She was the real thing and I admired that and knew then that’s why I sorta liked her despite how we clashed over things around the house. But I still hated those acronyms more than I liked her and wanted to swat them away like mosquitoes.
“I think I’m gonna go, Tanya,” I whispered to her after she’d sat down post-speech. She put her hand on my thigh to keep me there, but I squirmed free, inconsolable despite the playful antics of the moderator, who had a lampshade on his head and strings of Mardi Gras beads across his chest.
He looked at me, grinning, when I got up: “Bye,” he minced.
I waved sheepishly, mortified at the public flirtation that put me on the spot.
Off I went to walk and ruminate, hurrying up 18th Street from the meeting at the Women’s Building, and through Dolores Park, which was living up to its name just then, misty and shadowed in the growing darkness. And in spilled the fog, huge banks of it over Twin Peaks, silent, crashing and breaking like a slow wave, then creeping and foaming around corners, slipping down alleyways and loitering among the buildings, moving heavy and steady like a giant slug ghost down hillsides and streets, or surreptitiously whispering through the cypress trees, insinuating itself.
The city was full of smoke. And where there’s smoke, there’s fire, each infection like a red-hot coal, waiting to catch enough wind to blow into flame.
Halfway up Portola, the lone walker on the sidewalk, a terrible feeling of loneliness overcame me. Icarus, but in the darkness and mist this time, falling not because of the melting wax of my wings, but because there was no updraft to keep me aloft. I turned and went back down the hill, snaking down among the empty streets and Victorian corner markets into Noe Valley, intent on the Mission, where I just had to find him.
First I went to Kaos on Valencia Street, where all the cute ACT UP boys went after meetings, all of whom would arrive soon—and who knows, maybe Jimmy had already joined up and just hadn’t been at tonight’s meeting or had arrived after I’d left. In which case, he’d appear here? But no Jimmy among the tacky neon décor and smiling boy-crowd, all sweating and shirtless on the cramped dance floor, or crowded around the little tables, hip to bursting, young and full of promise and hormones. I drank too much, ran into Lawrence and assorted others, even made out with some lanky dark Italian boy named Limbo, who wasn’t even nice. But my loneliness needed a tit to suckle and he was it on the Naugahyde couch. I tore myself away when he commented on how weirdly blue my eyes were. Off I went, home to masturbate, thinking of my horseboy and how gray he could make my eyes.
12
Berkeley became Albany became El Cerrito became Richmond—like biblical begetting, the miles passed me and that bike from one on to the other, like the word of God (or in this case, the words of Jimmy—In the beginning was the word, and his were: take me back the way I came). And into the hills past Richmond, past housing tracts and industry, determined and pumping away, the bay still out there, the big pill-shaped oil storage tanks on the golden summer-desiccated hillsides. I’d catch a glimpse now and again of the Amtrak train, rushing down the tracks to who knows where. Or I’d look out to the water to see a ferry bouncing along over the waves, heading for the dream city that stood out there like a promise, beckoning. And always the whoosh, whoosh of cars passing me. And Richmond became Hercules became Crockett, and pretty soon I was crossing over the Carquinez Strait itself, looking down into the slow-moving end of rivers. I tried to remember their names and how many: the Sacramento, the San Joaquin, the Napa, and the Mokelumne—and before them, having merged with the growing flood miles inland: the Tuolumne, the Stanislaus, the American, the Cosumnes, the Merced. All come to San Francisco, just like Jimmy had.
I looked at Jimmy’s strings then—rivers all—going back now to wherever they came from. Was I supposed to return each one of them? How would I ever find their source? What garments, what bags or awnings, what rags and carpets? What tasks were completed with the frayed remnants of rope? What packages were held secure with that twine? And who were the sheep? Where were the cotton fields? What bleak West Texas plain had the synthetics been once spit up out of ? Who’d worked to transform them in refineries and factories and sweatshops? How many people and how many things were involved to discard a string on the side of the road for a young man dying to find and tie to his bike, resolved to tell its story, but running out of time and never quite getting the chance?
I remembered then his long beautiful fingers laying the strings out on a café table, the wrinkles on his knuckles, the scar on his thumb, how it felt to hold his warm alive hand.
13
The next day I went to Crystal Pistol, figuring Jimmy just had to eventually appear at one of these sideshows of choice for the lost young punky boys who came to San Francisco, who did things like collect strings, and—like Jimmy—ravaged their scalps with color. Which reminded me to be thorough in my search. His scalp might have morphed to hot pink by now—or green or blue. I had to be vigilant and keep an eye out.
But no dice at the Crystal Pistol.
On Saturday, to Klubstitute I scurried, swirling through the retro circus of young multi-gendered boys, some with rhinestones ensconced between their eyes, tiaras on their shaved heads, dresses and combat boots highlighting their skinned, hairy knees; there was lots of slopped-on eyeliner, garish crabapple red lipstick, darling chin stubble. I saw some friends and even wanted to stay, but without knowing where Jimmy was, I found it hard to socialize with anyone, my face a question, obsessively worrying that somewhere my answer was laughing and drinking, dancing and jawing on and on about infant critters to a steady stream of cute available boys. I downed proffered kamikazes foolishly and careened toward a pathetic drunkenness.
A boy got ahold of my left buttcheek and held it like a potter would clay. I smiled politely into his lascivious eyes, but I was through with suckling—my thirst would only be slaked by Jimmy. I walked, all through and up and down the streets of the Castro, where I doubted I’d find him. Sometimes I’d stand on a corner and just watch the parade. The screeching and slap-happy weekend queens, the bow-legged diesels and swaggering butches, the golden-age-of-Hollywood lipsticks, the snooty sweater guys, the quiet watchful artists, the jabbering mainstream social crowd, the gaggles of serious ACT UP boys in small black leather jackets and paratrooper boots, the playful babydykes, the drunks, the broken, the loners, the addicts, and the mad. To some I said “hi”; to others whom I didn’t know, I just smiled, investing perhaps in future liaisons as we’d thus now noted each other on the scene. But really, I just wanted to ask all and any of them if they’d seen Jimmy. And how would I describe him? … “Horseboy, … sloppy bleach job, … gangly, … doorknobs for shoulders, knees, and elbows, … pants baggy—there’s not a belt that could hold anything around that waist, … eyes, eyes that … that … Here, look into mine—they match these like an electric cord matches a wall socket.”
A few nights later, I went to the End Up for Club Uranus. My last chance. And that’s where I saw him. Out on the patio, smoking a cigarette, alone.
I swallowed what felt like a whole hard-boiled egg.
It was crowded and I was on the other side of the patio, so he didn’t see me as I scooted myself up onto the bench that ran along a sad little hedge of neurasthenic bushes. And I just stared across at him. No way was I going to walk up to him. Someone else did though and tried to chat him up. He didn’t even smile, just took a hard drag off the cigarette, nodded his head, and looked away. Which made the point. Then he was alone again.
I leaned forward, wanting to be the next someone, but hesitated. I was dying to give him a hug is the honest truth, grab him like he’d survived a natural disaster and squeeze him until my teeth unclenched and I could breathe easy again. But I couldn’t let him see I wanted him that badly. That’d finish it. He might even push me away, repulsed by my presumption. I breathed deep to calm my beating heart. He was like the deer in my sights and I couldn’t shoot.
I stared at my shoes, scuf
fed black clownish-looking things I’d found at Community Thrift, and I must have been looking down at them when he spotted me. I’d stopped my head halfway up when I saw he’d discovered me, and I eyed him from under my brows, with my chin still almost touching my chest. That was probably what made him laugh, which momentarily made me blush, and then made my face erupt into a smile that almost hurt, it stretched my face so.
He walked over, pushing through the drinking crowd.
“Well, if it ain’t Mr. Blake, the station master,” he beamed.
“Hey Jimmy,” I answered back, my heart bouncing off my sternum like a rubber ball, the dog in me wanting to jump up barking and lick his face. I knew better.
“How you been?” And his hand went to my shoulder and shook it lightly.
“Uh, okay, I guess. How about you?”
I was still sitting down, and he bent his knees to crouch down in front of me, grabbing my hand as he did and kissing it, like he had on the platform.
My lashes fluttered, my heart and stomach leapt, my legs and arms tingled, my throat caught. Don’t do this, you dog. He kissed me on the lips next, and I leaned into the kiss.
“I’m glad I found ya,” he said.
Found me? I wanted to say, … but you knew where I was all along, Jimmy. I didn’t dare. And I was never going to admit I’d been looking for him. “Here I am.” I raised my eyebrows. In the background the music throbbed—Soft Cell: “Tainted Love.”
“Aren’t you gonna ask me where I’ve been?” Jimmy said then.
I gave him a long, hard look, my eyes bluer than ever, no doubt. “California?” He guffawed and cuffed me on the shoulder. “Okay,” I said demurely, “Where you been, Jimmy?”
“Building a foundation,” he said obliquely. Short answer. And then the long. How he’d finally reached Sam and Julie—friends of friends he’d been calling for weeks—that very morning I’d run out for coffee and bagels. And then there’d just been so much to do.
“But why didn’t you leave a note, Jimmy?”
“I’m a poet.” And he stood back up.
“Uh, what does that mean?” And I stood up then too.
“I left the bike, didn’t I?”
I screwed up my brows.
He put his arm on my shoulder then. A lit match. “You didn’t think I’d come back for it?”
My shoulders and brows went up.
“I thought you knew it was like the most important thing. I figured I could trust it with you, and that you knew of course I’d come back for it.” His big smile, his fangs a little bit too pronounced.
Gulp. I smiled shyly. Then I hugged him full force and he hugged me back the same way.
“Come see my new place,” he invited.
My brows went up again.
But before I could inquire, he’d grabbed my hand and, pulling me to my feet, we weaved through the smokers, squirmed through the patio door, parted the drinkers and the dancers as the music enveloped us, jostling our way toward the exit, past the haystack bouncers and the big knot of folks at the entrance, before stumbling onto the sidewalk, out among the smoking modern primitives and garish clubsters in skinny ties and kelly green slacks. The fog was everywhere, sifting down like a floury mist—so heavy that you could barely see a block ahead of you.
He yanked me by the arm and he ran me like a dog all the way down Harrison Street, and then along under the overhead freeway, sometimes grinning, or laughing when cabs blasted their horns because we never stopped at corners until we hit the Mission District and had to on account of serious traffic. By then we were sweating, the hot sweat of the dance, our cheeks rosy in the cold, the mistiness of the air making us damp and clammy, both of us breathing steam like horses. We were so alive right then, re-found, come to life, that that moment sticks forever in my mind—the wetness of his skin, droplets all beaded up on his chin scruff like dew, the wide-eyed look in the bracing cold, his pronounced Adam’s apple and slightly turned-up nose, what it felt like to stand there next to him—the lucky prizewinner—my calloused toe rubbed raw in my stiff black leather clown shoes, the way my boxer shorts’ sweaty elastic band was sticking to my belly, my toothache and hangnail, my cock coming to life in anticipation, the blinking neon of the Zeitgeist Bar that made rainbows on the damp sidewalk at our feet, and the intermittent voices as the bar’s door opened and closed, the bass thump coming through the walls, the dandelion pod headlights coming toward us on Valencia Street and the fuzzy red balls that slowly receded away from us once they’d passed—his half-cold, half-warm hand in mine, squeezing.
He kissed me hungrily, his mouth warm and gooey in the cold—like that warm, soft Szechuan tofu I liked so much at Much Luck Express on 17th Street. Then he eyed the hill before us, laughed at it, and ran me south to 15th where we could cut up to Guerrero without ascending 14th Street. That took us past the projects, which I usually avoided since fags had been bashed there a lot—and, well, like any city, it was full of poor young men, emasculated and angry. I guess it helped to be running because we encountered no trouble and arrived at Guerrero without incident, walking the rest of the way until we reached his gate, at which point he smiled—“here we are”—and dragged me, clumping up the stairs, the two of us half-stumbling in the light of a single bare bulb hanging precipitously from what was once probably a legitimate fixture. The walls were a faded glossy cobalt, decorated with wild-colored paisleys and mandalas, an obvious holdover from some San Francisco psychedelic dream of twenty years previous.
At the door, Jimmy pulled out his single key and turned the deadbolt, then the lock, and, pulling me in, shut the door on what smelled like ginger and bok choy and steamed rice, which permeated his landing like a perfume. It ceased once inside his room and so I figured it was from across the hall.
“Time for another bath, Shame.” And he went into the bathroom, leaving me standing in the single empty room of the studio, staring at the empty fireplace, the mantle where he’d already left change, his wallet, the lease, and matches. In one corner was a kitchen counter built against the wall, with a sink, an oven overhead, and a stove and cupboards. In the corner opposite, his sleeping bag and the two panniers. There was a big bay window that dominated the front of the room, and naturally, like a kid, I was drawn to it. I walked over to look out just as I heard the plumbing roused to life somewhere behind me, and there below was a corner liquor store under a fuzzy befogged streetlight, all of it shrouded by a big acacia tree that was buckling the sidewalk in front, where a young man leaned into a pay phone attached to the wall.
That’s when I felt him bear-hug me from behind.
We were a cold, wet mess, and in no time at all, we were naked too, our cocks bobbing in front of us as we slurped at each other’s mouths—and then he pulled me into the bathroom, and into the gray steam rising out of the tub—a whole different kinda fog—and all I could say between kisses was “Jimmy, Jimmy,” keeping to myself the end of that sentence, which rolled on and on into thank God I found you; tell me everything; hold me forever; don’t ever leave again.
Didn’t dare enunciate that.
Otherwise, there was just the sound of the choppy back-and-forth waves of the bath, the slurps and grunts and giggles, the sexy smell of Jimmy’s sweat, the taste of cigarettes in his mouth, the sweet thought of living out good luck, and all the different textures of him: scruffy chin, slippery lips, the soft leather of his cock skin, the cold slippery yellow-rain-jacket feel of his back, the soft tender skin stretched tight on his belly, the thick, hard rubbery stiffness of his nipples, the endless cartographic texture of his balls and his rough hairy shins and bony feet, his shoulders like bald tennis balls—and I was a dog for them.
We bobbed for apples.
Jimmy pulled me up onto my feet after we’d slaked our thirst. “Come on, Shame, my turn.” And he handed me a condom and up inside him I went: the rollercoaster, and no one driving. Just two boys along for the ride—and then like the sun from behind a cloud, a flashing burst of warmth and ligh
t, and ooh-ahh, and a great vista appeared with a meadow laid out before us, which was him and me and the night we would spend together—and the dreams there, the moon and stars.
14
The wine country was beautiful and all that, and the redwoods too, but everything I saw wasn’t really itself, but just something that in some way reminded me of Jimmy. I suppose I looked for him—or couldn’t stop looking for him—and so I’d find him in things: the melancholy sound of a breeze, or the way a door slammed in a house a hundred yards back from the road that had just a hint of a Buffalo twang. And there were oak trees, of course, that gestured with their branches just like he did; granite stones in the golden oak-studded hills that shared cheekbones with him; rounded grassy slopes that looked like him sleeping under blankets; rivers dimpled and smiling and full of his words; clouds that were his thoughts, wind his breath. Once, courtesy of a creek, I even heard the sweet sound of him peeing in the filthy little bathroom on Guerrero Street. And sun-dappled that pissy creek was too, from the overhanging buckeyes—trees that were just like Jimmy because they lost all their leaves too soon and died mid-summer.
And at night, the mummy sleeping bag, which held me like he had.
15
Lucky we were both so skinny because Jimmy and I had to sleep that first night together on Guerrero Street in his sleeping bag, which left no room for anything but an embrace. When his eyes opened, I told him he needed a bed, and that we should go out today and get one for him.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said groggily, “how ‘bout we go get yours.”
Eyebrows high, the question that was my face. “Sure,” I agreed, “let’s go.” But I was careful not to act too enthused. Horses scared easy, like deer, birds, and stray dogs.
Moving by cab was not uncommon in San Francisco, and that’s just what we did. It was a transient city, after all, so no one had much stuff and they were constantly relocating, either due to the complicated evictions of scheming landlords dodging the strict tenants’-rights laws, or due to new lovers, irreconcilable differences with roommates, wanderlust propelling them to the far ends of the earth, or perhaps new jobs that necessitated more convenient commutes, which in San Francisco meant not more than ten blocks or so—or if further, then at least accessible via a direct bus or rail line.
A Horse Named Sorrow Page 5