. "Hello, Lonnie," she said, looking pretty pleased.

Evan grabbed Lonnie by the shoulders, saying, "Listen up, kitten. You get smart and wear a sock or you'll be killing women and then I won't like you. At
all.
Got it?"

Lonnie nodded.

"Now, you skedaddle, because Alice and I are going to have a fight and then I'm going to throw her la-di-da faggot ass out of my apartment."

Lonnie, Evan's hands still heavy upon him, looked at Alice.

"She's always throwing me out," said Alice, heading for the bathroom. "My parents joke about it. As in, Could Evan possibly throw you out next weekend, so you can come dog-sit while we're in Lake Placid?"

Lonnie looked at Evan.

"On your way," she told him.

"All right, I'll be safe with Dana," said Lonnie, moving to the door. "But how do I outzip my parents?"

"Bring Dana home for dinner, in her Daly City finery. Keep bringing her home, after a date or something.
Expose
them to Dana—and of course you keep bringing up her brother." Evan opened the door. "Then, suddenly, you stop. No Dana—program's over. They'll be so relieved, they'll give you all the room you need."

"Sounds good," said Lonnie, with a grin.

"Trust Uncle Evan."

Lonnie went out and Alice returned.

"Pack,"
said Evan.

"I was hoping this time I could just slip out with an overnight and then slip back after."

"This time, no after."

Alice sat, elegantly, as always, so catlike that one felt soothed to see it. Oh, what art.

"Well," said Alice. "Well, yes, I will. If I have to."

"You have to."

Alice went into the bedroom, into drawers there, selecting, refolding, all so orderly. Evan waited a bit—good timing is the difference between a hot movie-type scene and a mere scream session—then charged into the bedroom with "Who was that dyke in the restaurant?"

Alice didn't answer, so Evan grabbed her arm. They were eye to eye for a second or two, then Alice pulled away, observing, "That's good in sex, but when I'm being forced out it's supererogatory."

"Crypto-femme bitch," said Evan.

Alice continued packing. Oh, she's so patient. Evan stares at her. Evan's monumental.

"You don't want to love," says Alice. "You want to war."

"Was that my replacement? The black bitch?"

"She is my friend," as Alice holds up the white lace middy blouse that Evan gave her; Evan snatches it back.

"You venom," says Alice.

Evan slaps her, not
that
hard.

"What's her name?" Evan demands.

"Fay Cullenmore."

"Oh, way
down
upon the Swanee
River,"
Evan annotates, in a Mae West manner. "Swear allegiance to the once and future me and you can stop packing."

"But I want to move out. Theatre. Women. The unknown."

Of course Evan smites Alice across the cheek once again, and Alice is glad.

She says, "I will learn what is true."

Across the hall, Larken was virtually screaming at Frank. "You
have
to see a doctor, Frank! You
have
to!"

Frank, sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing his sore arms and shoulders, was half listening. Just now returned from the hospital—he had had P.C.P., the "AIDS pneumonia"—Frank felt strangely healthy. Yes, his joints were stiff and his body walked heavy, as if the whole construction were just about to sag. And he had lost some weight, especially around the lower half of his face. Without question, he had been altered, in the first stage of the decline that he had seen in many another man, gradually becoming a skeleton topped by screaming eyes in a death's-head.

Yet a stranger, never having known the other, the real Frank, would not have guessed a thing. "I could pass for alive," Frank said, taking a long look in the mirror after Larken had brought him home.

"Come on, you look fine," said Larken, with impressive conviction. "You'll fight this thing."

"No, Lark. I'll go down helpless in blood and shit, like everyone else. You looking forward to it? When I start pissing myself, and go barking mad in a pool of my own barf?"

"Jeez Louise, Frank! Don't—"

"Don't talk truth? You want me like the guys on the TV specials, saying, I'm going to lick this, you'll see! Then they show him six months later, a beanbag with purple sores all over. One order of death to go. Fuck, what an
end
to me, Lark! But, you know... maybe I deserve it."

Larken was too astonished—and angry—to reply.

"I'm not talking about God's revenge on gays, like the professional Christians," Frank went on, sitting there, feeling himself, looking evenly at Larken. "The other guys who have this, they're just unlucky. It's like cancer, or a car accident. But me... Why
should
I live? What have I ever done to deserve a miracle? And why should I prolong my torture? The quicker I go, the easier it'll be, right?"

That's when Larken started in about Frank's seeing a doctor regularly, and hanging on while science probes for a cure, or at least a treatment; and that was when Frank stopped listening. He hadn't been listening to much of anything on AIDS from the start—a few years before, when one of Frank's porn actors asked if he and his partner could use a condom during a fucking scene, Frank was more amused than anything else, and immediately figured out a sexy way the two could work the thing into the act. "I go back so far," Frank told them, "that I remember when men used these with women."

Soon enough, Frank was the first in the porn business to make condoms mandatory on the set. Yet, like many men, he didn't want to hear about AIDS, whether medically, socially, or politically. His attitude was, It's here and we're dying and nobody else cares, so it's all bad news: Why harp on it? Frank would shrug when men speculated on where the virus came from, scoff when someone suggested it might have been a government laboratory. Just two months ago, in March, the Mobilization Against AIDS group actually voted on how to deal with any attempt to round up those who were ill, and decided to fight it, if necessary, with armed resistance.

Now, there's an idea, Frank thought. Maybe I should make some statement, maybe take out one of those famous homophobic bigots. What could they do, put my corpse in jail?

"Frank, will you please listen?"
Larken cried.

"Hey, you think I might have got this from blowing?"

"From... huh?"

"Yeah, I really got into that way back when, turned into a real cock eater. It's a great way to bring a guy off after you've screwed him." Frank smiled. "You know I like my partners satisfied."

"Frank, promise me you'll start seeing a—"

"Look—"

"No,
you
look, Frank, because this is... It's
stupid,
finally! All
right?"

Frank just sat there, the magnificent warrior of the fight for sexual freedom now so wounded that—for the first time in their thirty-six-year association—Larken saw Frank as defenseless. Terrified, Larken moved to Frank, fell on his knees before him, and took his hands. "Please don't give up, Frank," Larken begged. "Please try to hang on. Remember... remember all those years ago, in L.A., when you came to my apartment? After the arrest? And I didn't want to speak to you? You pleaded with me, you said, 'I don't have anyone else to talk to about
who I am.'
Remember, Frank? Because if you merrily drop dead, I won't have anyone to talk to about who I am. And I don't mind sticking by you through the hard parts. Just don't die on me. Please?"

After a moment, Frank said, "I wish I could pull off one great act before I go. Something... redeeming."

"I know a good doctor. He's gay himself, and he really keeps up on the new treatments. Doctor Sorkin."

"So people would read about me and say, What a fine guy that was!"

"Frank, will you see Doctor Sorkin?"

"Doctor... Right. See a doctor. Okay."

"You twin"

"Sure."

Blue's Republican, Mason Crocker, decided it was time that he presented Blue to his circle, and he planned a party. It would be closeted—dressy and reserved, a banker's idea of fun, with a bartender and a pianist suavely trotting out the Gershwins and Rodgers and Hart and Cole Porter (not too much Porter) and perhaps a taste of Sondheim and
La Cage aux Folles.

"I'm intrigued at the prospect of seeing you in a suit," Mason told Blue. "A dark pinstripe, I expect. You'll look like a half-tame tiger."

"Hope this doesn't throw you out, but I don't have a suit a any kind. Don't even own a tie."

Mason was relieved—much better to pick out the clothes himself than to trust Blue's taste. He took his protégé to Wilkes Bashford, where, Blue noticed, most of the information was conveyed through gesture and murmurs, Mason very slightly nodding or shaking his head as the salesman—old Mr. Bashford himself, Blue gathered—made his presentations. Mason bought Blue an entire outfit, from the shoes on up.