by Vanda
“Yeah, but I always suffer after. Inside me.” He pointed at his naked chest with only a smattering of hair. “Inside—the pain—the pain of knowing what I did. I have to go.” He stood up. “I’m naked!” He put his two hands over his thing. “You shouldn’t be in here with me like this.” He groped for his robe lying on the bed. “Go!”
“Sure.” I got up and stood by the bureau. “I’ll be over here if you need—”
“No. Get out of here.”
I went into the living room. Max was pacing back and forth in front of the French windows, sipping a glass of sherry. He always kept a bottle of sherry in the living room cabinet. Water ran down the glass windows in wide sheets and bounced against our patio floor. Max, as always, had thought to bring in the plants before the worst of the rain fell. The city skyline blinked red, blue, and green through a prism of water drops.
“Well?” Max said.
“Maybe we should call his psychoanalyst,” I suggested.
“He quit. Do you want a glass of sherry?”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
He poured a glass and handed it to me. “Don’t spill it on the rug.”
“Only you would turn everyone’s life into a nightmare by getting a white rug.” I took a nervous sip from my glass as I flexed my toes through the rug’s heavenly soft wool. “Maybe that’s why he’s like this.”
“Because of the carpet?”
“No. Because he quit his psychoanalysis. You know people. If he didn’t like that one, maybe you should get him a new one.”
Max leaned back against his shiny patent leather grand piano. “I know some MDs who come into the club regularly. They might be able to recommend someone, but you know, those fellows fill his head with crap against homosexuality. I think it makes him worse. I was glad when he quit. I thought he was ready to accept himself—and us—now this.”
Scott stood in the archway dressed in slacks, sports jacket, and tie, holding his fedora. “I’m going now. Sorry I caused so much trouble.”
Max straightened up. “You didn’t.”
“I think I did.” He turned to go.
“Go with him,” Max whispered to me.
“It’s pouring out there.”
“All the more reason. He shouldn’t go out in this.”
“But I should? Look how I'm dressed. I’m not even wearing a bra.”
“You don’t need one.”
“Thanks a lot, and you wanted me to do what for you?”
“Hurry. You can grab a couple of umbrellas from the stand in the hall on your way out.”
I got downstairs, I dashed out of the elevator, and into the lobby, pulling on a coat to cover my clothes. I ran out the door as the rain splashed over the sides of the awning. “Cab, Miss?” Alfred, the doorman asked.
“No, thanks. Did you see which way a man in a gray sports coat went? No umbrella.”
“Mr. Elkins. He’s over there, ma’am,” Alfred said, pointing.
Scott stood on the other side of the street under an awning. A tiny thread of morning light sparked in the sky, poking through the nighttime darkness. I pushed open one of the umbrellas and waited on the curb as a cab drove by; splashing mud all over the bottom of my brand new coat. Once it passed, I ran over to Scott—afraid he’d run away, but I think he was waiting for me. “What are you doing, Scott?”
“I was going to go home until you decided to follow me.”
“Max is worried. Here. He wanted me to give you this umbrella.”
He smiled and took it. “That’s sweet of him. Such a good person.”
“He is. So why …?”
He looked away.
“You want some breakfast?” I asked. “My treat.”
“I’ll have breakfast with you, but only if I pay. I’m still that much of a man.”
We raised our umbrellas and walked up the wet sidewalk toward the all-night diner a few blocks away. The pale light was expanding in the sky, opening the way for blue.
By the time Scott and I got to the diner, the rain was a mere drizzle, and we were closing our umbrellas. I love the subtle colors of early morning, especially after a rain has washed the sky clean. The colors are delicate and pastel-like as if they were born in a Monet painting. I love the smell of early-morning coffee, and the way the percolator sounds in an all-night diner when the aprons on the waitresses and countermen have started to droop. I love the smell of bacon and eggs and everything becoming possible again, especially at an all-night diner at six in the morning.
Scott sat looking out the window as we sipped our coffee. “You know, Scott, you’re not like all the other guys Max has been with. You’re special. I think he’s in love with you.”
He took a sip of his coffee. “Please don’t say that. I never asked him to.”
“But I think you feel the same.”
“I’m trying not to. He asked me to live with him. How can two men live together? Like that? He wants us to try to be—something to each other. He talked about these men who lived together like a man and woman for forty-five years and said that there are more men trying it. I knew men in DC who did that. Some even exchanged rings like it was real, but I couldn’t be a part of that. That’s a perversion.”
“Why did you quit your psychoanalysis? Wasn’t it helping?”
“Dr. Brown—”
“Brown? That’s a new one.”
“A new old one. I go through them fast. Dr. Brown wanted to get me interested in girls like the rest. I even went on a date with a girl a few weeks ago.”
“How’d that go?”
“I think I bored the poor girl out of her mind. I didn’t know what to say to her. Dr. Brown said I should at least try to hold her hand before the end of the date, and I was going to do it. I promised myself I definitely would, no matter what, do that. But as the night went on, I got scared and I didn’t. After that date, Dr. Brown said that even though being with a man was a sickness, it wasn’t a terrible one. He said that even Sigmund Freud said there were lots worse things in life than homosexuality.”
“You wouldn’t know it, the way people have been talking these days.”
“He told me about famous men who had been like me, men like Alexander the Great, Oscar Wilde, and Walt Whitman. Their sickness didn’t keep them from being great men. He thought, since he and I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with curing my sickness, that maybe I should go with Max, because being alone in the world had to be worse than being homosexual. He said if I could find any love in this world, even if it was with another man, then I should go and enjoy that love—the one that was right in front of me.”
“What a fantastic doctor. So why are you upset?”
“I tried. Tonight. To be with Max. To be with him completely. To let myself love him, but I started shaking, and I was terrified. A terror that Max was about to kill me overtook me. I know that sounds crazy, but … Al, no matter what Dr. Brown says, it’s …” He whispered, “It’s a sin. And if I don’t atone and stop doing it, I’m going to hell.” He sipped his coffee.
“Scott, you know the Bible lots better than me, but when I was a kid I read it twice from cover to cover.”
“What for?”
“I was looking for a loophole.”
He laughed. “You must’ve been a very odd child.”
“Ask my mother.”
“A loophole for what?”
“I had this friend who was Jewish. I met her at school, and I found her really interesting. Like, her family had their Sunday on Friday night, and they ate food I’d never heard of. In Sunday school, they used to tell us that the Jews were going to hell because they didn’t believe in Jesus. That didn’t sound right to me. I mean, her family was really nice. One time, during the depression, her mother gave me uh, it was called, uh, filtie fish to take home to my family.”
“So you read the Bible looking for a loop hole for your friend. That’s sweet. Did you find one?”
“I think so. And I think it’s a loophole for you too.�
�
“What?”
“Well, the thing that impressed me the most through all those stories of bloodshed, incest, and betrayal was where it says, ‘God is love.’ I figured that if God is love, that’s the loophole for all of us. ’Cause what kind of loving God would throw his kids into a fire no matter what they did?”
Chapter 61
March 1954
“I AM NOT pleased,” Shirl said through gritted teeth.
We sat in Shirl’s office. I resisted the temptation to slink down in my chair like a little boy who’d been sent to the principal’s office. I wanted to plead Shirl’s forgiveness, but I dared not. She would never respect me as a businesswoman. I was on shaky ground already.
“I took my money out,” Shirl continued, getting out of her chair. She leaned heavily against the front of the desk, her eyes boring into mine. “Every dime. Now, I’m out of what could be a big hit.”
“I didn’t think they’d be able to raise more money. At least not that fast. How could anyone have known that kid playwright had a rich uncle, one who’d seen Juliana at the Copa and fallen in love with her?”
“You should’ve known.”
“Maybe you could get back in. No show is going to turn down a hungry investor.”
“After the stink I made about Juliana being cast as the lead? The stink you told me to make. I don’t put my tail between my legs for anyone.”
“I’m sorry, Shirl. Maybe it’ll flop.”
“Is that what you’re hoping?”
“No! Juliana would die. But yes, for you. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“The thing is probably going to be a smash, and I’m going to be out a fortune. I could smash you.” She shook a meaty fist in my direction. “The things I said about her—if she ever found out—”
“You didn’t tell them she was …”
“Of course not. I’d never tell them the truth. What kind of friend do you think I am? I did all this because you asked me to. Never mix business with friendship.” She pressed her fists against her temples. “What was I thinking? I was thinking you knew what you were doing. You with the big college education.”
“I know.”
“Mercy wanted me to invite you over to our place for dinner tonight.” She picked up the phone receiver. “Can I tell her you’re coming?”
“You still want me in your home?”
“No, but you are Mercy’s friend.”
“I knew you long before I met Mercy.”
“But I’m not speaking to you. Are you coming or not?”
* * *
I arrived at Shirl and Mercy’s door that night in my very best men’s suit, especially tailored for me by Juliana’s tailor: gray with a gray and red striped tie. I rarely dressed like this, but I thought it might help me to get myself back in Shirl’s good graces. I draped my trench coat over it so as not to be someone’s target. I carried a bouquet of daisies, Mercy’s favorite. I had to make things right.
“Al,” Mercy exclaimed when she opened the door. She wore an airy blue chiffon dress that floated around her ankles as she moved. “Come in. I was so happy when Shirl told me you could come. I’ve been cooking all day, so I hope you’re hungry.”
“You shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble for me. Oh, here. These are for you.”
“My favorite. How thoughtful.” She caressed them to her breast. “Let me take your coat. Shirl is finishing up some work in the other room. I’ll tell her you’re here.” She spun around, heading out of the room, my coat over her shoulder; then she quickly spun back. “Don’t you look nice? So dapper. I swear, if I weren’t attached …” She clicked her tongue and winked at me as she bounced out of the room.
I undid my suit jacket buttons and sat on the couch, staring at the theater books Shirl had lined up on the shelves against the opposite wall.
“What’s next?” Shirl said from behind me. I turned as she came into the room, wearing her usual navy-blue suit and tie. She must have hundreds of those hanging in her closet.
I stood. “Next?”
“Juliana’s going to be in Summer Dandelions, like it or not. What’s next on your agenda for her?”
“I got her an acting coach. She’s going to be working with him every day till they open. The cast had their first table read last week, and I didn’t get any desperate calls from the director or her, so I’m hopeful. Today, the director was going to have them up and moving around.” I held up two crossed fingers.
Shirl nodded, holding up her own two crossed fingers. Mercy poked her head in. “Dinner’s ready, so you boys get a move on it. Shirl, did you wash your hands?”
“Yes, Mother, all clean. See?” She held up her hands for inspection.
“Al, you can wash up on your way to the dining room. You’ve been on that filthy subway.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After washing my hands, I found Shirl in the dining room. Mercy carried two heavy silver trays of food from the kitchen. I ran to help her. “You sit. I’ve got it. I used to carry more than this when I was a waitress at Lindy’s.”
“But I don’t mind helping.”
“Sit,” Shirl said. “We don’t put our guests to work.”
Hesitantly, I sat.
I’d never been invited into Shirl’s dining room before. Under the current awkward circumstances, it seemed strange I was being afforded the honor now. The room had one long mahogany table in the center with mahogany cabinets lining the walls on either side. A weighty, masculine look. Shirl sat at the head of the table. On the wall above her head was a gilded portrait of a man from a different time, maybe the fifteenth or sixteenth century.
“I see you’re looking at Queen Christina.”
“Queen? That’s a picture of a woman? Garbo played her. I like this real picture better than the way Garbo looked.”
“Me, too. Christina was a homosexual.”
“But in the movie, she gives up her throne for the man she loves.”
“Don’t go to Hollywood for your history, or to college, either. They didn’t teach you anything very important, did they?”
“I guess not.” I smiled at the thought that a professor would even use the word homosexual in a college classroom. He’d be fired.
“She gave up her throne,” Shirl continued, “because she refused to marry when the nobles told her she must. She found the very idea of marriage repulsive; she knew she would never have an heir, so she thought it best for her country if she abdicated. She had a special woman friend, Ebba, who she wrote letters of great devotion to. Historians explain this away by telling us that Ebba was married, so of course her relationship with the Queen could not have been ‘unnatural.’ But you and I both know that marriage to a man does not mean a woman can’t be gay.”
“Has Juliana seen this picture?”
“Of course. She’s eaten in this dining room many times. I have a book I can lend you on Christina. You have to read between very many lines to get to the true story, but it might be fun for you. A glass of Merlot?” She held up the bottle. “A friend brought it from Paris. We simply cannot get a decent wine in the states.”
“Let me give it a try.”
The phone rang. Shirl had telephone extensions in every room of the house. We both stared at the black phone sitting on top of the cabinet across from the table.
“Don’t you dare,” Mercy said. “We are civilized beings. We do not interrupt our meals for telephones.”
“Yes, Mother,” Shirl said, giving me a look.
I knew we were both wondering if it were Juliana. It continued to ring, demanding our attention.
“This wine is delicious,” I said, trying to ignore the sound of the ringing.
“What do you think of the new things we’re going to need to get onto the subway?” Mercy asked. “What are they calling them?”
“Tokens,” I said.
“What’s wrong with putting a dime in the slot?” Shirl said. “It’s been like that since the subway began. If it’s not b
roken, don’t fix it.”
“No, we used to put a nickel in the slot,” Mercy corrected. “After the war they raised it to a dime because of inflation. Now they need to raise it to fifteen cents to support the growing system. People can’t stand there putting in a dime and a nickel. It would take too long.”
“Fifteen cents1 is outrageous!” Shirl said. “Have you seen the state of those cushions lately?”
“I heard they’re going to take them out,” I said, “since they’re getting ripped up.”
“Sure. Charge more and make our ride even more uncomfortable than it is now.”
“You don’t like change,” Mercy giggled. “You should’ve heard her, Al, when they changed our phones to direct dial.”
“My business depends on the telephone. I didn’t have time to stop what I was doing to learn that new dial nonsense.”
“Who was the one who went to the special class the city gave?”
“Even now, I still don’t like dialing on my own,” Shirl grumbled. “I liked talking to the operators. They were dependable girls. Some of them were my friends. I hate trusting an automated faceless thing to get the number when I’m in a hurry. But everyone wants to be so ‘modern.’ I still say, ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.’” She swallowed down the last of her wine as the phone stopped ringing.
I ate until I thought I’d bust. Mercy had made lamb with mint jelly, mashed potatoes, string beans and butternut squash. Then she turned off the lights and left Shirl and me in the dark. A few minutes later, she returned carrying a flaming Baked Alaska. Our exclamations of amazement almost made Mercy burst her buttons. I liked pleasing Mercy, and it was so easy to do.
While we finished the Baked Alaska, the phone rang again, and both Shirl and I stared at it.
“No,” Mercy said. “Finish your desert.”
We finished our meal with an after-dinner brandy that Shirl and I took into the living room while Mercy did the dishes. Shirl lit a cigar to go with her brandy and sat in her chair. The phone on the table next to her rang, and she reached for it. “Yes, she’s here. Are you all right?”
I mouthed, “Juliana?”
Shirl nodded.
“Good?” I whispered.