How Long Has This Been Going On (89 page)

This can really happen?,
Glen was thinking, as he took the redhead's hand and was pulled up onto the float. The redhead winked at him.

"My name's Glen."

"Clarence."

They shook hands.

"I like shy boys," said Clarence. "You're shy, right?"

Glen nodded.

"We're going to get on great," said Clarence. "It's going to be really nice, us two."

How Glen felt then was beyond description.

Elaine, having watched all this, pointed it out to Lois and said,
"That's
what I mean. About this being a magical day—as long as it doesn't rain."

"Yeah, but they charge too much for an ice cream sandwich."

"Yet you ate two, plus half of mine, I couldn't help noticing."

"Watch the Parade, chick. You have the rest of your life to notice what I do."

"Well, hello," said an attractive woman somewhere between her mid-thirties and a frisky middle age. "You're... Lois? Oh, and..."

"Elaine," Elaine said.

"You're Johnny's play director," said Lois.

"Chris. We met at the rehearsal Friday."

"Nice work there. It's fun to see Johnny getting bossed around for a change."

"It's a lovely play," Elaine put in. "Johnny says you're quite wonderful with it. You inspire him."

"I love gay men," said Chris. "Being around them has made me... knowledgeable. I suppose I should feel left out here, a straight woman. A wife and mother, even. But I know that this is my day, too. This wonderful feeling of being unconventional not out of rebellion but because we simply don't need convention to order our lives around. Because we're special, whether we're straight or gay. There's a message in that, surely."

"Oh, that
must
be right," Elaine agreed. "It has a touch of the speech about it, but if the others heard it—"

"The others," Lois grunted. "I can recall when
we
were the others. Like spirits that fly around at night and explode in the sun."

"Why, Lois, you
poet!"

"You know," Chris went on, a bit diffidently, "after meeting you, I kept thinking I knew you from somewhere. It's only just hit me—Kingdom Come." "Yeah," said Lois. "I ran it."

"I used to dance there, when I was at N.Y.U. You threw me and my friends out of the balcony a few times."

"Probably for some good reason."

Chris and Elaine laughed, and Lois replied with one of her
Oh, yeah?
looks.

"It's funny," Chris continued. "All these people around us, of all ages. All these stories they carry... like her"—pointing out a woman bearing a sign reading, "I Wish I Had the Courage of My Beautiful Lesbian Daughter." Chris gazed upon the Parade for a moment. A long one, a deep gaze, surrendering to it in triumph as the parched traveler bends to the welling fountain, or the infant hps its mother's nipple. "Such stories," Chris finally said. "All interconnected. Like Johnny's play, except bigger. Epic."

"What are the play's chances?" Lois asked. "I mean, to be a hit or something."

"Five years ago, I would have said, it'll be admired by a few. Because it has an edge, you know. But now, things have opened up so, it might well be popular. Could get a lot of media spin."

"It's quite funny," Elaine observed.

"Oh, to be sure. Whatever happens to Johnny at any time, he never loses his laughter."

"Those scenes in the cabaret at the start of the show?" said Lois. "That was my place, too."

"Killer Mary's?"

"Thriller Jill's was the real name. Johnny started there before there ever was a Jerrett Troy. We called him the Kid."

A huge dance float glided past to the pounding of the disco and the exhilarating whoop-de-do of the boys and girls.

"There's another chick without a top," Lois remarked, nodding at her. "You get more of that each year."

"It's unruly public relations," said Elaine, regretfully.

"The Parade is not diplomacy," Chris pointed out. "It's celebration."

"Thing I don't get is how weird it turns, down at the end," said Lois. "That street fair's no different from any New York street fair—same vendors with the sausages and zeppoles. Then the gigantic crowds down at the pier."

"We always hotfoot it to the Plaza for tea," said Elaine, scanning the heavens for an update on the weather forecast.

"Come join us," Lois told Chris. "It's a treat and a half. They cut the

crusts off the sandwiches and charge double, but, heck, it's only once a year."

"It sounds lovely," said Chris.

"There's Walt and Johnny!" cried Elaine, waving. Lois and Chris waved, too, calling to them. But pensive Walt and the protective Kid, one arm around Walt's shoulder, did not hear them.

Blue had gotten as far uptown as Twenty-seventh Street. Every so often he would roost on a hydrant and take in the show, but the Parade moved so slowly that he would get impatient and pace on. Besides, the spectators were as interesting as the marchers. Three young guys quarrel over a Froz-fruit. Two women sway in each other's arms, weeping for joy. A mischievous six-year-old tears off as his parents call out, "Tyler!
Tyler!"

Look at the cute-to-die dude strutting the sidewalk, shirtless, carrying a gym bag. Competition's so fierce these days of our lives that biceps and chest aren't enough; shoulder caps and formidable abdominals are essential.

What else is essential? Blue wonders. The gym bunny barely glances at the Parade. He sees someone not unlike himself on one of the floats, pauses to admire, then smilingly moves on.

He must think, This is not about me.

Peter Smith is struggling to get up. What about passersby, policemen? He's alone. He is made of a million bad pains; but he is relieved, as he edges up off the sidewalk, to see no dark red stains on the pavement.

It hurts very heavy, a deeply-inside-you hurt, and he knows he should find someone to help him. He can breathe. He can walk, slowly. He is holding on to fronts of buildings—handles, metalwork, piping—as he moves. Which way? East. Yes, that's where he... no longer lives. Where's home, now? A dim thought: I shouldn't have left New Hampshire, because this couldn't have happened to me there. (Oh yes, it could.) He tries to talk to people coming by, but they hurry along, faces set. No Peter for us. Peter tries to imagine what his face looks like—blood running out of his mouth, his nose. Who'd adopt him now? He can't even talk right. He says, "Would you kindly help me get an ambulance?" to this guy walking up from Third, but the guy is already shaking his head and tuning Peter out, as if he were another of the thousands pulling a dodge and asking for money.

Peter continues to inch his way eastward. Third Avenue has a lot of foot traffic. Surely someone will help him there.

By now, the front of the Parade was nosing into the Village, and Glen saw his straight friends waving and cheering as he and Clarence shared a long kiss.

Can I believe this? All you have to do is show up and cruise persistently and you get...
him?

"Who're those guys shouting at you?" Clarence asked Glen, as he dipped and gestured and sighed, all to music.

"Friends."

"That's cool," said Clarence, as Glen got bold and hugged him from behind, licking his right ear.

"That's pretty," said Clarence, growling appreciatively. "Yeah, from such a shy boy, too."

Henry was marching with Bobby and Jerr, and all three were uproarious. "Solidarity, Henry!" Bobby cried at one point. "Just like in Poland!"

Well, yes—today, at least. Privately, Henry mused that probably no political movement in history counted as little solidarity as this one, with its separatists and integrators, its radicals and Log Cabin Republicans, its "gay" and "queer," its middle-classniks and drag queens and feminists and leather men and leather women and that disgusting lunatic fringe of six or seven pederasts that the media feature as if they were our Continental Congress.

Still, on this afternoon, the feeling was unity. This was the one day when everyone In the Life seemed part of a great striding giant of a history that would never cease its advance. Whatever else might be troubling your times,
this
day gave a bracing shock to the immune system.

That is, except for the Silent Moment, when the entire Parade, from Washington Square to Central Park, halts to consider our slain people. In earlier years, colored balloons were let fly in a kind of camp memorial; but it turned out that these would drop into the ocean and choke unwitting sea creatures. So now we simply raise our hands in salute to the fallen. Some recite the names of dead friends, some actually address them in prayer, and others wait, just stand and think and say nothing.

Henry was considering Jim and Eric: his best friend and the young fellow whose dogged and even pestering devotion turned Jim from a reasonably happy guy into a man of radiant contentment. He and Eric were literally living for each other; no wonder they died months apart.

Was I that happy with Bobby?, Henry wondered, stealing a look at him as they stood in the Silent Moment. Is he that happy with Jerr? And how much less than happy must I be if I never know what Jim and Eric knew? Oh shit, Henry thought, as a tear popped up in one eye. I miss Jim so much.

Quite a ways south of Henry, Glen and his new boy friend stood stock-still on the dance float; Glen sensed a strange seriousness in Clarence. He turned to him, and Clarence put his arms around Glen and held him tight. It was a serious holding, a keening-for-dead-friends hug, but Glen felt it as a belonging hug as well. A liking hug.

Back up at the Forty-second Street Library, Elaine was clutching Lois's hand, thinking of the little boy in Backtown, who had died in March, followed by his mother two months later. She had been arrested for causing a disturbance in a restaurant some few days before, and the disease had so dwindled and misguised her that the police had been afraid to touch her.

Chris was thinking of Tom, of how fiercely he fought to live even when everything had been taken from him—skin and brain and form—and only a husk was left. Chris thought of Luke, of how coolly he proceeded with his life, shrugging away questions. She wondered whom she would spare if she were Sophie and Nazis forced her to choose between J. and Timothy.

Walt, at Thirty-fifth Street—his right arm straight up in the air and the fingers splayed, ignoring the traditional crossing of the middle fingers—was thinking of Danny. Walt had this recurring dream in which he and Danny shared a place in New York. They never had sex, but they were always touching, and Danny was very happy. It was a night dream, but Walt could conjure it up by day, and did so now. Tom entered the dream, because he wanted Danny. He proposed to spank him, right across the knee; then they would really be close. Danny said okay, but he was looking at Walt to get him out of it.

"You may want to check out the cat on the sidewalk to your left," murmured a guy standing next to Walt. "He's cruising you like condoms become illegal tomorrow."

"This is not a correct time to cruise," whispered Walt. He was staring straight ahead.

"True, but this grade of hot you don't see every minute. I mean, the guy's a one-man mattress convention. Scope it out."

"I've decided to believe you," said Walt, refusing to turn and look.

"Suit yourself," said the guy.

Then the Silence was over, and the Parade jolted back into step; and Walt—just for the sake of the argument—looked over to see who was cruising him: a tall blond man somewhat older than himself, staring at him with such intensity that Walt was transfixed, and the others in his group had to step around him. Oh, this is the magic of the Parade, Walt thought to himself, his eyes never leaving the man, and he cautiously began to walk toward him. Soon enough, the two stood before each other like Abel confronting Cain. But wait, now. Who had killed whom? Who had suffered more, who been more profligate in the expressing of the tender cruelties, who had more stubbornly and consistently refused to understand that we must be gentle with our comrades and save our fury for our enemies? And what will these two say now? What will they decide to do?

Because, yes, of course it was Blue.

The Kid saw the entire thing with a rush of dismay, as you must surely imagine. Walt and his fucking Parade, he thought, watching as the two men, just across the street from him, shook hands and began to speak. Moving off to stand on the sidewalk behind the spectators, the Kid tried to figure out what they were saying to each other. Perhaps Blue was chiding Walt:

B
LUE
: How could you do that to me, Walt? Runnin' me off like so?

W
ALT
: I was angry and afraid.

B
LUE
: Fer three years?

Or was Walt pleading and Blue playing it high-hat? For instance:

W
ALT
: Why didn't you call me?

B
LUE
: I reckoned you'd had yer fill a me and moved on to other things. And that's okay, 'cause I did, too.

No, wait—it's small talk, nothing heavy:

B
LUE
: Well, yer lookin' real fine, youngster.

W
ALT
: You've held up pretty well, too, Blue.

B
LUE
: Yeah, well, you know what a clean life I lead—don't drink, don't smoke, don't chase women...

Truth to tell, none of these scenarios quite fitted what the Kid saw. Walt and Blue were standing very, very close, as if each were trying to slip inside the other. They were touching hands and shoulders and eyes like blind men. They were feeling each other as if trying to prove something by their very contact. They had instantly connected, were gone from worldly concerns. They were flying through the heavens; they were flight itself. And, now that Blue was more generous and Walt more peaceable, they were what the Kid had never known: a perfect fit.

I will tell you what they said to each other:

Walt began, "I tried to replace you, but it didn't work very well."