He was paranoid; that was all. He pulled the joints out of his pocket again and placed them on the kitchen table. He crumpled up the paper napkin they were wrapped in and tossed it over his shoulder. It hit the trashcan in the corner and Tim thought how much sexier basketball would have been than track and field, but Tim barely cleared 5’9” on a good day. He eyed the joints, but he pushed them away and opened the Sunday paper. There was the picture of Dave Anderson behind this preacher who was raising such a fuss. Tim read the caption again, “Arlo Montgomery…” He had never heard of the man, but he didn’t follow much news about evangelists. He felt sheltered from their anti-gay hatred in San Francisco. Even if he didn’t live up to his potential, even if he never developed the “gift” he’d inherited from his grandmother and had never asked for, even if Tim’s life was as ethereal as the fog and he was lost forever in a land of pure fantasy, at least he felt safe here.
Arlo Montgomery didn’t matter to Tim, but David Anderson might. There was something Tim wanted to remember about his first time with a man, even though he wanted to erase everything that happened later. Tim stared at the grainy black and white picture in the newspaper and shook his head. He picked up one of the joints and his lighter, but he thought better of it and set them back down.
Dave Anderson still looked good. Tim had no doubt this was the same person. He would be in his late thirties by now. Tim stood and stretched his legs in his stocking feet, adjusting his crotch to make more room in his tight Levis. He remembered checking into a motel off the freeway—a teenaged Tim and the man who was his mentor and his coach and his first lover.
Tim thought of all those times in the locker room after the rest of the team went home. The smells of sweat and chlorine still turned him on to this day. Maybe he had called it a night too early. Sunday evenings at the Edge could be fun and it was just down the street. Nah… he was in for the night and he might as well get out of these clothes altogether.
The fog had chilled him to the bone and a hot soak sounded like a good idea. Tim put the plug in the tub and turned on the faucet, but someone else in the building must have had the same idea. The water came at less than full force, but at least it was hot. Tim got undressed and thought back on all that happened during that year he turned sixteen. The fights with his parents were the worst. He could still feel the shame brought on by his father’s anger and his mother’s tears, but he also remembered that she did nothing to help. The last time he saw her was with one eye swollen shut from his father’s fist. It was ten o’clock in the morning, but she had a glass of bourbon in one hand and a soggy handkerchief in the other. Tim walked away with a duffel bag full of clothes and he never looked back.
The picture in the San Francisco Chronicle brought a flood of both good and bad memories. If his Aunt Ruth hadn’t picked him up that day, Tim might have come to San Francisco sooner. That would have been okay, but he was glad he finished high school instead of ending up like the teen-age runaways he saw on Polk Street. He didn’t envy any of them.
While the bathtub filled, Tim walked back to the kitchen, looked at the picture in the Chronicle again and rubbed his eyes. He opened the door onto his tiny patio. It seemed even colder outside than when he came home, but he was naked now. He thought he heard the helicopter again, but it wouldn’t make sense to pull an advertising banner behind an airplane in the dark. Tim shut the door again and pushed the deadbolt lock. As he slid under the steamy water he realized the sound was only the bathroom fan.
Tim hadn’t had one of his dreams in a long time. He’d had them since he was a boy and he still hated to admit how much truth they had in them. This time he was on Alcatraz riding a Ferris wheel. Jason’s voice beside him said, “Great party, huh?” It felt natural to be with Jason again. They were still a couple and Jason’s hand was on his knee, but when Tim turned toward him to respond, the hand belonged to his old track coach. Tim allowed Dave Anderson to hold his hand and they stared out at the lights of ferryboats lined up across the bay. Each one dropped off hundreds of party-goers and then headed back toward the city for more.
It was a warm starry night without a whisper of fog. The enormous mirror ball they had watched flying over the city all week was now suspended from a crane above the dance floor where the old prison cellblock used to be. Tim looked down at a sea of flesh of thousands of bare-chested men. He could smell their sweat.
Tim watched the orange ball of sun settle into the gray Pacific beneath the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. He pointed and said to Dave, “Look at the sunset. Even without any clouds, the sky is full of colors.” Then Tim turned toward the person beside him and David Anderson became the naked man from the Hole in the Wall. He wasn’t looking at the sunset, but staring at Tim, sliding one hand up Tim’s leg and stroking himself with the other.
The Ferris wheel became a roller coaster that ran all the way around the island. Tim heard the music from the dance floor even louder than the rattle of the tracks. He could hear screams as they started their steep descent toward the cold black water of the bay. Vanessa Caen was in the car ahead with a tall, thin man. Tim thought this must be Harley, as sick as he was. Tim knew he was dreaming, but this was one of his real dreams.
Amy and her tattooed boyfriend were in the car behind him. The boy had one fleshy arm around her shoulder and his other hand played with a silver switchblade knife. Tim faced forward again and the thin man—Harley—held a gun now. He pointed it straight up beside his right ear where Vanessa couldn’t see it.
Then the roller coaster plunged and left the track. It spiraled down and down into the icy waters of San Francisco Bay. Tim swallowed and sputtered and spat soapy water as he lifted his head from the bathtub. He had slid all the way under and the water was cold now. He pulled the plug and turned the shower knob up as hot as he could stand it. The pressure was back at full force and it beat against Tim’s goose-bump flesh until it warmed him again. He wrapped himself in his biggest towel and went to bed.
Chapter 6
Tim slept late Monday morning. When he shuffled down the hallway to make coffee he noticed the two fat joints on the kitchen table where he’d left them. Killer weed was the only way to describe it. That old lady Vanessa must be used to the stuff. Tim was no lightweight either, but this was more potent than anything he’d smoked in a long time. Tim kept his pot in a ceramic dog on a shelf in the living room, but he stashed these joints in a Band-Aid box in the medicine cabinet. He didn’t want to get them mixed up. Vanessa had said it was medicinal and if Harley was her much younger brother, Tim figured Harley might be a long-term AIDS survivor.
Tim pulled on his jockey shorts to go grab the morning paper from the front steps. He heard the clank of the gate and footsteps in the hallway and wondered if he should put on some pants. It was probably Teresa from the third floor or Ben and Jane Larson from the second. Arturo and Artie wouldn’t be awake before noon on a Monday morning after they worked Sunday night. The other apartment upstairs was rented to a new guy named Malcolm, but Tim hadn’t met him yet. He heard a thud against the door and opened it a crack. “Tim, is that you?” A voice asked.
“Teresa! Yes, it’s me. Who else would it be? What are you doing?” He pushed his door open farther and realized the thud was his newspaper hitting the threshold.
“I thought I’d pick up your paper when I got mine. You startled me.”
“Then I guess we’re even… sorry,” Tim said. “How are you doing?”
“Not so hot, to tell you the truth. I had a terrible night. There aren’t any decent heterosexual guys left in this town and I’m leery ever since my divorce about meeting anyone who isn’t as straight as an arrow, you know…”
Artie and Arturo had told Tim about Teresa’s marriage travails. Her high-school sweetheart Lenny, whom she’d married in college, met another man shortly after they moved to San Francisco. “It’s really none of my business, Teresa, but thanks for the paper. I had sort of a rough night myself.”
“Come upstairs an
d tell me about it, Tim,” Teresa said. “I’ll make us a pitcher of Margaritas… or would you prefer a Bloody Mary?”
“Teresa, I haven’t even had coffee, yet.”
“Oh, my! I hope you don’t think… I mean… I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, Tim. I have nothing against gay guys and I hope you don’t think I was coming on to you, of all people…”
That was not what Tim thought, but he didn’t know how to extricate himself from this conversation. Now he felt guilty about being so abrupt with her. “I didn’t think that, Teresa, but you do know that I’m gay, right?”
“Aren’t all the cute guys in this city gay, especially in the Castro?”
“Maybe I could come up later, okay? I really need some coffee and I wanna take a look at the morning paper and there’s an important phone call I have to make.”
“Come up anytime, Tim. I’d love to swap stories about our awful evenings last night, but I won’t force you. My door is always open and I make a mean Margarita! You’re not working today, are you?”
“Not until this evening at the earliest. Artie didn’t have the schedule finished last time I checked. Maybe later…” he repeated, “honest.”
The Chronicle had another article on an inside page about the evangelist Arlo Montgomery. He had been attracting throngs of followers as well as large groups of gay-rights activists protesting his appearances. This weekend in Madison Square Garden a capacity crowd paid to get inside while a couple of hundred demonstrators were arrested outside. Tim wondered what would happen in San Francisco. The Sylvester birthday reunion was planned for the Moscone Center the same weekend that the biggest enemy of gay rights since Fred Phelps would be only a few blocks away. It couldn’t be mere coincidence, could it? From now on he would watch for news of Dave Anderson and Arlo Montgomery, but Tim felt almost relieved that he had to work on Saturday night so he wouldn’t have to choose between the party and the protest.
He flipped through the local channels on the TV in the kitchen, but it was too late for anything but soap operas and game shows. He turned to the jazz station and Diana Krall’s voiced oozed out. Tim poured a cup of coffee and carried the paper out to the patio. The fog had burned back far enough that it might be a warm day in the Castro. This might be a good day for housework and his geraniums could use a good soak, but they could wait another day.
He turned again to the article about Arlo Montgomery in New York. It continued on the back page with another small photograph of the preacher alongside a larger picture of demonstrators in handcuffs. There was no sign of Dave Anderson and no mention of the upcoming event in San Francisco until the last paragraph. Today was only Monday. Tim wondered whether the helicopter would be out again this afternoon or if that sort of advertising was only for weekends. Tim reached for the phone and punched in the number of the restaurant.
Arturo’s nephew Jorge answered in Spanish. Jorge helped Arturo in the kitchen and seemed like a decent kid, but the language barrier got in the way. Tim only wanted to get his schedule and was curious about whether he was working with Jason. Being so stoned on Sunday afternoon and trying to act like Jason, Tim thought there was enough of a switch in his attitude that it might be time for him and Jason to become friends. Tim gave up on Jorge’s English and told him he’d call back later. He wanted his cap back, so he picked up the invitation to the party on Clementina and punched in that phone number.
“Hello! Harley Wagner residence! Vanessa Caen speaking!” Her voice was so loud that Tim moved the phone away from his ear. “Hello? Hello?”
“Hello,” Tim shouted back, wondering if the woman had gone deaf overnight. Then he heard music in the background and realized it was more of Diana Krall, the same jazz station he had on.
“Just a minute, please,” Vanessa shouted. “Let me turn down this music… Oh, I don’t know where the knobs are… hold on, please!”
Tim took another sip off his coffee. When she returned and repeated her hello, Tim responded, “Hi, Mrs. Caen. This is Tim Snow. I was calling to ask if you ran across my baseball cap. I think I dropped it there yesterday. It’s black and it has the word ‘colt’ across the front in gold letters.”
“Timothy! How nice to hear your voice! Why, yes, indeed… your chapeau spent the night outdoors on the deck, I’m afraid. The gardener found it on the floor this morning near where you and I were sitting. Are you coming to the party? You could pick it up then.”
“That’s another thing, I might have to work that night so I thought I’d pick it up before then, maybe even this afternoon if it’s convenient, but when is the party? The invitation has the name, address and phone number, but there’s no time or date.”
“Oh, how silly of me,” Vanessa said. “I must have given you one of the bad ones. Here we are living above a print shop and the first batch of invitations came out without the date on them. Isn’t that funny? It would be lovely to see you this afternoon though, Timothy. You can meet Harley if he’s up and about. I’m sure he’d love to meet you. He’s lying down right now, but he ate a fair amount of breakfast this morning…”
“And the party?” Tim tried to ask.
“Yes, of course if you have to work, that’s a shame, but you could come by afterward, couldn’t you? Harley’s friends are a late bunch. They might go on all night.”
“Yes, but when?”
“Oh, you can come over any time for your hat, my dear boy. I’m not going out at all today. I’m just puttering around here, writing a few postcards. I’ll look forward to seeing you this afternoon, then. B-bye.”
Tim thought it might be nice to have a visit with his neighbor Teresa after all. At least Teresa made better sense than Vanessa Caen and he never knew when having a friend in the building might come in handy.
“I’m so glad you decided to join me, Tim. I needed a hair of the dog and I hate to drink alone.” Teresa mixed Bloody Marys in a heavy ceramic pitcher at her kitchen sink. “You grab a couple of those glasses and let’s take these babies out on the deck, huh?”
Tim noticed how sunny Teresa’s apartment was compared to his own, which sometimes felt like a cellar on gloomy days. The hardwood floors were bleached oak and there were shiny wood tables and chairs, bookshelves and molding. The sun sparkled off the rich grain and everything was spotless. For someone who liked to start out Monday mornings with a stiff drink, Teresa must be fastidious about housework. It made Tim feel guilty about leaving his apartment downstairs in such a state.
“To happy days and good neighbors, Tim,” Teresa raised her glass.
Tim lifted his and smiled. “I’ll drink to that. What a great view of the Castro Theatre! I’m jealous.”
“Don’t tell me this is your first time up here. I can’t believe it!”
“It’s my first time up here in daylight. I stopped by at your Christmas party last year, don’t you remember?”
“I’d forgotten you came to that fiasco, Tim. My God, that party was the single biggest disaster of my newly-single life! Don’t remind me.”
“It wasn’t your fault the power went out. It was out all over town. It was lucky you had so many candles. I ended up having a good night… I took home that cute guy who was here all by himself. I think his name was Eli.”
“Eli? I had no idea!” she said. “We work together. Half the female teachers at school are after him, but he’s so shy I wondered if he was gay. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“He’s gay all right, but that’s history,” Tim said. “He was a lot of fun in the sack, but way too closeted outside of it. He was only in my apartment for an hour and then he wanted me to promise not to say anything to you about it. I hardly knew you, so it wasn’t as if he needed to worry. I forgot all about him until right now. But you still haven’t told me about last night, Teresa. What happened? Ooooh… good Bloody Mary.”
“Thanks, Tim. It was Lenny’s recipe. The secret is fresh horseradish… most people use too much Tabasco for the heat… and plenty of good vodka, of course. That w
as one advantage of marrying a gay guy. I learned enough entertaining tips to give Martha Stewart a run for her money. I’m sorry, Tim. I didn’t mean to offend…”
“What’s offensive? I’m not that close to Martha. She never calls me anymore.”
“You know what I mean, silly… the gay thing.”
“No offense taken, Teresa,” Tim smiled and tried to put her at ease. She seemed to be wound up this morning. No wonder she drank. “But don’t change the subject. You haven’t told me what happened last night?”
“You’re the guest, Tim. You should get to complain first.”
“My night was no big deal. I was supposed to meet up with this kid and help him celebrate his birthday South of Market, but I got there too late.” Tim left out the part about being offered money. He didn’t know his neighbor well enough. “And I hate spending Sunday nights alone, especially when there’s nothing on TV. Then I had some wild dreams when I got home, that’s all. What happened to you?”
“I went out with a couple of girlfriends from school. We started at some clubs in the Mission... you know how it goes. A guy might send over a round of drinks, but then he’ll go for one of the skinny ones, not me. It’s a bitch to be in a room full of guys and not a single one of them is interested. I guess you wouldn’t know, as cute as you are, Tim. I might as well have been in a gay bar!”
“You’d be surprised, Teresa, I know exactly how it feels to be in a room full of guys and not a single one is interested… even in a gay bar.”
“Last night was different, though. I guess this guy was looking for someone with a little more meat on her bones and yours truly fit the bill.”
“Yeah? Then what happened?”
“We danced. We had a few more drinks. We came back here. I should have suspected by the way he was slurring that he wouldn’t be able to…”
“Get it up?” Tim finished her sentence.
“I was going to use a gentler term like ‘perform,’ but you got the idea. Even that wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been able to do anything else, but he was too wasted. I was afraid he was going to pass out on me, so I suggested that he go and take a shower to sober up.”
Beach Reading Page 5