Laurie looked startled, as if she’d been slapped. She grimaced, kept her temper, and said stiffly, “We’re doing this to keep our nerves intact. Remember? I’m worried. You got me worried. But I’m not going to get pious and frantic while we go through the motions of hunting for the little jerk.” She drew a deep breath. “If you need to enter this holy inner sanctum without me, go ahead. I’ll wait here.”
Jack lowered his head—she understood him before he understood himself. “It’s just that I feel odd having you in there,” he admitted. “I used to come here. Now and then. That’s why I lost my temper. I apologize.”
“I figured as much.” She sounded more tolerant than forgiving. “No, go on in. I’ll wait out here. Or no, I’ll wait over there at the corner, where I won’t look so inappropriate.”
He thanked her, apologized again, and told her he’d be right out. He waited until her back was turned before he opened the door and went inside.
There were no windows in the front room, the store portion of the place, and the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead turned the afternoon into two o’clock in the morning. The right half of the room was sealed off behind a scratched and smudged wall of plexiglass, like a derelict bank, a man at the window beside the turnstile reading Soldier of Fortune magazine. There was nobody else in the room. On the wall opposite the plexiglass stood a display case full of apparatus, the most prominent being a row of dildos arranged by size from the vaguely human to what looked like a stuffed moray eel. All attempts at verisimilitude—flesh-colored rubber, wet glaze, and swollen veins—only made them look more grotesque, so the handcuffs, leather masks, and cockrings seemed homey in comparison. Jack had wanted to cite the dildos as an example of the limitations of realism in fiction or film, but no review had come up where dildos would have been suitable.
He went up to the window. “Excuse me. I’m looking for—” He gave his description of Michael and asked if the man had seen anyone like that last night or today. “It’s important. He’s a friend of a friend and he’s disappeared.”
The man looked up from his magazine with a weary smirk.
“It’s a family emergency. Really.” Without Laurie beside him, he must look and sound like a lovelorn chicken-hawk chasing down a recent trick. It was a repellent thought.
“Young preppy type?” said the man. “Sure. I think we got one of those today.” He nodded at the curtained door on the other side of the turnstile. “Five dollars.”
“You don’t understand. I’m not looking for a type. This guy has curly hair and is very long and skinny.”
“That might be the one. Maybe.”
Jack knew the man was hustling him, but there was a chance Michael might be back there; he wanted to see to make sure. “Can you let me run in, have a quick look around, and come right out again?”
“Sure, pal. Five dollars.”
It was the answer Jack expected and he knew it was pointless to argue. He paid the five dollars just so he could get this over with, and the bastard let him through.
Jack read the new sign posted by the curtain—it forbid sex between persons on the premises—and pushed through the curtain toward the sounds of moaning and heavy breathing. The sounds were the porn movie playing in the video room, a dark room with a dozen theater seats facing a video projector and screen where the granulated image of genitals squished and heaved. Jack hated the close-ups anyway, but he found the image sexless and absurd because he was here for something else. The video was the ultimate today in impersonal sex: it played to an empty room.
Beyond the little theater was the real space, a large room full of curtained booths and false walls arranged to form a little maze. It seemed like the sexual labyrinth of your own head when your mood was right and the maze was full of men. This afternoon there was nobody in the first leg of booths. The light was all red, which had caused him to quip, “People developing photos here?” the first time he visited with Clarence. Clare had laughed, drawing indignant stares all around. The men who came here were piously humorless, as if lust were so frail it could be shattered by a giggle.
Slowly, carefully, Jack stepped along the row of empty booths, afraid of making a sound while he wondered if he were the only person back here. The place was as hauntingly silent as it was when full of men looking through each other.
There had been a clump of men groping each other in the dark corner beyond the booths when Jack came here with Clarence. Clare laughed at Jack’s joke, then, without any apparent shift of thought, eased himself into the grope, closing his eyes and smacking his lips when the dozen hands and half-dozen mouths gradually turned to him. They focused on Clarence not because he was attractive but because he was so appreciative. He was the only person Jack ever met who actually smacked his lips-over food or art or sex—with utter conviction. He was almost attractive, which made him look available in the eyes of men who’d be intimidated by anyone beautiful. That, anyway, was Jack’s theory about Clarence’s sexual success.
Jack had hung back with the handful of others who coldly watched the little orgy. Clare’s closed eyes and grin weaved in and out of the light, the rest of him a long red shadow between the shirt bunched under his arms and the jeans binding his ankles. Jack considered stepping in to ask Clare if he wanted him to hold his wallet, but resisted the urge and went back out to the little theater—it was movies instead of video then—and waited for Clarence, feeling very unattractive, stupid, and moral. He was twenty-six and righteously clung to his belief sex should be connected with love, or the chance of love. When Clarence came out, his hair was tangled and his face red with whisker burns, but he acted as though he’d done nothing more than had a nice relaxing swim. His capacity for pleasure endowed him with something like a self-healing innocence; Jack couldn’t condemn him. Clare was genuinely sorry to hear Jack hadn’t enjoyed himself and tried to make up for it by talking about books with Jack over cheeseburgers in an all-night diner.
Had they ever talked about anything besides books and movies? Jack suddenly wondered if Clarence had only been humoring him all those years.
No. Jack couldn’t think that. From college days on, Clarence loved to hear Jack describe the novels he couldn’t read himself, either because he was dyslexic or simply lazy—dyslexia was a concept Jack couldn’t understand. Clarence didn’t fully understand the nickname Jack gave him in Charlottesville until years later when Roman Polanski made Tess. “Angel Clare is a terrible person,” he indignantly announced after they saw the movie. “Is that how people see me?”
“It was just a bit of sophomore cleverness,” Jack assured him.
Clarence wasn’t stupid. He always asked good questions and had interesting comments about the novels Jack described to him. The night after they went to Les Hommes, Jack talked in great detail about Flaubert’s Salammbo, and Clarence said, “Sounds like a Maria Montez movie directed by Stanley Kubrick.” Which was perfect.
That might have been the same night they argued about the phrase “guilty pleasure,” an idea whose point Clarence refused to see. “Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always found that phrase a total contradiction.” He laughed and added, “I’ll bet you think it’s a—what’s the word? Redundancy.”
Jack had smiled and nodded at that. He didn’t go back to Les Hommes until a month later, without Clarence.
Jack turned the corner and started down the next leg of the maze. He had not anticipated finding the past here. When his thoughts swung back into the present, he was confused enough to imagine Michael was actually here. He stepped more quickly down the back aisle, hoping to catch Michael off guard even as he convinced himself he was alone in this place. Then he found the boy in a booth.
A hightop sneaker stuck out from under a curtain, pressing and twisting against the floor. Jack grabbed the curtain and yanked it open. A boy sat inside, a boy with bad skin and long hair lit by the video flickering on the little monitor. He bared his teeth and glared at Jack, looking like the kind of boy who’d throw empty beer
bottles at you from a car with Jersey license plates. But the fly of his torn jeans was open and he was working an erection in his fist.
“Pardon,” said Jack and he jerked the curtain shut.
Jack hurried to the end of the aisle, becoming more flustered. Seeing what he’d seen blew away what little reality the place had, although what had he expected to see at Les Hommes? It was finding nobody here but a street tough—maybe nobody else went to backrooms anymore—that made the sight so shattering. He remembered Laurie outside, and that grounded him back in reality. He gave his head an agitated shake, and left.
The fluorescent light of the front room was a sickly blue-gray after the red light inside—Jack didn’t even look at the man in the window. The daylight outside was blinding, and Jack stood there blinking until he saw Laurie down at the corner. She leaned against a telephone booth with her arms folded, looking thoughtful and human. He walked toward her, shaking his head and holding out empty hands.
“No, huh?” she said, without surprise.
He expected her to make a crack about what took him so long, but she wouldn’t, of course, not after what they’d said to each other earlier.
“You okay, Jack? You look a little funny.”
“No, I’m fine. It’s a strange place back there, that’s all.” Actually, he found Laurie strange after what he’d seen inside. Her boyish hair was confusingly sexual. If he didn’t know her so well, he might even find her body sexual. Sex and Laurie were two halves of his life that had nothing to do with each other, happily.
“I made a couple of calls while I was waiting” she said unimportantly. “Livy, who said she hasn’t seen Michael since they ran into him in Paris. I didn’t say anything to get her worried. And I called Ben and Danny.”
“They’re not back from Connecticut, are they?”
“I guess not. But I left a message on their machine. So. Where to next?”
Jack shrugged. “No place, really. Maybe we should go back to your place, see if Michael’s returned, then I’ll just go home. I might go by Uncle Charlie’s when I get down there.”
“Let’s go downtown now. I’ll go with you. We can swing by the Center and talk to Carla about this.”
“Oh?” Jack liked and respected Carla, but was intimidated by her rocklike sanity. He suspected she thought he was a fool, or worse, without any of the self-recognition and sympathy that enabled Laurie to find him occasionally foolish yet still worthy.
“I’ve been thinking while you were in there, Jack. We’re making each other positively nutty over Michael. We should hear what Carla makes of all this. She is more experienced with potential suicides than we are.”
“Maybe.” Jack was still anxious about Michael, but eating away at his belief was his ability to feel so many other things at the same time. Yes, Carla might be the person to shame him out of his worry. “All right. Sure. Let’s go talk to Carla.”
They walked west toward the 72nd Street subway station, Jack reviewing his thoughts to himself while Laurie remained oddly silent. She retained the air of seriousness that had come over her while Jack was in the bookstore, as if she had been thinking about something else besides talking to Carla. Laurie’s silence was so rare it was suspenseful. Not until they were beneath the street and standing on the long, narrow subway platform did she share what was on her mind.
“Jack? Being brutally honest about this—” She sounded gentle and tentative. “If you were Michael, would your life be so empty without Clarence that you’d seriously consider ending your life?”
He bent his eyes at her, wondering what she meant.
“I just can’t imagine him being such great company when he was alive,” she explained. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I always assumed it was nothing but sex between them. I mean, what did they have to say to each other?” She hesitated. “You don’t have to look at me like that. I bring this up as just another argument for why we shouldn’t be worried about Michael.”
Jack limited his anger to an exasperated sigh. “Just because a couple aren’t like you and Carla doesn’t mean they’re not a real couple.”
“It’s not because they’re not like us.” She folded her arms and settled her back against the girder beside them. “You knew Clarence better than anyone else, Jack. Right? You know what I’m saying. Do you feel your life is over because he isn’t around anymore?”
“An important part of it is, yes.” He said it firmly, proudly.
Laurie pinched her mouth at him. “Jeez, Jack. I feel I’ve spent half of my life hearing you complain about Clarence. How self-absorbed and irresponsible and forgetful of his friends he was. You’re as bad as Michael playing the widow. You are.”
“Laurie, he was my best friend. You wouldn’t understand. I don’t have a Carla in my life. I miss him. I even miss complaining about him.”
She was silent again, and he wondered if it was because he called Clarence his best friend instead of her. But then she said, “I think you love him more now that he’s dead than you ever did when he was alive. It’s easier now.”
That stung and infuriated him. He kept control and firmly said, “No. It’s clearer now, that’s all.”
“And it’s why you’re jealous of Michael’s grief.”
“I’m not jealous of Michael!” He was taken by surprise and his anger jumped out. “You don’t feel jealous of grief!”
“Jack! You don’t see that? You’re jealous of Michael. Why else would you hate someone so much who isn’t worth hating?”
“I don’t hate Michael! Would I be running all over the city after the little asshole if I hated him?” He looked around and saw the other people on the platform glancing toward him and Laurie. He lowered his voice and said, “Michael’s just a nuisance to me. But I know something of what he’s feeling and I’m worried for him.”
Laurie lowered her voice, too. “Maybe. Although I’ve been wondering if you’re all upset and anxious about him today just to prove to yourself you don’t hate him.”
Jack bit the corner of his mouth and chewed his mustache. It was the kind of psychoanalytic nonsense he had expected from Carla, although Carla was too professional to say it outright. “Everything doesn’t have to be a symptom of something else, you know.”
“I know,” Laurie admitted timidly. “It was just a suggestion. Just a possibility. And it made more sense than you being paranoid for Michael out of guilt over losing your temper with him yesterday.”
“Maybe it’s not just paranoia,” he claimed. Their train was grinding, then roaring into the station, and he did not have time to toss off any valid reasons for his worry. “Maybe I have ESP!” he said sarcastically, raising his voice. “Maybe it’s my woman’s intuition!”
Laurie smiled, as if his joke were a return to the old Jack, and they stepped into the crowded subway car.
But Jack found he was still angry with her on the ride downtown. The train was too loud for them to talk without shouting, and Jack was afraid shouting would put him in closer touch with his anger. What gave her the right to say he loved Clare better dead than he had loved him alive? He stood shoved against her among the slack bodies coming home from work, able to see her only as a reflection in the darkened window. Jack never knew what to do with his anger. It debilitated him, left him feeling empty, helpless, and stupid. He was far more comfortable with guilt.
The Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center stood on West 13th Street, an enormous abandoned school the city sold to the jumble of gay and lesbian organizations that had sprung up like a bureaucratic boomtown over the past ten years. The building’s tall brick front looked as plain and quaint as an old warehouse on the street of brownstones, and the inside still looked like an abandoned school. Beneath the intimidatingly high ceilings—the school had been built in an age when there was the desire and money to awe occupants with the power of an institution—everything looked secondhand and temporary. The maintenance fees alone were exorbitant, and there was never enough money left over to make the place
more than habitable. The public spaces were bare of anything new except the crowded bulletin boards and numerous posters and the occasional coat of fresh paint. It was Danny’s contention the Center had been carefully redecorated in High Lesbian.
Jack remembered the joke without smiling as he followed Laurie through the reception area, where a bearded volunteer with an ear punched full of studs and doodads sat at a chipped wooden desk and answered the telephone. Jack came here only when he was meeting Ben and Danny or Laurie and Carla for dinner, although he lived just a few blocks downtown from the Center. The social activities never appealed to him, and they attracted a class of gay men that made Jack uncomfortable. All manner of women came here, but Jack thought the men were almost always the ones you never saw in bars—the shy or middle-aged or homely or fat, all of which Jack knew himself to be, but he didn’t like having his nose rubbed in it.
He followed Laurie up the long stairs in the cavernous stairwell, telling himself he had nothing to fear from Carla, that there was nothing she could say worse than what Laurie had told him. He remained angry with Laurie, but it was a quiet, tolerant anger. He knew he was worried for Michael in spite of his dislike for the boy, not because of it, and that he had loved Clarence alive; he had.
The offices for LGMH were on the second floor and looked more permanent than the space downstairs. The four desks in the main room matched at least, and the walls were a single shade of pale lavender. A potted plant slouched in the corner.
“Hi. Is Carla Peterson free at the moment?” Laurie asked an elderly gentleman in a necktie and cardigan sweater who sat at the first desk.
“Carla? Oh, Carla. The woman.” The first desk was often occupied by volunteers who weren’t familiar with the rest of the staff. “I don’t rightly know, my dear.”
“Laurie. Hey.” A handsome black woman looked up from her desk in the corner. “Carla’s still out. Some kind of meeting with a shrink down at Bellevue. She should’ve been back half an hour ago. You want to wait for her, her office is empty.”
In Memory of Angel Clare Page 17