How's Your Romance?: Concluding the "Buddies" Cycle (13 page)

Cosgrove seemed about to say that that was exactly what he did, so I broke in with “Dennis Savage didn’t make the money to support a joy boy, and anyway that’s not why you left.”

“Oh?”

“It’s like eighteen reasons, and we don’t have all week.”

“Vince doesn’t make me have a day job. Now I can sleep late and— Well, I have to get up with him and make his breakfast while he showers. But after he goes I can louze around—”

“
Laze
around,” said Cosgrove.

“—and as long as the place is clean and the clothes are washed and folded in those neat ways like his stupid mother always did it and the steak and baked potato is served on Monday, and the chicken and noodles are served on Tuesday, and such like that, he accepts me as I am.”

“He accepts you,” I said, “as a housewife.”

“No, because Vince is my own sweet friend now, and I fill his life. I take him on walks where he never was. Can you believe he didn’t know about Chelsea? I pack a guidebook and show him the sites of history. Theodore Roosevelt. An Astor Place Riot. He has become very appreciative of the old movies we rent, and guess who he likes the most? Fred Astaire. I even took him to the theatre. Well,
he
had to pay. He was amazed it was so expensive. That show you liked so much, Cosgrove.
Titanic.
”

“Did he enjoy it?” I asked.

J. was thoughtful. “He didn’t say at first. But then he was always talking about it, I notice. Like, he kept asking why that couple had to quarrel so badly just before tragedy separated them forever. Or why was the guy who built the ship redesigning the blueprint after it was sinking? You can’t change history with a pencil, Vince says. So if he enjoyed it I don’t know, but he sure got into it somehow. And he’s not pretty or smart but he says I’m his daddyboy now, and he’s going to daddy-fuck me every time. Is this why women fall in love with guys who aren’t cute, that they’re so dependable and intent on you? Dennis Savage always had other things on his mind, because he’s smart. Vince doesn’t have so much to think about, so he concentrates on me. Now I’m trying to be real instead of amusing. Except I’ve been amusing for so long, I’m not sure what a real J. would be. Vince asked me to pick up a
Titanic
soundtrack. Is there one?”

“Not ‘soundtrack,’” I told him. “That’s the audio portion of a film or, by extension, a recording made from it. Only movies have soundtracks. Shows have cast albums, and, yes, Victor has recorded
Titanic,
though it may not come out for—”

“I have a tape,” Cosgrove put in while passing Fleabiscuit a choice scrap. Fastidious at table, the dog will transport the morsel to his dish in the kitchen, and only then eat it. “Someone I know could copy the tape for you.”

J. turned at that “Someone I know.” But he made no remark beyond “That would be great.” He went on to “Vince liked that chorus when they said goodbye at the lifeboats. He goes, ‘Think what’s in their heads then!’ And he loved the ending. We were so inspired that he had me read to him from the Bible when we got—”

“What?” I said. “The excuse me
what?
”

“His mother always wanted him to read it,” J. went on, unperturbed, “so finally he is. His mother is thrilled and calls it ‘Bible Group.’ She imagines a load of us in bow ties saying, Does the Red Sea really part? He has a Bible she gave him, which closes with a zipper that has a tiny cross at the end. And the words of Jesus are printed in red. Imagine if we all had such a book, and our own words are highlighted. Sometimes I make up stuff instead of reading it. It’s easy—‘And lo, the sons of Gad went
out
forth to the baths
and
multiplied, for
in
this way
would
they know the hard-on that
is
God.’ See how the noises are always in the wrong place in the Bible? It’s so easy to fool Vince, he thinks no one would dare make up the Bible. Try to see me getting away with that with Dennis Savage. He’s too clever for me, and of course he can’t be impressed.”

“He was impressed with you, all right,” I said.

“Big deal,” J. replied, still very calm. “I already know I’m cute.”

“I didn’t mean your looks,” I said.

“When I moved in with Dennis Savage, he didn’t break off with all his friends. They were always coming over and judging me.”

He stared at me; I don’t know what he was thinking.

“But Vince has dropped all his chicks for me. Except for Red Backhaus, his childhood friend, he has made me the center of his activities on earth. When we have video movie night, he has me lie against him on the couch, so we can hardly reach the dip with our chips.”

“Chips and dip?” Cosgrove echoed with horror. Our galloping gourmet.

“That’s what I’m telling you,” J. continued, quite conclusively. “It’s not about smart food or Broadway or times when you wear a suit. It is a thing you people don’t know about, where he was sudden and panicky but is now slow and dreamy. He says the trick is not to try for a marathon, but to do it and shower and have dinner, then do it again and watch a VCR, and so on. He never runs out. We have figured out this way for him to smooch me up so thorough and for me to blow him so long that by the time he balls my fairy ass with his heavy fuck I will shoot my cream right over his head with a big noise. We fall on each other and hold on so rightly and out of breath that we only know the one fact that we are together. And he goes his mouth right against my ear to say, ‘J. boy, if you ever try to leave me, I swear I will kill you.’”

“Well, that’s true love at last,” I said.

“Yes, isn’t it?”

3

T
HE
R
OCK
P
EOPLE

I
T IS A STATEMENT
beyond contention that a young gay guy with Looks Control will be in possession of an etiquette, a lingo, and a major haircut: this is called a subculture. But only devotees of the most elect parish will know of such practices as birthday sex (in which your buddy’s present is your current boy friend), “stacking” multiple rendezvous, and How To Go Steady With Three Men At Once Without Actually Cheating. This is called life in Chelsea.

My cousin Ken is my authority, as the captain of a clique of preppy linebackers who talked of nothing but
Ally McBeal,
which was still current then. When Ken first arrived in New York, he paid me an at first no more than dutiful call, to catch me up on family doings and to trade “when I figured out that you were gay” confessions. He also asked me for advice in stocking “classy novels” for a new bookshelf he had bought.

“They should be the most correct ones possible,” he said, though he couldn’t articulate further.

“Describe your apartment,” I suggested, as if literature might match; but he was enchanted by that notion. He saw one’s living space as definitive, and would often invoke people not by physical data but rather the interior decoration of their quarters: “smart,” “sturdy,” “effective,” or “an erroneous bath mat.” Ken’s own apartment, on West Twenty-first Street, was spare and colorful, “a beautiful use of the space,” as Ken’s second-best buddy, Tom-Tom Hughes, put it. But then, so were Ken, and Tom-Tom, and all their friends. They were so in accord on what beauty is that they had contrived to resemble one another. The entire congregation ran to five foot eleven at about one hundred ninety-five pounds, with various shades of brown floppy hair and scenic teeth, and they were all twenty-eight years old.

I distinguished them by eccentricity. Ken’s first-best buddy, Davey-Boy Carhart, was their recognized arbiter of visual style; it was he who decided which of the gang should carry the football they used as a group fashion accessory. Others decided where to go on Movie Night or negotiated the summer rentals in the Pines. Or Roland, happening upon Ken and me in front of Bed Bath & Beyond, would grab Ken to maul him in rough love till Ken cried out a password of surrender. Or Crispin would materialize from behind a prop tree to play gunfighter with Ken in the Chelsea dusk, where any act performed by lavish men instantly becomes good form.

They were a tight unit, all ex–boy friends. This created some tension in those glossy apartments. Harlan, in a brief era as the arbiter of style (till everyone realized that his right foot had only four toes), laid it down as law that no two former partners could date again unless a third ex completed a trio. Somehow, this was equity. But then Ken visited me for a “coffee meet” (one hour’s socializing, no meal) to complain that while speaking to Tom-Tom on the phone, he heard Davey-Boy wickedly giggling in the background.

“I’m quite cross with them both,” Ken told me. “Because they should have invited me over for a threesome. I expressed my displeasure by doubling my gym program.”

“Does that work?” I asked, delivering the steaming mugs.

“Davey-Boy saw how angry my triceps got, and he was respectful for days. But Tom-Tom sulked at me. He said, ‘Tu es vache avec nous.’ He thinks French gives him the cultural advantage.”

“Still, wouldn’t you have been cheating on
your
boy friend?” I asked. “Royal?”

“Royston, and it’s not cheating if you trick with an ex. Cheating? Cheating is when
you
call a new trick for a second date.” He gently churned his coffee to stir up the honey, then asked, “What do I do about Davey-Boy and Tom-Tom?”

“What you always do,” I said. “Restore the ethical balance.”

Though none of them would articulate it thus, Ken is his gang’s moral authority, like Pacey of
Dawson’s Creek
or, for you others, Thackeray’s Dobbin. When a wily devastato tried to infiltrate the group with a doctrine of bareback sex, Ken placed a ban on him, and his friends complied.

Well, mostly. Ellroy, Wilkie, and the irrepressible Davey-Boy eventually confessed to entertaining the newcomer at covert orgies for two, albeit with condoms. Ken ruled with severity, arranging for them to be tickle-tortured in blue plastic handcuffs, Ellroy by Anders, Wilkie by Morgan, and Davey-Boy by tender Ken himself. He wouldn’t tell me where all this occurred or whether the culprits took their justice like men, except to remark that “Davey-Boy always struggles.”

So my cousin really was the commander of them all, and dauntingly likable: buoyant, reliable, supportive, generous, and even smart. He had none of the Knowledge, however: my generation made that unnecessary by effecting the historical transition between national homophobia and
Will & Grace.
At dinner once, Tom-Tom proposed an around-the-table on the question “What do you like least about gay men?,” and on my turn I cited the moribund but not yet terminated tendency by a few individuals to act like Auntie Mame. Ken, Tom-Tom, Davey-Boy, Bart, and James just looked at me. They don’t know who Auntie Mame is.

Worse, Ken is the only gay I’ve ever met with absolutely no sense of humor. As he loved describing apartments, I asked him how he’d describe mine.

“I wouldn’t,” he said, in a tone of blameless honesty. Everyone laughs when I tell it. But he wasn’t jesting: simply refusing to criticize.

Looks Control creates enthusiasts but also resentful fans. Davey-Boy treats Ken with idolatry, but there are also times when Davey-Boy might be the schoolmaster in an unusually brutal Victorian novel.

And it just goes on and on, like Peter and Lars Erich: hungry love, everywhere I look. Ken chatters endlessly about Davey-Boy. I hear “Davey-Boy should have been an international spy.” Or “Davey-Boy is such a mystic. He gives you lectures on The One.”

“What One?” I asked Ken. He had come over to my place to complain about yet more of the relentless tiny mischief in which his comrades lived and loved.

“Davey-Boy never says. But he is always making pronouncements. Did you hear that he will not have sex with … well, this is what he
claims
 … he will not have sex with anyone who doesn’t get along with children.”

“That’s an odd take,” I said.

“But that’s Davey-Boy. He says guys who don’t appreciate kids are missing an all-important chip. See, you can’t hit up little kids for a job or money or a rent-stabilized place someone just moved out of. So those guys are selfish and clueless and would not be good sex, anyway. And they will never meet The One.”

I think Ken’s buddies have met The One, at any rate, but I’m shy of saying so.

“Listen, I have this problem to tell,” he went on. “That week when I went to the Greek Isles for a springtime pick-me-up? While I was gone, some new guy turned up at the gym and they started a sign-up sheet without me.”

“A sign-up sheet?”

“Like, who gets him first, who second … and but the thing is, by the time I got back it was up to like twenty names. And so why did Davey-Boy and Tom-Tom think they had the nerve to play this kind of off-Broadway trick on me? Because I went right up to that new guy, list or no list.”

“A sign-up sheet? The gym allows you to reserve men for sex in the order of—”

“Not the
gym.
”
The West Wing
isn’t about a
plane.
“My friends.”

“Tell me about the new guy.”

“Oh, he’s just endless. He walks…” No. “His back…” Wait. “He’s got this boy-smile.”

“That could be anybody. Brad Pitt, Aunt Laura…”

“Well, how would you describe the most excellent man in sight?”

“Is he The One?”

Ken considered, then shrugged. “Who knows about that concept? It may be something way corny that even Davey-Boy doesn’t understand. But I’m going to collect this new guy, to rebuke Davey-Boy and Tom-Tom in their latest treachery, which
they
think I don’t even know is because they love me so much they terrorize me to express their passion.”

“The penalty of leadership,” I explain.

He gets pensive. “It’s simpler to be loved for yourself, isn’t it? You know, your looks and your dick. The things you have. Then you just enjoy yourself. You don’t have to worry about what to say at the right time. Or are you classy enough, with the usual nuances. You never can tell what someone likes for personality, but everyone knows what’s cute.”