A Horse Named Sorrow

  Because Jimmy was someone you just wanted to please after a while. Or I did anyway. Maybe it’s that Jimmy had a whole lot of trouble, but didn’t complain. Not much anyway. Or maybe it was just that he was the cutest guy I’d ever set eyes on, with his big brown eyes under the pronounced and serious brows, those cheekbones and that perfect mouth, the Adam’s apple, the chest—and all the way down to his cute long bony feet. A marvel. But beauty was never enough—I’d had the billion one-night stands to know that much. It was his kindness that got my tail wagging. Not big stuff either. It was that he helped people in small, seemingly insignificant ways. And it was always the most troubled people he helped: a homeless woman who needed toilet paper; a disoriented old man on the bus who suddenly panicked when he forgot where he lived. Jimmy asked him for his license, and together we walked Stan home and ate Fig Newtons with him. Jimmy made him coffee and called his niece.

  Jimmy also volunteered with the needle exchange program and handed out hypodermics to junkies on 15th Street at the Armory. That’s how he got to know Tanya. And pretty soon they were friends. “I see why you pined, Shame. He’s a keeper,” Tanya told me.

  I admired Jimmy, that’s what kept me hooked. He was strange, and a bit moody, but in a good way. Different. I’d go about my day, quaffing coffee at Muddy Waters, having panic attacks, arguing spelling with young tykes at the Y, handing out quarters to the legions of the wacked that patrolled the streets of the Mission District, all the while wondering what Jimmy was up to, slinging blood and doing small favors, being more effective than I could ever be. How’d he do it?

  “How do you do it, Jimmy?”

  “There’s no trick, Seamus. Seeing what needs to be done and doing it.”

  All I ever needed to know. All that falls with the rain and rises each morning with the sun.

  But I was someone who needed tricks to get out of bed, to eat, to work, to go to a movie. I needed tricks for everything. Without tricks, I’d likely never get out of bed at all. Bargains and promises and obsessive worries: The world might end today—you don’t want to be in bed for that. Or, someone might set this building on fire, so you better get up and go somewhere else. How about: If you go to tutoring today, a parent might see how well you treat their child and hand you a check for ten grand so you’ll never have to get out of bed again—at least not for a good long while. These tricks weren’t even believable (like, I only worked with low-income single-parent kids). They were my soup-for-brain’s way of expressing superstition, I suppose. And what the hell is superstition anyway but the desperate rationality of the panicked, who’ve come face to face with the fact that it’s all chaos, and goddamn they need a story—and fast!

  Tricks.

  Wishes.

  Seeing’s what it was. No tricks with Jimmy. You could trust Jimmy, marvel at his sanity. Jimmy and Jimmy’s ideas were strange to me because they looked like the God’s honest truth. He was different and he was certainly different than me. And so he remained a sort of holy intimate stranger. I’m not so sure what I was to him. I don’t think he thought me particularly unique or admirable. But Jimmy didn’t seem to want anything in particular from me.

  “What is it, Jimmy—what do you see in me?”

  “You got a good heart, Shame. That’s enough.” And he’d smile and turn out the light.

  On another occasion when I asked, he said: “Who says I see anything in you? You’re like a window, Shame. I see right through you.” And he’d chuckled.

  “How’s the view, Jimmy?”

  “I like it, Shame. I’ve always liked ruins.” Winking Jimmy.

  “Yeah, well maybe I oughta charge admission. I’ll put a turnstile right on my back belt loop. One dollar a ride, just like the MUNI bus, Jimmy. Pay or get out.”

  “I’d jump the turnstile.”

  “You’d be arrested and fined.”

  “Gladly. I’d charm the judge and jury. Exhibit A: your cock. B: your sweet little ass. C: your beautiful face. Crime of passion.” And he’d grin like a winner. Charming son-of-a-bitch, Jimmy was.

  “Jimmy, you make me frisky. All I did was ask a question.”

  “That’ll learn ya,” he liked to say as he took to wrestling with me.

  And it’s those little phrases lifted from Nina Simone records and who knows where else that catch in my throat. And then he’d be pulling at my clothes. “I like the view, Shame; let me see the view.” And through the turnstile we’d go.

  And black is the color of my true love’s hair—even if he always dyed it blond.

  I know why I loved him. He lacked the profit motive. And of all the supermarkets in all the broken-down strip malls of the world, he walked into mine. Across the linoleum he trundled his shopping cart all tied with strings, peering up at the little signs over each aisle: coffee, canned fruit, beverages, boys. Would they hang us like at the butcher’s? Or just stand us up like cans or cereal boxes? And there I was, having fallen off the shelf, a sort of dented box of love, but still with a good bit of shelf-life.

  22

  Each morning out on the road I’d rise not long after the sun, moving about quickly in the cold, climbing into my sweat-dried, stiffening shorts and salt-stained Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt. Then I’d get Jimmy up and tie him on the handlebars, quickly pack the sleeping bag, mount my humble vehicle, and move out from whatever campground I’d found in search of a diner, where I always ordered the same thing: pancakes. They always came in stacks of three, just like wishes in a church. Everything a trinity. I clung to the magic I knew. Which pancake’s the father? Which the son? And which the holy ghost? The kingdom of carbohydrates; their power; and the glory of how far they could take me each day—one hundred miles.

  All of which led to me to saying grace and a prayer for the souls of Jimmy Keane, James Owen Blake, and my wounded mother. Take this cup of coffee, I’d mutter, hoisting it to my chapped lips. And then I’d douse the offering in syrup—three supersized eucharists, amen. I crossed myself, and bolted them down.

  23

  Jimmy grew impatient with illness and suggested we start going to ACT UP weekly.

  “What about fight no more forever, Jimmy?”

  “It won’t be forever, trust me.”

  It was somewhere to vent, but also: seeing what needs to be done and doing it.

  Jimmy joined the media committee and wrote press releases and called news outlets.

  It became our social life. ACT UP gave me a sort of team feeling, a kind of power I’d never been familiar with, loner that I was. Although it often felt hopeless too, reminding me of what a vale of tears life was. Of course, it helped that ACT UP was loaded with cute guys. And angry cute guys at that, which gave them sex appeal—and made me feel guilty.

  Mostly I took pictures, so I made it art and history too, which was something—and I needed something. Because Jimmy was going to die and then I’d have nothing.

  So, in the end, as always, the guys and girls at ACT UP, like the kids at the Y, gave me more than I ever gave them. I showed up, did my little part, and I appreciated that they never asked any more from anyone than what they wanted to give. They were mostly young guys in their twenties, many of whom, like Jimmy, had it, disabusing me once and for all that it was a ’70s-guy disease. These were young punky guys in leather jackets and Mohawks, babydykes with nails through their noses, radicalized middle-aged men who’d lost their safe place in the gay bourgeoisie. And Tanya of course, and even Lawrence sometimes too.

  I’d first gone a year before I’d met Jimmy, because, like I said, it was the cool in-crowd to hang out with, and because Lawrence went all the time, mostly to meet guys—but also for contacts, networking, to promote himself and his art career. And I suppose because Lawrence cared too. In his way. Just as I did, and Tanya did of course. Tanya, who always encouraged me to do the right thing.

  Later, it became a constructive distraction in the struggle to stay sane dealing with Jimmy that brought me back each week. I didn’t believe we’d ever kill t
he dragon—the dragons, I should say, because there were so many: the disease itself, Republicans, the pharmaceutical industry, the city, the county, the state, the church, the feds, the NIH, the CDC, the older queens who hated us postering their precious Victorian neighborhood with leafets and fyers and art—and the biggest dragon of all: that it was probably far too late for Jimmy to benefit from anything we did.

  But it was fun, too, in a carnivalesque way, with different facilitators each week who dressed for the occasion in drag, crazy hats, and jewelry. One week a lipsticked boy with a beehive, the next a girl with a penciled-in mustache in a three-piece suit.

  Each week, we talked and argued, got crushes, and planned actions.

  A black-clad procession, marching.

  I dreamed at night that we walked with huge tigers and lions on big chain leashes. And I woke up scared.

  Mostly I remember whistles, deafening and shrill.

  They were blown to signal the beginnings of marches, or whenever we stopped, or when the cops blocked our way, or if there was any bashing danger present. In the middle of California Street, while policemen on motorcycles called us “fags,” dozens of boys lay down and we quickly drew chalk lines around them. One time I lingered too long outlining Jimmy, and boy did I get a truncheon bruise.

  Jimmy got arrested a lot before he started to worry about being stuck sick in jail. Then he just showed up at the end of marches, holding a sage stick, which burned slow and smoky. He was wearing an old green army coat by then and his hair, having grown out, was mostly black, with just the tips still golden. Sometimes he wore a brown and white Andean wool cap with the extended ties that dangled around his lovely scruffy neck. So I always knew where Jimmy was … the one green coat, the one Peruvian head, the one smoke-surrounded character with the sage stick.

  Jimmy and all the others got arrested or sick or both, and all I did was run around with chalk and a camera.

  And I think we were more afraid, the negative boys. The positive guys had gotten it over with, even though they hadn’t. Not the hard part. What I mean is they didn’t have to worry about getting it anymore. Some of them actually seemed relieved and liberated in their strange fashion. They were kind of like guys who’d made the varsity team or been drafted, or joined the Marines. You didn’t really want what they had going, but you looked up to them as manlier in the twisted way men do. Jimmy had it: that hot positive-guy air to him that negative guys fetishized and felt guilty about. Motherfucking star.

  So I had the secret pride of having a cute poz boyfriend. Some consolation. I tried not to gloat. Which ended up doubling the guilt.

  Jimmy said: “Hey Shame, gloat while you can.”

  Winked at me.

  Well, I didn’t gloat much, being that I was scared stiff. I’d even sneak off now and again and go to the forty-eight-hour clinic on Haight Straight, where for forty bucks you could get test results back in two days, unlike the health department’s testing center, which took two weeks. I didn’t have the nerves for two weeks. No sir.

  I never told Jimmy I went there, but I’d go now and again when I noticed a cut in my mouth and started tripping on which blowjob when.

  Once these two yuppie guys came running out of the place as I approached. They were all smiles, hopping into their Jeep and French-kissing. I knew what that was. Getting negative results made you wanna fuck like crazy. Saved for another day.

  I’d feel it too, but only a little bit, and it had nowhere to go. Because if one of you wasn’t negative, it just wasn’t that exciting.

  I went home to Jimmy and to being careful.

  After a while, he wouldn’t even let me blow him anymore.

  “Ah come on, Jimmy,” I drooled despairingly like a dog.

  “Fuck no,” he snapped, annoyed.

  “You like it, don’t ya?”

  “Not about me, Shame. Get a clue.” And he’d get up and go to the bathroom.

  “What you wanna do then, Jimmy? What can I do?” I continued once he’d returned.

  “Quit asking questions.” And out went the light.

  “I hate this.”

  “Well, you can leave.”

  “Jimmy, fuck, don’t say that. I don’t mean you.”

  “This is me, Seamus. Take it or leave it.”

  I wouldn’t pity him. He’d asked me not to, and I wouldn’t. So I’d lie there quietly and I’d wait for him to reach out and hold me.

  24

  When I couldn’t find a campground or state park near Jimmy’s red hoops, I’d stay in whatever small town was nearby. Like me, Jimmy obviously liked back roads and empty places as that’s where his red line took me. I’d sit in diners, or coffee shops, wondering what it was like to live there, especially for queers. And I’d look at the chairs and booths and people’s clothes and wonder if any of their threads had made it onto Jimmy’s bike. I’d see possibilities and make up stories about how Jimmy had done them some small kindness and secretly yanked a string from their sleeve.

  In Hayfork, out on Highway 3, I came upon a sock lying on the sidewalk as I exited St. Brigid’s, three wishes the richer. And I picked it up, and that’s when I started collecting strings too. Not for poems—I think they were prayers or wishes, but even I wasn’t totally sure. They gave me an idea for a new kind of Marie Antoinette painting: Let Them Be Lost Souls and Let Them Ride Bicycles Cross-Country Taking Their Lovers’ Ashes Back the Way They Came, and Let Them Pull. This time, though, Marie Antoinette would merge with Our Lady of Guadalupe, whom I’d just seen in all her glory and wished before in the church. I liked how she was clothed in the sun, mandala-like, and she’d been my favorite Virgin Mary for years besides as I’d always known she was actually Tonanztin, an Aztec goddess who’d been co-opted by the Spaniards. Queer that way (that’s why me and Jimmy had her in jar candles all over the house). I suddenly wanted to paint her a thousand times and garland her in strings and mayonnaise jars, bicycle parts, bandages, AZT pills, third eyes, and Chinese characters for good, holy, and better. But never any image of Jimmy. No sir. Jimmy was the light behind her.

  When Jimmy had started to lose interest in the scene of San Francisco, we went to the ocean or the woods, or both. Handy Jimmy sewed straps on his panniers, so we could each carry one to use as a backpack. Of course I needed a sleeping bag and found an old Boy Scout bag at Community Thrift.

  “Maybe I should get a bike too, eh Jimmy?”

  But he just looked at me.

  “Nah, biking’s over.” Never once did he ride Chief Joseph in San Francisco. Jimmy had a way of letting you know some questions he didn’t want to answer—a look away and down—so I didn’t ask, or just let them fall aside, ignored.

  Once, we took a bus out to Mt. Tamalpais and walked the rest of the way into the hills to a campground he’d read about that looked out through the oak trees to the Pacific beyond. We watched the sunset there and made a fire and baked zucchini and potatoes all wrapped up in foil, with tofu dogs we cooked on sticks. We smoked pot and drank whiskey from a pint flask, and then we talked about Tom Spanbauer’s The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon, a magical story about a bisexual Indian boy and a cowboy and the higher form of homosexual love that they found together alone in the wilderness. I can still see Jimmy’s face in the firelight, the shadows that his pronounced brows and chin and Adam’s apple made, fitting about him while he went on and on about how important a book he felt it was. Then we made love the same way they did in the book. No, there was nobody like Jimmy—my cowboy, my Indian.

  Another time we hiked the whole Dipsea Trail, from Mill Valley all the way out to Stinson Beach, through redwoods and over creeks, across wind-waving fields of green yellow-flowered grass, through groves of squat little oaks so dense we had to bushwhack through their branches and made a racket trudging through their heaped-up fallen leaves. Then I picked more of those leaves out of his spikey rapidly blackening mane above his say-nothing smile.

  We went south too to the reservoirs on the peninsula, and east to th
e redwoods above Oakland and the forested canyon behind U.C. Berkeley.

  I followed after Jimmy, his cute horsey behind in his faded jeans, his ratty green sweater, his head like a star thistle gone to seed, dry and fading, going who knows where up the trail before me.

  And then one day we never left town again.

  25

  Back in San Francisco, we’d go up to Dolores Park to amble, sit somewhere, amble some more under the big date palms, amid the shiny-eyed Guatemalan boys dealing weed and grinning—because long before the cannabis club, we had to buy Jimmy pot for his appetite on the street or in the parks.

  There were children there, evident from the unattended multicolored balls that would bounce by, and off into the street. A small brown kid would inevitably appear and give chase right to the curb, at which point he’d stop as if having reached a river. Sometimes I’d go after the ball then, reminding the kid to never go into the street, as his mother came hobbling along thirty yards behind, two other tykes in tow. I’d have left Jimmy back at the corner, and there he waited for me in his army coat, all bundled up now even though it was summer, and looking very alone.

  We walked on to where the tanning queens staked out the upper reaches of the park, near where the J Church trolley stopped after coming out of the trees where the green parrots lived—legend had it that they’d begun as one or two escapees and had now burgeoned into a squawking colony. They weren’t the talking kind, but we imagined if they were: cruisy come-ons and drug marketing would erupt from their screeching beaks: “suck my cock, yeah boy; weed, weed; fuck me, fuck me; dime bag?”

  “San Francisco, Jimmy.”

  “Yeah.” His deadpan.

  With Jimmy I tried mightily to be agreeable, even when he wasn’t.

  Usually, I’d go out for walks when Jimmy was sleeping or in difficult moods. I felt guilty leaving him of course, but I was also freaked out considerably, and besides I felt justified in that he was taking out all his frustrations on me of late. But I tried to keep my head up. He was dying after all.