Men on Men

by George Stambolian (ed)

  Most love stories end unhappily, but in gay life failed love has had a controversial history. In the days when homosexuality meant doom, love was often an impossibility made all the more difficult by overwhelming social constraints. Later, in the post-Stonewall period, writers frequently employed the absence or failure of love as a powerful device for criticizing the impersonality of gay life, its sexual excesses, or its lack of social cohesion. Although this kind of vital criticism continues, reactions to it have begun to change. A story like Kevin Killian’s “September,” which describes how a retarded boy is brutalized by a sadistic and self-hating older man, would have been attacked in the past for not providing “positive role models” or “self-affirming images.” But today most readers will see it as a strangely moving love story that ultimately explores the way language confers power on those who control it. Similarly, Patrick Hoctel’s “Bad Pictures,” which dramatizes repeated failures in love, cannot be judged solely as a criticism of gay life. Contemporary readers are more likely to appreciate all the dimensions of a work, from its politics to its art, and to understand that a story or novel is not a factual report but an imaginary construct, a work of fiction.

  Sex is one issue that has remained controversial. For writers in the 1970s, liberation meant they could write more explicitly about sex and begin the crucial process of demystifying gay sexual practices that were still unmentionable. Here again their efforts met with criticism from the gay press. Some attacked these writers for giving too much attention to sex and other forms of “wasteful” pleasure instead of emphasizing the political and social problems of the time. Others denounced those who did not insist enough on the revolutionary aspects of gay sexuality. Today it is the menace of AIDS that has reawakened the controversy. Writers describing sexual practices know that their work will be subjected to close scrutiny, even if they as individuals are morally committed to fostering safer sex. This situation partly explains why many stories involving erotically unrestrained behavior are now habitually set in the years preceding the advent of AIDS.

  I began this collection with Richard Umans’s “Speech” because it describes in parable-like fashion an initiation into sex that is also an initiation into language and knowledge. Many other writers use that special knowledge to explore the literary possibilities of gay sexuality. Edmund White shows how effectively sexual acts reveal the psychological nuances of character. Michael Grumley develops a moral tale from the conflict between sex and love often found in gay fiction, where sex is seen alternately as a source of freedom and an imprisoning obsession. And C. F. Borgman uses different narrative points of view to recreate the eroticism of writing itself.

  A new group of writers has brought equally new insights to the literary and social dimensions of pornography. In “Maine” Brad Gooch takes a situation typical of pornography and reverses its purpose: Instead of hot sex the characters speak of family ties, indulge in honesty, and develop friendship. Dennis Cooper in “The Outsiders” offers a detailed examination of the emotional distancing and perceptual misplacements produced by certain forms of the pornographic imagination. In “David’s Charm” Bruce Boone employs fantasies of power and domination to study the psychological conflicts and erotic desires associated with class differences. And in “Sex Story” Robert Gluck writes about sex without falling into the conventions—pornographic, romantic, demonic—that usually govern such writing. Gluck deliberately plays with and against these conventions to describe what actually takes place in sex—not simply the acts, varied as they are, but also the emotions, thoughts, and events that surround them.

  But it is death that has had the most troubled history in gay fiction. At one time homosexual characters seemed destined to die violently so that others’ lives could go on. The “coming-out” story that emerged after Stonewall reversed this situation—the discovery of one’s homosexuality became an affirmation of one’s life and the revelation of a new future. But death persisted as a theme because gay men and women were now free to address the reality of the violence directed against them. Writers also turned to the sexual underground to study the violence gay men inflicted on each other. No one foresaw that the theme of death would be frighteningly transformed by AIDS.

  Although works related to AIDS have begun to appear— Paul Reed’s novel Facing It and plays like Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart and William Hoffman’s As Is—it is certain that writers will be examining its effects on our lives for years to come. Without naming the disease, Sam D’Allesandro’s story, “Nothing Ever Just Disappears,” makes us feel the surprise and pain of loss. Andrew Holleran’s “Friends at Evening” dramatizes the social repercussions of the epidemic in a long conversation whose bleakness is at once relieved and reinforced by an extraordinary play of humor. For Holleran AIDS represents a confrontation with the absurd and the decline of an entire generation and way of life. The same generation of gay men appears in Edmund White’s story, but here the focus is on one man’s efforts to reshape his life after his lover’s death. By countering death with a rediscovery of the senses, “An Oracle” in effect renews the coming-out story with its life-affirming values. Once again these writers assume that the gay community exists, and will survive.

  Two other narratives relate AIDS to problems gay men confront within another community—the family. In “Choice” John Fox captures the undeniable alienation and paranoia that AIDS has produced in many men and examines the elaborate rituals of denial by which one family attempts to save appearances in order to escape unpleasant truths. He reveals the comic aspects of these rituals but also their sad irony, because his hero himself succumbs to their demands. Unlike the other writers, Robert Ferro in “Second Son” tells his story from the point of view of a man afflicted by the disease, but he is less interested in the nature of the illness than in the way it connects the present to the past, one life to another. Faced by the possibility of death, Ferro’s protagonist ponders the nature of his role within a family whose love at once sustains him and reminds him of his solitude and irreducible difference.

  The conflicts between gay children and their parents have been the subject of several books, including Ferro’s The Family of Max Desir, White’s A Boy’s Own Story, and Holleran’s Nights in Aruba. These books have also been among the most successful in attracting heterosexual readers who often feel more comfortable with gay works in which their own lives are portrayed. Indeed, non-gay readers have frequently criticized gay fiction for being too “self-absorbed,” by which they usually mean that it excludes them. Some established critics have unfortunately used this same impression to support the notion that gay fiction lacks universality.

  But to a disinterested observer, gay fiction would appear no more self-absorbed than heterosexual fiction where the absence of gay characters has hardly been noticed. Gay readers themselves long ago developed the habit of drawing meaning from works that ignored their existence. On the other hand, one continuing purpose of gay fiction is to prove, as Sartre said of Genet’s work, that homosexuals do in fact exist, that we speak and judge for ourselves instead of being merely observed and judged by others, and that our lives are to be taken as seriously as anyone else’s. This fundamental need to demonstrate the authenticity of the gay experience partly explains the strong autobiographical presence in many gay works, including several stories in this collection, in which the writer retains his individuality yet serves as an example to the community whose story he tells by telling his own.

  Despite this sense of community, there is hardly an author of gay books who has not protested at some time against being called a “gay writer.” Writers know this label can be dangerous when it suggests that their work has meaning only to a limited audience, making it easier for others to dismiss them as “minority writers.” There is also the fact that many so-called gay writers have written on a variety of subjects in their fiction and nonfiction. The literary careers of Picano, White, Ferro, Grumley, and Mordden are exemplary in this respect.

 
But to the extent that the world views them as members of a minority, writers of gay fiction have a particular interest in reaching a larger audience. Some believe that for a work to succeed it must not be too gay, and that if sex must be described, it is better to omit the details. Others contend that a writer should emphasize precisely those desires, practices, places, and mores that are unique to gay life. The majority of writers insist, however, that whatever the requirements of success, they must not involve the sacrifice of artistic integrity or submission either to the “friendly” censorship of editors and publishers or to the far more insidious demands of self-censorship. Contemporary gay fiction like contemporary gay culture in general is the result of a massive lifting of self-censorship, and for most writers regression is unthinkable.

  The importance of these issues may be diminishing as more gay books, such as this one, are published by mainstream presses. I have suggested that the growth over the past decade of a sizable gay audience has contributed greatly to this development. But just as there are many gay people who never read gay books, there are many heterosexuals who do. Some of these non-gay readers were first attracted to gay fiction in the post-Stonewall period by the popularity of novels such as Patricia Nell Warren’s The Front Runner, Gordon Merrick’s The Lord Won’t Mind, Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy, Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle, and John Rechy’s Sexual Outlaw. The growing awareness of gay life in all segments of the American population has also produced a renewed interest in the earlier works of Isherwood, Vidal, Baldwin, Burroughs, and Purdy. And today, there is every indication that increasing numbers of non-gay readers have begun to read books from small gay presses, which continue to serve the vital function of nurturing new talent by publishing works that, for whatever reason, have a more limited commercial appeal. Despite the persistent reluctance of many mainstream critics to acknowledge the phenomenon, gay fiction is an exciting and undeniable reality.

  It is not enough, however, to say that sooner or later artistic quality is always recognized. New subjects like new forms of art make new demands on readers by obliging them to modify their beliefs and habits of perception. The demands made by gay fiction—and many of its rewards—will be great as long as gay life itself remains morally and politically controversial. The heterosexual audience has been learning to read gay fiction just as the gay audience has learned in the years since Stonewall to overcome its own fears and prejudices. The exact composition of this non-gay audience is unknown, but it is certain that it includes not only the parents and friends of gay people but also students, urban professionals, other writers, those who follow their favorite authors no matter what subjects they treat, and people who simply enjoy good writing.

  —George Stambolian

  SPEECH

  Richard Umans

  DANNY MURRAY AND I WERE BEST FRIENDS for years, through elementary school all the way into junior high. We never had to ask if we’d be spending Saturday together, just what we’d be doing. Weather permitting, we’d usually ride bikes. Danny and I were great bikers.

  Our Saturday afternoon expeditions took us not over country roads but into city streets, far from the calm predictability of our boring suburb. We explored much of the city on our bicycles, sailing freely through unfamiliar neighborhoods, walking our bikes past the exotic window displays downtown. We imagined ourselves tough city kids, looking for a gang to join. In fact, without knowing it, we were practicing for times to come, when this city or its like would provide the setting for our high school dating, our college adventures, our adult careers.

  We were not without safe havens, even downtown. My uncle had a shoe store on Clarendon Street. He would sometimes take us for sandwiches or at least treat us to ice cream. But the real excitement lay all the way in the downtown shopping center, on Washington Street, where Danny’s father’s store stood. My uncle’s little shoe shop paled by comparison.

  I. J. Murray occupied its own six-story building. The first three floors were retail space, selling women’s clothing, especially furs. Danny and I, unlike mere customers, were allowed to ride the service elevator to the top three floors, where the furs were stored, cut, and stitched into coats. We would visit Danny’s father’s grand fourth-floor office and be treated to lunch. And we had the run of the place.

  The most absorbing area was the fifth-floor cutting rooms. Here the furs would be laid out, backed, and cut to shape by skilled craftsmen. The process remained forever magical to me, and two factors gave it special meaning. First, a single mistake could cost hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. Second, one of the cutters was Danny’s Uncle Leo.

  Leo Murray was dashingly handsome. Even in a long grey work apron, his fine slacks and pure white shirt set him worlds apart from the other cutters. His hair gleamed with sleek blackness, one curl sometimes tumbling Gene Vincent-like over the crest of his forehead. His large black eyes gazed with sensitive alertness, and his jaw stood square and firm, framing thick, straight lips. Altogether, he reminded me of Superman, barely disguised as Clark Kent.

  When Danny and I entered the cutting room, Uncle Leo stopped whatever he was doing. He gave Danny a long, powerful hug, his face brilliant with delight, and they would talk. Uncle Leo’s voice would soar and whoop, and Danny’s mouth would silently form big, emphatic words. I never learned to understand more than a little of Uncle Leo’s strange speech, and Danny told me that most people had the same problem. But Danny, his deaf uncle’s favorite, had grown up hearing that speech and understood it with ease.

  Danny’s sharing of a secret language with this intriguing adult, who would drop everything to hurry over and chat, seemed to me the height of special friendship. In my school, some of the girls had trained themselves to speak a variation of Pig Latin, at lightning speed, in order to confound the boys and undermine the teachers. Since I’d long ago learned to decipher my parents’ use of spelled words when they wished to disguise their meaning from me, nothing had so excluded me as the girls’ annoying gobbledygook. Miffed, I’d taught myself through lonely practice to understand it, though speaking it in public was beneath masculine dignity.

  Danny’s conversations with Uncle Leo remained impenetrable to me, however. Far more than schoolgirls’ nonsense talk, the excited exchanges of my best friend and his dazzling uncle thrilled me with a sense of witnessing a rare intimacy, a bond between man and boy that crossed social boundaries. It was the kind of buddyhood common on television, where heroes often had a young sidekick—the Range Rider and Dick West, The Rifleman and Mark, even Tarzan and Boy. But real life held few openings for sidekicks. My friends and I all had harried, overworked fathers, well-meaning but locked within their own worlds. Other male grownups—gym teachers, camp counselors—managed us where necessary, but always from the unbridgeable distance of their adulthood.

  Only Danny Murray, of all the boys I knew, seemed able to enter the private world of an adult male—not only adult, but moviestar glamorous, and appealingly set off from the rest of the world by his mysterious speech. Danny had a rare and precious access, and I watched enviously as Danny communicated with his uncle with far greater ease than even Mr. Murray, Danny’s father, who was Uncle Leo’s brother and boss.

  Only Ernie, Uncle Leo’s elderly co-worker, seemed able to understand him as well as Danny did. Ernie, Danny said, had trained Leo Murray as a fur-cutter when the youth had come out of a prestigious school for the deaf with few skills in lipreading or speech and little academic training of any kind. Uncle Leo had always been a rebel, Danny confided. He’d been thrown out of school several times, and only his father’s wealth and position had gotten him back in. Crusty old I. J. Murray had intended for young Leo to “overcome” his deafness and become an executive like his older brother. Instead, Leo had taken avidly to the craftsmanship of cutting fur, married a deaf woman from school, fathered three hearing children, and moved into a lesser neighborhood of the same suburb where Danny and I lived.

  Sometimes Uncle Leo would pull Danny and me over to his
work table to show us what he was working on or lead us to the storage vaults to show us a new shipment of gleaming pelts. His voice would swoop like a crazed sparrow, his hands and face signaling most of his intent. I would smile and nod along, imagining I understood. Then Danny and his uncle, and sometimes old Ernie as well, would explode into laughter at a remark of Leo’s, a remark I could no more distinguish from the cascade of his vocalizing than a particular quart of water from a gushing torrent. Danny would translate for me, and I would laugh energetically, glad to be part of the interchange once more, even if emptily, and too late.

  One summer afternoon, on a trip home in my late twenties, I chanced to visit a small country club in a suburb near the one in which I’d grown up. The country club had no golf course, only a pool and clubhouse, and it failed to hold its own against clubs that offered golf and tennis. Some gay entrepreneurs had bought it, and now it was prospering as a gay pool club.

  The poolside atmosphere was pleasant and low-pressure, with people who had moved to the suburbs for many of the same reasons as my parents. The men lounged and chatted, and the women horsed around. A few show-offs practiced diving or swam self-conscious laps in the pool. Here and there sat pairs of recent lovers, with eyes for no one but each other.

  A tall, handsome man in his early forties strode past. Shocked, I determined to listen for the voice, but the black, sympathetic eyes were the giveaway. At once I fell to smoothing my hair and sucking in my stomach. Then I realized that I had with any luck changed far too much in fifteen years for Leo Murray to recognize me now.