How Long Has This Been Going On (85 page)

Now we're on line at the box office for
Grand Hotel.
This couple isn't buying tickets, they're moving in. The man—white-haired, lined mouth, wearing a leisure suit (remember those?) and bearing a shoulder bag—is looking off, as if to say, They can't give us fifth row center when we
ask
for it? His wife, doing all the talking, turns to him, saying, "They got fourteenth row side orchestra for the sixteenth, or twentieth row center for the twenty-eighth."

"They got, they got," the man echoes.

"So which?"

The man shrugs, looks away, doesn't care to know from this. He wants fifth row center.

"Shaney, so what night do I get it for?"

"Ask if they have fifth row for the sixteenth."

"We don't," says the box-office man, amazingly patient—as are the people in the line. Wouldn't you be pulling out your can of Mace at this point?

"He already said they don't have fifth row for any night this or next month."

"Don't shout at me, Eva!"

"I'm not shouting, Shaney."

"So buy the ones you said."

"Which ones?"

At that point, a man standing directly behind them turned to the man he was with and said, "Now you know why
we're
the ones who are known as
gay."

* * *

The Kid was revising his play, writing in the character of the protagonist's Great Love that Chris has asked for. It needn't be a big part, the Kid told himself. Just evocative. Imposing. Some exquisitely sad and wonderful memory.

So who is it? Autobiography is the easy way out—you don't have to invent anything. But it is hurtful to present oneself defenselessly. "One guy naked from the knees up," the Kid muttered as he made notes. I could base it on Derek Archer—the shattered icon, Hollywood, closeted, a bi wanna-be. Then the terrifying death. It's romantic with political overtones. I could remodel Blue—the cast is pretty hot but we could always use another hunk, because gay life is looks, no matter what the militant left-outs contend. I could set Walt on stage—hell, maybe Walt should play him.

Suddenly the Kid crumpled his notes and socked them into the waste-basket with such
ping!
it fell over. What the fuck do I have to put love on the stage for? Isn't this the tale of a man who lives without it? Man can, you know. I recall Blue in our first days together in San, how easily we fit together, whether it was You feel like a little somethin' tonight? or Goin' out and see you later. It wasn't love, yet it was creamy smooth. I have to say, when that boy was on, he was
prime.
But it never had to be love and never was. And Walt is... He's your stuffed zebra named Plonky. He doesn't ask for much and he's always there.

Idea: Make the Great Love a stuffed animal?

No, asinine.

Make the Great Love a straight? That happens. Some lifelong buddy who... Oh, that's so poky.

A sailor? A playwright? A model? A suit gay, a clone, a street boy?

Walt came in, having seen the Walt Disney
Beauty and the Beast.

"How was it?" the Kid asked, joining Walt in the kitchen.

"I don't respond to cartoons," said Walt, making cinnamon toast and tea. "But Claude made us sit through it twice."

He's still doing it, the Kid thought. After all these years, the bear and the silly, tenderly injured idealism.

Well, it's got to be Walt, then. He's too theatrical to waste. So sweet to comfort, so wonderful to encourage. So dear.

Besides, he really is my

Thursday noon, Walt is rehearsing a new piece with his violinist partner, Glen Adelson, a medley of tunes from
Follies.
"Baby, you really get into that," says Glen. "You play like someone who's madly, sadly, and
badly
in love."

"I'm not, though," Walt answers, taking a drag on his Yoo-Hoo.

"Now, what
I'm
looking forward to is the day they outlaw smoking in restaurants. Why do they have to concentrate all the tobacco right where
we
are?"

"We're not together on the rhythm on 'The Road You Didn't Take.'"

"Gays are the only ones still smoking, anyway."

Walt glanced inquiringly at Glen.

"Well, haven't you noticed?" Glen went on. "All my straight friends have given it up or never started. Didn't yours?"

"I don't have straight friends," said Walt.

"Why ever not, you silly bitch?"

"I used to be so political, I was boycotting them."

"Eek, how
twisted!"

Shrugging, Walt turned a few pages of music. "Right here," he said. "On the words 'Chances that you miss.'"

"Yes, but some of my closest friends are straight," Glen insisted. "And they're, like, totally supportive. They're all urging me to march in the Parade this year."

"Don't you always?" asked Walt, mildly, surprised but ready to forgive. The new Walt.

"Of course I always," said Glen. Then: "I mean, I've always wanted to."

"I've always wanted to eat an apple," said Walt.

Glen looked at him, bewildered.

"You pick up the apple," Walt explained, "you bite into the apple, you take more bites, you have eaten the apple. The Parade's the apple. What's the big deal?"

Glen nodded, a little uneasy, for there was nothing he wanted more than Walt's good opinion. Glen said, "I'm afraid of it."

"Why?"

"It's so big and full of everyone knowing each other and feeling secure."

"I thought you were the famous master of the revels at Boybar and those places."

"Yes, in a little room surrounded by friends. Then I'm
such
a giddy bitch, like, totally heav."

"So march surrounded by friends."

"Mine don't march."

"That's what you get for knowing straights."

"Walt, no, the straights watch the Parade and cheer their little hearts out. It's my
gay
pals who have better things to do."

"That's so strange to me."

"Could I march with you?"

"Sure."

"Well. Well,
right,"
Glen brightened. "That's the way," he said. "Now, when do I set up?"

"The easiest thing would be to wait by the Plaza Hotel and join in when you see us coming around the corner."

"Yes! Yes, Walt, I will!"

The Lesbian Zappers have prepared it, through leaks about the Republicans' schedules from—shall we say?—friends of the family. The Zappers confer, moments before Point Zero, with a handsome and vigorous young man who nevertheless will be, for all he can expect, dead in months. The president's spokesman is having dinner in a hamburger joint, and this is a Confrontation. There's no television, no coverage. It's an act all for its own sake. The gay man strides into the restaurant toward the president's big fat fuck, crying, "I'm dying and you're having
dinner,
you vicious piece of
shit!"

The big fat fuck recognizes the young man, who has enlivened many of his dinners, and the big fat flick screams,
"I don't owe you people anything!,"
at which the young man pulls the tablecloth and sends the big fat fuck's dinner flying into his lap.

"Why don't you eat my
blood
while you're at it?" the young man cries; but the Secret Servicemen have grabbed and cuffed him. They're all old acquaintances, for this has happened many times before. Not that this or any other action will change anything in the head of the big fat fuck, for he was raised hating gays, Jews, blacks, women, artists, writers... anyone who isn't a rich straight white Christian conformist male. But pulling his dinner off his chin and onto the floor feels good. It's a release to finger the men who relish your death.

As the Secret Servicemen are about to lead the young man off, one of them stands before him, looks him heavy in the eyes, and, apparently oblivious of his colleagues or any camera-news team that might have rushed in, says, "I need to tell you how much I admire what you are doing."

* * *

Right, it's Pride Week: So of course Public Television suddenly trots out its gay programming, with a Daring Foreign Film (especially
Maurice)
on Monday, a documentary about people who were gay in the 1930s and are still alive (mostly in wheelchairs) on Tuesday, a ballet on Wednesday, and, on Thursday—tonight—another documentary.

Two women are watching, their arms around each other, their free hands holding glasses of Evian with lime.

They see a black woman saying, "There was so much of it around, oh my dear. So it was hard to believe that
anyone
was straight."

They see a blonde who must have been a beauty in her prime saying, "It was difficult, but we found each other because we had to.
We had to."

They see a woman who says she is Jewish and "that could complicate things," because, often, she would connect with a woman who would say something horribly anti-Semitic. "The country," this woman says, "was still very divided into sections. One section wouldn't know anything about the other sections. You would sleep with another woman, and that might be wonderful. But the next morning, she'd be a southern Baptist or whatever. The night before, she was just an accent. Suddenly, she's a person. And a bigot. Not a vicious, mean bigot, but a product of her section. You know, Jews have horns and so on. I'd say, 'Well, I'm Jewish.' She'd be flabbergasted. 'But you don't have horns.'" After a moment, the woman adds, "I'm not kidding, you know."

They see a woman saying, "I was fat and black and I wanted to sing opera. Well, who would be friendly to me except the gays of the world? I kept trying to force myself to have affairs with lesbians, but what I really wanted were the gay boys. They were so cute."

One of the lesbians asks the other, "Do you relate to any of this?"

"It's not us," says her partner. "But it's something. It's history."

"Maybe it'll make sense later on."

"It makes sense to me now."

Dead-hearted yet calm, a man of about thirty-five paces through his apartment, not especially listening to the Police's
Synchronicity,
his late lover's favorite record. "Murder by Numbers." "King of Pain." "Every Breath You Take." "O My God."

It's all gone, his peace—and just then his late lover's two older brothers key their way into the apartment without a knock. They give the man a look of contempt and immediately start unfolding cardboard boxes and filling them with objects from the apartment—whatever attracts them, especially technical equipment, CDs, and anything else that can be resold. The two speak to each other as if the bereaved survivor of their brother's death were not in the room—even: as if he had never existed. They take and take and take, so the man calls the cops. When they arrive, they immediately start in on the man. "Why don't you let them bury their dead?" says one cop. "You probably killed him with AIDS," says the other. He asks the brothers, "This guy attack you physically?," encouraging more than inquiring.

Hmm. "Well, yeah." Brother looks at brother.

"He threatened us and everything."

"With what?" asks the cop. "A kitchen knife?" He all but nods his head at the kitchen, but this is unnecessary. One brother marches into the kitchen, opens a couple of drawers, while the man protests and the cops tell him to shut up. The brother finds the cutlery, singles out something suitable, and brings it to the cops, saying, "He used this."

The man is handcuffed and led away as the two brothers go on looting the apartment. The Police CD runs to its close and one of the brothers grabs it, snaps it into its case, and tosses it into one of his cartons. Synchronicity.

Later that night, at Eats, a well-known comedienne and actress who stands somewhere between Notoriously Rumored and Definitively Outed is telling off a bunch of lesbians. "Stop acting like pigs," she advises. "That isn't
style.
You think that's style? You behave like a bunch of straight men, trying to push everyone around. And it's just your inadequate bullshit. Maybe show the world our class and tact, how about? This dingy Roller Derby approach really turns me off."

The lesbians are silent and unhappy.

"You can be bold and free without throwing your weight around and making everybody disgusted with you," says the comedienne, an utterly uninhibited cultural phenomenon.

It's Friday. Peter Smith has heard about a possible job opportunity with a "buyer's club," one of those organizations that import drugs sold over the counter in foreign lands, for use by American P.W.A.s who don't have the two hundred years to wait while the F.D.A. makes its teasingly fastidious tests.

Peter runs down an address on East Twenty-second Street and investigates. Well, yes, there's a slot; but have you the nerve? This is borderline-legal, cutting-edge stuff. It sounds trendy and cool but it's basically suicide missions.

"I will fight to live!" Peter sang out; the guy just looked at him. "I mean, if I have to do battle..." The guy still looking. Wrong approach. "I'm game, I'm young, I'm spunky," Peter announced. "I'm real, too."

"This isn't lip-synching in some drag act," the guy said. "People are dying. We're looking out for and buying contraband medicine to ease their pain. I don't believe you're right for this."

"Look," said Peter. "I'm cut off from everyone I know and I'm about to be thrown out of my apartment because I can't make the rent. I can't even make lunch today. Don't you think someone desperate for work would be the best worker?"

"Desperation isn't a credential. We already get that from our clients. What we need is experience and smarts."

His look clearly told Peter to go, and Peter did.

Dear Elaine,

Well, it's our annual Parade trip. Scowly Lois says the Parade gets longer and slower every year, but she also says it's ours and that's it.

We're back in the Plaza, same room (over the Park) and so snazzy. "This is how they lived in the books you
used
to write," says Lois, so apparently she approves that I have Gone Political.