by John Rechy
(In a bar in Hollywood:
(The man, in his early thirties, ordinary looking, has been buying me drinks, bourbon and water, which I dislike but which at the time seemed an appropriate drink for my pose.
(“Are you hustling?” he asks me, tentatively.
(Not exactly a hustling bar like the ones downtown, but one that provides such a contact occasionally.
(I’ve “read” this man. He doesn’t want a hustler; but, for me, it’s late. I don’t want to go downtown. I had no car—I often hitchhiked and, often, scored that way.
(“No, man.” I say what he wants to hear.
(“Oh, good,” he says. “I don’t need to pay for sex, you know?”
(“You don’t have to.” I tell him what he fished for. “I’m just looking for a good time.”
(“Well …”
(“You got a place, man?”
(“Yes,” he answers eagerly, uncertain. “You want …?”
(“You have a car?”
(“Yes, but we don’t need one. I live just a couple of blocks away.”
(“Let’s go.”
(His house: a neat, careful house in West Hollywood, which is turning into a “gay city”—many gay people, males and females, and older Jewish couples, families, a “good” neighborhood.
(The inside of his house is as pretty as the outside, and it is fussily decorated.
(“I decorated it myself,” he says.
(“Wow, you’re real talented.”
(“Thank you.”
(Later in his bedroom: I lie back, “trade,” which is what he wants—no reciprocation.
(It’s late. After sex, he lies back. I remain beside him—not close—till I’m sure he’s asleep. I get up, not especially quietly, I slip on my Levi’s, put my shirt over my shoulders. I go to where he placed his pants neatly over a chair. I pull out his wallet. I open it. Several bills, tens and twenties. I take them out—and then put back a couple of the bills and take the rest.
(He stirs. “You’re robbing me,” he says.
(“Go back to sleep,” I say in a harsh voice.
(He lies back, crouching in his bed, afraid—which is what I counted on. He begins to weep quietly.
(I pocket the money—I hear his sobs—I get my boots and socks to put on outside. As I walk out, I hear his weeping edging toward the sobs that follow me out.)
Remembered now with Paul, that memory, like bile in my throat, disgusted me only now, not then.
“Two of a kind.” Paul smiled.
In my room, afterward, as I lay unable to sleep, the conclusion I had drawn about Paul’s motivation—a brash, arrogant assignment to record his life with parallels in mine—lost its quick conviction as firmly as it had assumed it, moving, like other assumptions, into the field of speculations. Too easy for such a complex man; and all that remained was this:
Why did this man “summon” me here?
And this remained: the memory of the man I had deliberately frightened in Los Angeles, his sobs still pursuing me. A willing victim, Paul would say; but he would be wrong: The man had wanted to thwart what happened with his question to me, and I had cunningly lied.
25
I got up early today, choosing to be alone for at least a portion of the day; so early that the moon, lingering past night, remained, pale in the darkened sky.
I wandered about the island, a section of which in its verdure resembled a jungle. Then, as I stood and listened, I thought I heard a murmur winding into the silence. I realized only then that I had been aware of it before and dismissed it: a muffled rumbling like the sound that precedes the shaking of an earthquake; and that quiet murmur seemed to come from beyond the lake, from the devastated island—I had shifted my position to locate it—and from the tangled shadows; and that silent murmur was floating like a dark cloud toward this island.
The sun was out, the strange impression evaporated, created by the foggy lifting twilight, and—
Stanty!
I was startled to come upon him—asleep, I thought—under a cluster of trees. Muffling my footsteps, I started to walk away. “Are you looking for me, John Rechy?” he said.
“Are you lost?”
“Naw,” he said, “just sleeping.” In a soft voice like a whisper, he said: “I sleep out here sometimes, you know, when I’m—”
I waited for him to finish. His voice had been wistful, a tone I had heard once before when he had stood on the deck staring out at the lake; he had sighed a vague wish.
“—when it’s too hot in the house,” he finished in a changed voice, as if only now fully awake and sitting up.
“I’m sorry I interrupted you.” I continued to walk away—slowly so that he wouldn’t think I was walking away from him. I stopped when I heard him behind me.
He hurried ahead to stand before me, facing me.
“You want to know what happened on that island you keep looking toward?” he said.
“What did happen?” I had reacted impulsively, taking him seriously; it was too late to pull back. “How do you know that?”
“I read about it. Inside a book.”
Though strange, it was possible that something terrible had occurred on that island; but that would mean whatever had happened would have occurred a long time ago. The Origin of Evil—the book that had disappeared—entered my mind; but, no, that was a collection of essays about spurious theories about evil.
“There was—were—a lot of people on the island when it happened,” he said, now an excited storyteller.
I anticipated one of his fantastic tales, but I didn’t move away. “And—?”
He shook his head as if at the enormity of what he was about to describe. “What happened was … horri”—he paused to choose his word—”horrendous, there was a huge fire, people in flames rushed to the lake, it was too late, everything burned, even the trees—everything, nothing left.”
He had trapped me into attention—and had trapped himself. “What about the man you said you saw at a window?”
“That was on the other side of the island, not the one that burned,” he said easily.
I started to walk away from him, from his outrageous, quick adjustment of his lie.
He called out after me, shifting subjects, like Paul.
“John Rechy, do you love Sonya?”
“I like her a lot.” I was guarded, not knowing where he was going.
“I love her,” he said. “Do you like my father?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “That was a silly question, wasn’t it?” Again the wistful sad voice: “I love my father more than anything in the world, and he loves me a lot.” He had said that so sadly that I thought of Sonya’s words about him, about how sad and confused he was.
He dashed away. “I’m going swimming now!” he called back exuberantly.
I meet Sonya in the library; she’s returning a copy of Wuthering Heights—”my favorite book,” she informs me. “One of mine, too,” I say, wanting to assert a closeness.
“Do you suppose Catherine and Heathcliff found each other—ever?” she asks me.
I remember her wistful hope that the guillotined French queen might be saved in another iteration of her story. “Yes,” I say, “especially since they agreed—at least Catherine did—that they would prefer being together even if that was in hell.” I think she frowned at that; and so I add: “Of course I don’t think it had to be hell.”
She laughs, an acknowledgement that she understood my soothing interjection. “Thank you, my dear John; you’ve rescued both the French queen and Catherine, just for me.”
I join in her laughter, appreciating her unique test of my loyalty to her sentiments, and glad that I expressed it.
“Let’s go rowing, shall we?” she says. “Paul’s gone to the village and Stanty’s with him. So we’ll be alone on the beautiful lake, just you and I.”
On the lake: I’m rowing smoothly, facing her. She has “taught”
me how to row, as easy as I had anticipated. We’re both in our bathing suits, augmenting for me a sense of closeness. I tell her about my unexpectedly mellow interlude with Stanty.
“I’m glad. He wants friends. He never speaks about friends even at school. That’s why he keeps asking if one is his friend.”
“I felt friendly with him for the first time. He even told me what occurred on the neighboring island.”
She looks surprised.
“He said he read about it in a book,” I tell her, and realize: No, he said he’d read about it “inside a book”—another of his odd expressions I had noted at the time.
“It’s a game he plays, how far he can go and be believed,” she says in the tender tone she uses when speaking to him or about him.
“He told me he loves you.”
“He’s told me that. I love him, too. He’s hurt that you won’t go rowing with him. It would delight him if you did.”
“Would that please you?” I knew the answer.
“Yes, because that would make him happy.”
“He also told me he loves Paul more than anyone else in the world.”
“I don’t know what would happen to him if anything or anyone separated them.”
“I don’t think anything could,” I say.
There followed then, between us, a sense of peacefulness, together, rowing on the lake. At least I felt it and hoped she did too. During the silence that followed, I was aware of the sound of the water lapping at the oars.
She removes the wide hat she often wears. She shakes her head, loosening her hair, an extravagant gesture I cherish, even wait for; hers. She leans back, looking up at the graying sky.
I have rowed absently, allowing the boat to drift. Ahead is the deserted island, the closest I’ve seen the tangle of twisted, dried branches choking their trunks—yellow fragments of leaves on the parched ground. What might have been flowers are scorched, their petals decayed chips amid rubble. There is no sign of life, none.
I turn the boat away from the dying island. I imagined it devoured by flames, people rushing to escape.
Impulsively, I say: “If I ever write about you, I’ll describe you as a woman who, if things were otherwise, I—”
“If you didn’t prefer men?” she asks. “Do you, entirely?”
“Yes, and yes,” I tell her.
“Then, if otherwise, what?”
“Then, if otherwise, I would describe you as a gloriously beautiful and intelligent woman with whom I would fall in love.”
“Please kiss me.”
Letting the boat drift, I move over to her, and I kiss her on the lips. I feel desire as my body connects with hers. Our lips remain pressed against each other’s, her arms curl about me, mine drew her closer, increasing the intensity, the sense of arousal. I ease away from her bronzed body. I return to the oars.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I understand.”
But she can’t understand, nor will I tell her that my response to kissing her came from the fact that I was kissing her the way Paul kissed her, the way his body pressed roughly against hers, the way—and that was when I withdrew—the way in his lustful kiss he might draw blood.
As we rowed back, reaching the deck, the heat burst with lightning that punctured blackened clouds, releasing torrents of rain. But it stopped as quickly as it had begun, leaving behind only more heat and a sky overcast with dark clouds and sporadic bursts of thunder. Flashes of lightning in the far distance illuminated the dead island as if it was struggling out of the darkness to reemerge.
26
On a day of white heat, I woke to find a note under my door. It was from Sonya. She and Paul were driving early into the village for a part of the day: “If you wake in time and read this note, please join us.” Signed “with love,” the note was written in a graceful, flowing script, uniquely hers.
I was glad not to accompany them, not together. Because of the intimacy with Sonya on the rowboat, I felt that I would have to reestablish our close friendship, our unique love, beyond the overtones that occurred on the lake. That would have to be done when we were alone. I had begun to see manifestations of what Sonya had perceived in Paul, a distancing from her. He would be overtly rude to her in often sharp jabs.
(“Beauty, have you ever in your life succeeded in anything other than being beautiful?” She remained silent, and I interjected:
(“If so, man, she’s succeeded superbly.”)
What continued was the sudden urgency with which he would reach for her.
I was on my way to the sundeck in my trunks when I encountered Stanty—or rather he came running to intercept me—ready for the lake in his trunks.
“Go rowing with me, John Rechy,” he said; “come on! Please!” He grasped my hand, to coax me along with him. “Sonya said you would if I asked you. Aw, come on, please.”
“Okay,” I said easily.
“Good! Let’s go.” He was running toward the deck, where the boat waited. I helped him undock, pushing the boat easily into the water, which was serene, deep blue. He was happy, and I felt good.
We jumped into the boat. I grabbed the oars—he had seemed about to claim them. Without protest, he sat down, facing me.
I achieved a slow rhythm rowing. Fanning white foam followed us under the diminishing sun.
“You’re rowing good—well,” he said. “Sonya said so.”
It seemed odd to thank him; so I just nodded, smiling.
Not a breeze, no whisper of a breeze, but being on the water made the day seem cooler as the sun began to set.
“Can you row a little bit faster?” he asked.
“Sure I can.” I accelerated my rowing, feeling entirely competent.
“We’re going slow,” Stanty said, “aren’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said. I had been rowing away from the vacated island, the mourning house with its rotting branches. When I had automatically glanced toward it, the dismal convergence of shadows of barren trees was smothering the whole island, pushing it out of sight, unreal as a phantom.
“I bet you could row faster if you wanted—right?”
“I bet I could,” I said. I accelerated the rowing. I intended to row not far from Paul’s island.
“Let’s row faster!” Stanty said.
I grasped the oars firmly as he stood up.
“You’re going too slow,” he said.
I continued rowing at the same pace, only slightly annoyed at his insistence.
“You’re not afraid, are you?” His voice had changed, his voice of command.
“No, I’m not afraid.”
He remained standing. “Let me row,” he said.
“Not yet,” I said. “When we go back.”
“Come on,” he said. “Let me row.”
I didn’t feel like upsetting the mood of camaraderie. I let him take the oars, which he grasped quickly, and just as quickly, he turned the boat away from where I had steadily directed it. He was rowing fast, much faster. He plunged the oars deep into the water; frothy water agitated under us.
“Stanty—”
He was rowing forcefully in the direction of the desolate island, leaving Paul’s island behind.
I said evenly, not trying to indicate my anger, “You’re rowing too fast, and—”
“And I told you I wanted to go faster, didn’t you hear me?” he demanded, his voice harsh.
“I did hear you, but you didn’t hear me say we were rowing fast enough, and we’re going back now.”
He clutched the oars, rowing furiously. Faster, faster, faster toward the dead island.
“What the hell are you doing?” I stood unsteadily in front of him.
To add force to his rowing, he arched his body; the boat was slapping at the water. Despite the confidence I had developed with Sonya and later by myself, it was clear that he was an expert. I realized, startled, that we were battling for the boat. “Give me the oars back.” I had to stay in control.
Water from the frenzied
rowing spattered on my legs. Over the sound of spraying water, he shouted at me: “You don’t like me, do you? You never liked me.”
Withheld anger swept over my words. “You’re right, I don’t like you, I don’t like you at all.”
“But you like my father, don’t you?” he thrust at me.
I couldn’t think what to answer. My mind was trying to adjust to—and rejecting—what was happening. About us, water sprayed onto the boat.
“You’re always trying to be with him alone, on the deck, I’ve seen you trying to get close to him.”
“You’re a fucken liar, you stupid punk!”
“You stay away from him, you hear me?”
Any rebuttal would escalate his accusations, and I didn’t want to hear what he might be preparing to say. “We’re going back. Give me the fucken oars now!”
“Sure,” he said, “take them!” He released the oars. Adjusting to the interrupted speed, the boat drifted.
Before I could reach for the oars, he stood.
He removed his trunks.
He stood naked before me. “Now do you like me?”
I turned away, but too late. I had seen his naked body in a flash, only seconds, and in those seconds I realized what a beautiful man he would become, like Paul. The next moment, his bare flesh repelled me. “Put your fucken trunks back on!”
“I thought you were a queer,” he said.
It was as if he had struck me in my stomach, which wrenched into a wave of nausea. “I am, you goddamn bastard, but not for filthy little punks like you, Constantine!”
He closed his eyes, as if to gather his rage. “Don’t call me that name, and I’m not a little punk!”
“You are a stupid little punk, Constantine, a dirty, fucken liar. Now put your fucken trunks back on and move away so I can row back.”