by John Rechy
As he moves into the periphery of the dusky cavern, he's aware of his bare feet touching the hot sand. He pauses, to feel the texture of the grains of crushed white earth. At first there is the heat of the sand, where the sun has scorched for hours. Just at the moment that he would have moved to break the sensation of heat, his feet sink below the surface. He looks down. Among the pale grains, some gleam in glassy pinpoints. The sand forms mounds. As his feet move barely, feeling the surface heat again but not as intense, the sand forms new curves, almost pinnacles. Rushing grains slide down to fill new hollows. He sees shapes of vague geometry. He looks a few feet away and sees a series of ripples in the sand. A choppy breeze chose this one area to carve. Only a few inches away, the beach is moist where the retreating tide clung farthest. There, the sand looks brown. He sees the undecipherable message the scratchy footprints of a bird have left. He walks toward the moist parabola. Only his toes touch the moist section. His heels remain on the hot dry beach. He's aware—but the perception is not as clear as he anticipated—of the dual sensation. He stands there for moments. Then he buries his feet deliberately in the moisture. He feels the cool grains of sand sliding, surrounding. He takes a few more steps and looks back at his footprints molded parallel to the scratchings of the bird. He inhales the odor of water and sand and seaweeds and the moisture clinging to the sunless rotting pier. He presses one foot, to etch a deeper footprint on the wet sand. Then he moves on.
Under the pier, the sand is moist. He passes from day to twilight to night in moments. In this darkness only violence or sex can happen. An experienced hunter, Jim knows that although he sees no one yet in the murky mist—and his eyes are adjusting quickly—soon, very soon, figures will emerge. Shadows within shadows.
For moments, he stands in the twilit area; exhibiting his body, making sure, as always, that he is clearly seen.
Look. There's a black solitary outline in the depths of the pier. Jim moves farther into the shadowed world. The sand, untouched by the sun, becomes wetter. His eyes adjust totally.
Beyond, the tide rises. Swoosh! Swoosh. Swoosh! Swoosh. Sounds echoing in the dark. Through slits left exposed by boards fallen in diagonal patterns on the sand, shafts of light penetrate like cold knives.
Jim moves fully into exile country. Just as he knew, there are many other outlaws here. At least six shadows materialize into bodies as they glide closer like hypnotized birds. Against a pole, two men are pasted to each other. Muted sighs and moans blend with the lapping sound of the ocean beyond.
Knowing that a loose circle of ghostly figures is focusing on him as he stands in a pocket of dim light, Jim pulls out his cock as if to piss. Quickly, a tall slender young outlaw holds Jim's cock. Almost as quickly, a short, tightly sculpted, goodlooking youngman, completely naked, trunks in his hand, is licking Jim's sweaty chest. The moist tongue slides down Jim's stomach, encloses the cock still held by the tall one. For seconds only, Jim inches farther into the dim-lit cave within the darker cave, so that his gleaming body being adored will be visible like a pornographic photograph.
Moving back into the shadows, Jim reaches down and grasps the blood-flushed cock of the youngman sucking him. It feels like an extension of his own. Now both Jim and the naked youngman stand, cocks pressed together in one thick shaft, which the tall one sucks.
Other shadows cluster, watching, forming other intimate groups nearby. The tall youngman licks Jim's balls, the tongue explores his buttocks. Swiftly turning his body around, torso bending forward, back to Jim, the naked youngman parts his own buttocks, inviting Jim's full cock to enter the waiting asshole. With his finger, Jim feels the tiny knot of flesh, locating the entry for his cock. The tall man thrusts his tongue into the crack of Jim's buttocks. The naked youngman reaches back, guiding Jim's cock into the saliva-moistened ass.
But now Jim's not sure he wants to fuck. A switch has been touched, loosing an electric sexuality; he does not want to end the scene with orgasm—not yet; his flexing muscles are riding on the kinetic motion of the earlier workout; he will require much more than these moments’ sextime.
But the firm round ass grinds, insisting. Jim lets his erect cock touch the puckered point of entry, and then slide up against the crack, mixed sweat lubricating cock, ass, pubic hair. The tall youngman slides on the sand between Jim's arched legs and licks his balls. With one hand Jim grasps the slender waist of the naked youngman, with the other he holds the other's round cock about to burst.
Clustered throughout under the crumbling boards in the water-decayed cavern, other outlaw torsos shine darkly in the mottled light. The sound of sucking, of sliding flesh. Sighs. Sounds of orgasm float through the darkness.
Two more outlines have materialized about Jim—he feels more mouths. His mind explodes with outlaw images: men and men and men, forbidden contacts, free, time crushed, intimate forbidden strangers.
Sensations increase, a tongue slides over his balls, another on his ass, his cock still only simulating entry into the anxious asshole. And now his lips are on those of a beautiful youngman suddenly beside him, and in one swift thrust Jim's cock enters the grinding ass, and his hand holds the squirting cock of the naked youngman he's fucking.
Male and male and male, hard limbs, hard cocks, hard muscles, hard stomachs, strong bodies, male and male.
Jim is close to coming. His hand is sticky with the cum of the naked youngman he's still fucking, and he rubs the moist cum on the face of the tall man licking his balls, and Jim and the beautiful youngman continue to kiss.
Not yet!
Jim breaks away from the bodies.
Again in the shaft of light, he adjusts his trunks. Carefully avoiding the broken boards, the rusted nails, he moves toward the sun. Into the bright beach.
He blinks.
He returns to his beach mat, again he drinks from the thermos of protein.
Removing his trunks, he walks naked into the ocean's tide, letting the water wash his body.
The old fisherman and his ragged wife continue obliviously staring toward the horizon vanishing in the rising mist.
Clothes adjusted now—the warm sun evaporating the moisture on his body—blue-tinged sunglasses covering his eyes again, beach mat rolled, thermos under one arm, Jim looks at the dark shell of crumbling pier. Nothing seems to move there, no sound comes from it.
A youngman emerges from out of the scorched darkness. He and Jim glance at each other in recognition. Is that the youngman he fucked or the one he kissed?
They walk away in opposite directions.
VOICE OVER: Promiscuous Rage
I SPEAK TO a mixed group of gay and straight people:
The promiscuous homosexual is a sexual revolutionary. Each moment of his outlaw existence he confronts repressive laws, repressive “morality.” Parks, alleys, subway tunnels, garages, streets—these are the battlefields.
To the sexhunt he brings a sense of choreography, ritual, and mystery—sex-cruising with an electrified instinct that sends and receives messages of orgy at any moment, any place.
Who are these outlaws?
Single men, married men; youngmen, older ones; black, white; your brothers, your fathers; students, teachers, bodybuilders, doctors, construction workers, coaches, writers, cowboys, truck drivers, motorcyclists, dancers, weight-lifters, actors, painters, athletes, politicians, businessmen, lawyers, cops.
What creates the sexual outlaw?
Rage.
None more easily prosecuted—even so-called liberals condone his persecution—his is the only minority against whose existence there are laws. Labeled a seducer of unwilling partners, he knows that “homosexual rape” is rape of homosexuals by heterosexuals. Branded a child molester, he knows heterosexual molestation far, far exceeds that of homosexual. And he knows that what police chiefs proclaim “rampant violent gay crime” is crime by straight gay-haters against homosexuals.
A man emerges staggering out of the brush in a park, his face smashed in blood. Yelling “Queer! Queer!” four
thugs kicked and beat him with sticks. The cops are called. Not one shows up.
But tell them two men are fucking, and they ‘ill storm the area in minutes.
Easy, often set-up homosexual arrests may be callously used to cover up statistically the staggering number of unsolved murders, robberies, rapes. An arrest—often arbitrary (you were there)—brings instant punishment, even when you're finally proved “not guilty”: handcuffing, incarceration, insults, the outrageous fees of attorneys, bail, the slaughtering anxiety of court appearances, and your life waits. Widespread entrapment—creating the “crime” it insists it wants to curb—gives cops a destructive means of purging latent devils. Cops in vice trials clumsily lie, knowing that sex convictions will be brought in on the flimsiest evidence. Threatened by prison, homosexuals will bargain to plead guilty to uncommitted charges.
Buddy-locked in steamy squad-car intimacy, cops cruising gay areas turn up their speakers to screech: “Cocksuckers!”
Homosexuals in jails are threatened with castration and shock as “cures.” Official routine beatings and roundups of gays by cops encourage murderous lunatics to prowl cruising areas with guns, broken bottles, rocks, police clubs.
Jack Paar on television and Liza Minnelli in a magazine joke about “fags.”
Ancestral rage. Death by sword or other torture decreed for homosexuals by ecclesiastical courts. Burnings at the stake into the nineteenth century.
“I'd rather go out with a fag than a boring man any day,” says Marisa Berenson in Newsweek.
Rage.
Handcuffs, incarceration, courts, bankruptcy—all because of the mere accusation of a gay act, actual or only solicited.
Life and prison sentences are still a reality for homosexuals. Men convicted in California of merely asking to make it with another adult male must register as “sex offenders” for the rest of their lives; they are through in many professions and in all requiring state licensing. “Lewd conduct” convictions, also requiring sex-offender registration, have been brought in on assertions that two men were kissing, dancing together, even holding hands.
Suicides.
“Sex offenders” may be brought in for questioning by the police at any time in connection with real sex crimes, no matter how remote in nature to the basis of the original arrest.
Indiscriminately wrecked lives. Lost jobs, broken families. Constant fear. Rage.
A priest tries to organize a “Homosexuals Anonymous.” Thou may want to, but thou shalt not actually fuck or suck. It results immediately in a suicide attempt.
Two adult males are followed by cops to a completely secluded dark area. After minutes, the cops flash lights into the car, pull the men out, beat them. Convicted of sodomy, the two are sentenced to eight years in prison. The Supreme Court refuses them a hearing.
Cowardly punks crushed tightly in hot cars, hot knees touching hot knees in hateful intimacy, throw rocks, bottles, and refuse at cars in cruising areas. “Fags!” they scream, echoing the cops and looking forward to the night they will bring guns with them.
Rage at law as criminal, doctors as perpetrators of sick myths. Religion as killer. Rage at the selective use of Biblical scripture to condone hatred.
The only main minority never to receive even token acknowledgment on a major-party platform is the homosexual minority. Even the vague phrase “sexual preference” has been knocked out.
“You are polluted and filthy,” reads a pamphlet clrculated at gay gatherings by “Jesus people.” “You will not be gay in hell, but tormented far worse than in this life.”
“Homosexual acts are inherently immoral, abnormal, perverted, disgraceful, degenerate, degrading, and criminal,” screeches an “Information Paper” issued by a Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police for wide police and “constituent” circulation.
The victim of a mugging becomes the criminal if he's gay. An easily claimed homosexual advance is an acceptable defense for murder: “1 beat the queer because he tried to make me, sir.”
“KILL FAGS!”—words scratched on walls of Hollywood toilets.
In this context the sexual outlaw flourishes. The pressures produce him, create his defiance. Knowing that each second his freedom may be ripped away arbitrarily, he lives fully at the brink. Promiscuity is his righteous form of revolution.
No stricture—legal, medical, religious—will ever stop him. It will only harden his defiance. Neither sinful, criminal, nor sick—he knows that to try to force him not to be a homosexual is sinful, criminal, and sick—and as impossible as forcing a heterosexual not to be a heterosexual.
Why is the homosexual hated? Since he is not a child molester nor a seducer of the unwilling, how does he threaten the straight world?
He weakens the “moral fabric”? Did Michelangelo? Da Vinci? Socrates? Did Proust? Did Shakespeare with the sonnets? Did Tchaikovsky?
Do we threaten survival of the species? We provide a stopgap against a dangerously burgeoning population.
What is the real reason for the hatred?
I pause in my talk to this mixed group. Soon I'll go on to define what I believe is the real “gay threat.” Now I look at the audience, and to the homosexuals here I want to say:
“You have an untested insurrectionary power that can bring down their straight world. Use it—take the war openly into the streets. As long as they continue to kill us, fuck and suck on every corner! Question their hypocritical, murderous, uptight world.”
But I don't say that. Why?
Because promiscuity, like the priesthood, requires total commitment and sacrifice.
3:48 P.M. The Restroom by the Pier.
JIM STANDS PISSING at the urinal, aware of a man sitting in the open stall at the end of the row. A youngman is lingering before the metallic mirror. Finished, Jim turns, his trunks still open, allowing his cock to remain exposed before the man in the stall. The man licks his lips in signal. The youngman at the mirror advances.
Jim moves into the stall and puts his cock in the waiting mouth.
The other watches.
Jim pulls away, adjusting his clothes hurriedly as they hear footsteps entering the restroom.
The silent identification is given in a glance by the new presence, a goodlooking bodybuilder. Jim's hand drops lightly before his own groin; the man who just entered touches it. The youngman who stood at the mirror has moved into the stall with the other. Aware that they may be interrupted at any moment, Jim and the other move into a vacant stall. Open mouths kiss, hands touch trunk-straining groins. The two bodies thrust against each other, oblivious to all danger. Mouths devour tongues; hands pull down trunks, touch hard muscles. Jim feels the other's warm cum on his stomach, and his own cock stretches, bursts, pours out the withheld thick white liquid onto the other's smeared cock.
A hostile presence enters the restroom. He is totally unaware of the sex-charged currents.
The outlaws separate.
Outside, Jim feels a sad joy.
The sun and the beach are white now. Sea birds on the sand are clustered in rows facing the ocean.
Jim has spoken not a word to anyone today. Not one.
MONTAGE: The City
LATE ONE SUNDAY a fire swept acres of forested canyons, threatening the outskirts of the city. At first it was only a cloud on the horizon, like the fog that invades the beaches. But this time the cloud came from inland. It thickened. The lacy white darkened, tinged with gray. It floated across the city toward the ocean as if to connect with the smog. At night the air hung heavy with ashy clouds.
The next morning the sun came out hot, a luminous orange as if everything were on fire without flames. An eerie phosphorescence covered Los Angeles. As the afternoon sun attempted powerfully to penetrate the clouds of smoke, the city turned fiercer orange. On the sidewalks, through the patches of palmtree shadows, the glow created pools of frozen fire.
As the residents fled dark with ashes, the ravaging flames devoured hilly acres.
In the city, you stepped out and tast
ed the ashes, felt them on your face. The odor of fire singed your senses. Behind smoky clouds, the sun was an incandescent balloon.
When the fire was over, the residents returned doggedly to rebuild their homes in the exact areas scorched, and they braced for the rains, recalling the months-long storm in the sixties when an avalanche of mud swallowed the rebuilt houses.
In Southern California.
Shaped on the map like a coffin—center of prettydeath, flowers already here for the burial, or miraculous recovery. Death or purification. By fire, water, quivering earth.
Shaped too on the map like a twisted handmirror— world center of narcissism. The silver, colored movies, the golden weather, the white beaches from Zuma to Laguna invite the glorious burnt bodies to perform a ritual of exhibitionism under the adoring sun.
And until the impotent citizens rose in wrath to ban it, a nude beach beyond sand and craggy rocks nestled under steep cliffs. Nude men. Nude women. (The male outlaws climbed the rocks farther on, to dangerous secluded caves just barely above the roaring tide threatening to enter. Against the rocks bodies meshed with bodies under the promiscuous sun.)
City of lost angels.
Death, narcissism, and fire.
Health cults and criminal smog. Sick cops and saintly sinners. Beach and forest. Paradise and hell.
Hot Santa Ana winds pant into the city.
The city that thrives on disaster. A huge street painting at the corner of Santa Monica and Butler depicts its collapse—truncated freeways, ocean flooding the desert. Daily, radio stations document freeway disasters: truck jackknifed, car overturned, pedestrian wandering on freeway. … The reports have the rhythm of a song, and the unspoken refrain is: Survive!
Life is lived at least seven degrees—to choose a number—more fully here than elsewhere. Los Angeles is a metaphor for the future. It will happen here first, the best and the worst.
After all, isn't this the last frontier?—here that all the expectations bunched tightly and seeded—when there was no more land to push into. Here that the country ends, its energy now electrified by intimations of disaster. Beyond— is suicide, where the country plunges into the waiting ocean.