How Long Has This Been Going On (87 page)

"Black guys says, 'Be right back,' hits the street, sees a little old Jewish man approaching. Says, 'Hey, rabbi, can I have a nickel to go to Africa?'"And the Jewish guys says, 'Here's a quarter, my son. Take four friends.'"

Silence.

"Def," the 'zine editor pronounces it, at length. He's fixed on Blue. "You've got to admit it's def."

Jezebel looks at Blue.

"It points up a truth about race relations, maybe," Blue concedes. "But it makes us a tad uncomfortable because it—"

"I'll
say," the woman puts in. "Those old stereotypes. It's like hearing 'faggot' and 'nigger' and—"

"Shit, it's the word police!" says Jezebel. "Ain't we, as sheer gay people, had enough of others telling us how to be? We got to do it ourselves? I'm sick of it. Looksism. Privileging. Waitron. Scorched animal corpses. Stolen products. Dead white males. Who's
that?
Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt? I'm supposed to have contempt for them because a bunch of ignorant assholes decides so?"

The woman was about to answer, but Blue shook his head. "What he says is fair," Blue pointed out.

"Tell you my concern," Jezebel goes on. "Do I wear drag or shorts-and-muscles to the shindig tomorrow?"

"Well,
I'm
sick of Old Gay," says the woman's companion. "Drag, and opera, and Fire Island.
Gyms!
Making fun of women!"

"That icky Lypsinka," the woman notes.

"Define 'icky,'" says the 'zine editor. "Define 'Lypsinka.'"

"Think we ought to work harder to get along," says Blue. "That's a strange and antagonizin' idea, of New Gay versus Old."

"All you need is love," the 'zine editor remarks. "Love with the proper stranger."

"I've been off love fer years now," says Blue. "I'm a loner. I hurt somethin' all fierce at times, wantin' someone to hold on to. Some buddy of the special-close variety. Hug him when he aches, pat him when he's in his glory. Sweet-talk him at night, maybe tell him a my troubles, set aside the cares of the day. I miss that, certainly. And it was took from me, too. I didn't give it up. I would do anythin' to remake it, get a second chance. But I don't even know where it got to. Sex? I scarcely lay a hand on anyone now. But sometimes I think, if someone showed up in the right style, I could fit him up for love for a night er two. Rough his hair and soothe him up, and it would feel most rightly like the real thing."

The jukebox switched to Buddy Holly—"It's So Easy to Fall in Love"—and Blue said, "Funny, all these old melodies I'm hearin'. Like my whole life is on parade before me. All my days of what I been, both helpful and negative. All the times I was intolerant as well as bein' kind and Christian."

Blue had been gazing off into the ozone for all this; now he turned to the 'zine editor.

"You're a fine, hot-lookin' young fellow," Blue told him. "I would really like to date you tonight."

"Let's go," said the 'zine editor.

Later that night, the Kid came home from a long, heated, and very stimulating conference with Chris. Rehearsals were still a shambles (a very good sign), but the new scenes on the Great Love were going in on Thursday. Chris said they were terrific.

"You've done it, Johnny," she had said. "He's magic and doom and what we know and fear to believe in, all at once. He's beautiful."

"I made him up entirely."

Chris's eyes flickered for, at the longest, a millisecond. "Of course."

When the Kid got home, Walt was still up, in his room, reading by the light of his Jiminy Cricket lamp.

"How's it going, slugger?" asked the Kid, looking in on him.

"Okay."

"What a tone! You sound like a fluffer who got fired five minutes before Jeff Stryker was due on the set. What's the book?"

Walt held it up.

"'The Shlong of Bernadette,'
" the Kid pretended to read.

"It's
The Song—"

"Christ, take a joke, will you?" said the Kid, soothingly, as he sat on the edge of the bed.
"Shlong Without End. A Shlong to Remember. Pagan Love Shlong."

Walt was unable to laugh.

"Aw, come on, Walty," the Kid urged.

"Danny called me that," said Walt, very quietly. "How is the play going?"

"Holding at par. Why are you reading that particular novel? Are you hoping for a miracle?"

"I was just thinking—what if Blue was searching for me and didn't know where to look?"

After a moment, the Kid asked, "Is that what you're hoping?"

"It's what I'm wondering."

I will never really lose him because he is in my play now. He's more than a person—he's a theme, my Great Love. Trusting and earnest, sweetness to die. He's what I never was: Honest. Pure. Undefended. All the things I adore but never believed in. I've admired some men and been hot for others, and there are many I've liked. But Walt is the thing I love in this vale of missed chances and making do and at least now I will always have him on my stage.

The Kid said, "I'm all for bed. It's been a heavy day of
ars longa."
He patted Walt's blanketed thigh. "Don't worry. You're young enough to correct your mistakes. Besides, tomorrow's the Parade. Your favorite day."

"You know why?" said Walt. "Because I always think that all up and down it, people are having adventures that change their lives forever."

The Kid got up. "Tomorrow, sport," he said.

On Sunday morning, Walt's violinist, Glen Adelson, awoke in one of those today's-the-awful-day moods. All those handsome men stripped to Speedos and Reeboks, all the friendships in holy communion, all the wonderful commotion of an oppressed people celebrating the deliverance that must come—this can seem overwhelming to an insecure young man with no strong affiliation to the Parade in the first place.

Cutting strawberries and a banana into a bowl of Corn Flakes, Glen bucked himself up with the thought that Walt and the Kid would ease him into the throng. They would spot him and throw their arms wide, and he would belong.

Yes, he thought, reaching for the milk. That is how it will be today.

Up in the Plaza Hotel, Lois was showering and Elaine was tuned in to the Weather Channel. She was shaking her head with misgiving as Lois came in, a towel wrapped around her waist, like a man. Well, that's her way.

"They always say it never rains on Gay Pride Day," said Elaine. "And here's a thirty-percent warning of thundershowers."

"You get through to Peter?"

"I got his roommate. He said Peter's moving out today."

"Where to?"

"He didn't know. He'll give him the message, he said, but by then we'll all be at the Parade."

Lois shrugged.

"Well, we're partly responsible for him," said Elaine.

"We saved his life, now we owe him?"

"I don't like having to worry on Pride Day."

"If you cheer up, I'll let you order breakfast from room service."

"I already did. Two deluxes."

"Chick, these hotel breakfasts cost more than a night at the opera!"

"And they don't last nearly as long," Elaine admitted—but Lois, thinking back to the weekend or so that she'd spent at
Die Walküre,
brightened considerably.

Blue was washed and dressed by the time the 'zine editor got back with coffee and doughnuts from the corner. He lived simply: mattress on the floor, books and papers all over, empty fridge, dead stove.

"I hope you like it with milk," the editor said, stamping in. "Good, you're up. Who's Walt?"

"Huh?"

"That's what you called me all night. Well, all the latter part of the night." Unpacking at the rickety table. "The doughnut roll call is one chocolate, one sugared, one glutenwheat, or whatever they... What?"

Blue smiled. "Just tryin' to keep up."

"Yeah, that's very winning, that hayseed style. It's, like,
the
def. You're really some armful of trouble. That was my first marathon, by the way. I've been fucked by experts, but not all night long at twenty-minute intervals. Did you just escape from a monastery?"

"Could I have the sugared doughnut?"

"Monster, you can have the skin off my back. Where do you go to learn... What's in you, pardner, is what I mean?"

"I had a good time with you," said Blue, seriously. "I've been off sex because of all the death, but every so often a fella cuts loose."

The editor nodded.

"I had you whimpering," Blue went on. "Walt whimpered, too, because he loved me so. I always liked it when guys fell in love with me, but Walt was the only guy I loved maself."

"You're dangerous."

"Only now, instead of fucking guys, I take care of them."

"Are you marching today?"

"Who'd I march with? I'll watch, certainly."

"That's cool. Actors need an audience."

"Much obliged for the coffee." "For you, monster, anything."

"Why do you call me that?"

"Because you're so light in the street and so deep in bed. When you came, my life passed before my eyes. I bet Walt was afraid of you."

"More like I was scared a Walt."

"Where's Walt now?"

Blue shrugged. "No one seems to know."

The city is dotted with pre-Parade parties this morning; let's drop in on one on the Upper West Side: all-male, mostly late thirties and early forties, six or seven old friends and a new boy friend or two, casual but sporty dress, mimosas all round, remains of a cheese-mushroom omelet and new-potato salad cooling on the coffee table, host and current ex-lover clearing away plates and napkins.

Bob says, "The one problem with the Parade is, they don't leave
anyone
out."

"Yeah," Grey agrees. "Three guys carrying a cardboard sign saying, 'Gays of Bayonne.'"

"'Gay Vegan Pre-op Transvestite Nuns Who Underneath Their Wimples Wear Curlers in Their Hair,'" Greg invents.

"Who do you know who's gay," asks Bob, "every other day of the year? Your dentist. Your lawyer. Right? Your old high-school buddy, your neighbor down the hall, your... just
people.
Suddenly, on Parade Day, we're nothing but a lunatic fringe. Everyone's nude and dancing and a drag queen."

"Who wants to see dentists and lawyers marching?" asks Noel. "Give me those floats with the shirtless go-go boys. Can't get enough. Gym and skin tone—that's my Parade."

"That's your life," says Bob.

"In my dreams."

"I think there should be comics," Grey offers. "You know, riding in cars doing routines. 'Cause aren't we famous for our humor?"

Allen says, "I'd like to see a float of porn stars in action."

"No, a variety show with porn stars!"

"Who'd host?"

Grey raises a silencing hand.
"The Rod Garetto Show,"
he presents, naming a particular favorite.

"That should be on television," says Greg.

Bob hums the start of the overture to
Gypsy
as Grey intones, announcer-style, "And now, direct from Television City in Hollywood,
The Rod Garetto Show,
with Rod's guests—Peter Allen's houseboy, David Geffen's houseboy, Barry Diller's houseboy..."

"And Liza Minnelli," Greg adds.

"Rod comes out and does his monologue, introduces his guests—"

"Then one of them says, 'Let's have a rimming contest.'"

"The studio audience is hooked, America is awed...."

"In the White House, the president touches a button, scrambling the signal—"

"Wait," Grey cuts in. "Is Rod the biggest dick in porn, or is—"

"No, Rick Donovan is surely—"

"I'd call them a tie," says Greg.

"Major
boners," Noel observes. "I mean, who's bigger than that?"

"I remember a guy," says Oliver. "Not that I ever had him. But he was sort of legendary in the 1970s. A bartender or mover or something. One of those overgrown clones. Unforgivably handsome and gymmed to kill, and on top of it all he was—"

"Oh, right," says Noel. "At Hero's."

"Yes!"

"Big Frank. Sure."

"Tell," Greg urges.

"Yeah, big Frank. He was the ultimate clone in those years. When he showed up at tea dance, it was, like, head for the hills, because God just walked in and you can't have Him. Let me tell you, he wrecked many a summer for many a Pines beauty. No matter how good you were, he was better. And what he had... Well, it was like The Dread Secret of Harvest Home"—here Oliver went into a Bette Davis voice—"what no woman sees and men shudder to tell of."

"Did he have a lover?" Greg asks. "I mean, who's fabulous enough to deserve
that?"

"I don't think he even had a friend. He was sort of a loner."

"So where is he now?" Bob asks.

"Probably rocking on the porch of a ranchero somewhere. He always had a western air, sort of."

"Like a marshal," Noel agrees, "cleaning up the town."

"Gosh," says Greg. "He must have had the world on a string."

"Gentlemen," the host announces, "the Parade awaits us." He raises a glass. "To pride!"

"To tolerance!" says Bob.

"To a really dependable designer astringent!" says Noel.

"To freedom," says Greg.

They drink.

It was Walt's fond quirk, every year, to wander through the groups and floats lining up along Central Park West, to attach the Kid and himself to whatever attracted him—Yale alumni one year (Walt admired the bulldog), a huge caucus of disco boppers another, even the Twisted Lesbians (because he liked their banner). Walt and the Kid would amble across the Park—silent, pensive, thinking large thoughts on this Day of Days—and bend south to the melee of bodies and conveyances and vendors and cops and yellow-shirted Parade monitors, where Walt would browse and select.

"This year, we'll march with a really zonky group," Walt promised.

"Ye gods, not those dancers again, I hope," said the Kid.

Two lost but implacably facetious drag queens were conferring with a monitor, his eyes frozen on his clipboard. A cop watched two women smooching. Three sailors, a whirling dervish (who was whirling), two Mounties, a cowboy contessa, and an Indian brave with a tambourine passed, singing "Seventy-six Trombones" in pig Latin. And a drab older man in a blue-and-white seersucker suit and a blue bow tie was looking at the Kid as the Kid was trying to place him.