Rushes

by John Rechy

  Tonight, as on every other night at the Rushes, wordless promises will be made—kept or withdrawn, Endore knows; lifelong wounds exposed in one cruel moment; and anger will erupt as the hypnotic choreography of the sexhunt continues uninterrupted within the pressurized tension of exiles and the swirls of smoke, bleeding darkness, constant music, jagged conversations. All of that remains constant, as unchanging as the Ordinary of the Mass. It is only the particular connections, the particular wounds, the particular anger that will differ, he knows.

  He looks into the grimy dark enclosure that is the Rushes. Already he feels its possessive power. The popper-tinged smoke encircles him; the collective sexual energy of the roiling bodies, the friction of flesh, pulls him. The dread apprehension drains away.

  It is not a physically extraordinary place, this large square bar. It has been allowed to become increasingly trashy to augment the aura of toughness, a welcome to the encroaching decay from the waterfront. Plaster is gouged like the missing pieces of a concrete jigsaw puzzle, calcimined edges blurring the connective pieces. The rubble of crushed beer cans and cellophane wrappings is shoved against corners. The Rushes is divided into partitions visible to each other and defined only by wooden posts connecting the floor to the low ceiling. At the end of the evening, a layer of smoke hangs unmoving. There are few lighted areas—more are just less dark than others, and they further divide the bar into murky pools, but to initiated eyes the Rushes provides its own clear visibility even across its length. Along the posts are scarred circular counters. Black vinyl stools are scattered about the bar, their ripped tops spew dirty hardened cotton. Men sit or lean or prop booted feet on discarded beer kegs, crates. Littered sawdust patches the floor.

  A long half oval, the main counter is scratched in formless traceries created by cans, bottles, glasses. A huge American flag hangs behind it and over the low shelves of bottles glazed red by the light. The flag is new. Flanking the entrance are two areas which remain relatively sparse and quiet—protected from the influx of noise—even on jammed weekends. It is there that men collect to talk or to eye and evaluate from the sidelines the sexual combatants.

  Toward the back, four steps ascend to a second level; only two areas are violated by light, and even there smoke bled of its red hues extends grayly into the spill under a pool table, as well as into the dirty glow from a jukebox. An indistinct mothy light floats over the entrance to the toilet. Toward the back wall, this higher level is deeper red to the very point before it is snuffed out by darkness, but—like every other area of the Rushes—still permeable by knowing, practiced eyes. Beyond that penumbral demarcation, shadows fuse periodically in cursory motions of sex, more definite ones as the night moves.

  In reverence to the naked hunt, props common to other cruising bars have been discarded. No game machines break the solemn rites with blinking lights and buzzes. Two pool tables, one dark now, are for frozen sexual display. Even the jukebox, its light tainted gray, is silent. The Rushes will not relinquish control of its sounds. In other bars and discos, rhythms blast out in crushing vibrations. At the Rushes, to augment the seriousness of the sexual rites, the same music is muted. The sounds emanate from unseen tapes. A smothered sexual growl burrows subliminally within the waves of smoke. Bass tones pant like an animal in slow heat. At times throughout the carnal hunt the Rushes seems to breathe, whisper, sigh, moan. On rare moments, either by accident or design, the music crashes through in an orgasmic rush.

  Other than the flag, the only “decoration” is a series of erotic drawings along the walls, like the undelineated panels of a black-and-white comic strip. All unattainably muscular, raunchy fantasies of impossible masculinity, some bodies naked—cocks huge and engorged, balls like ripe fruit—other bodies exposed through ripped patches of clothes, still others in leather or in unidentifiable uniforms—the large cartoon figures painted without shading or nuance are exalted exaggerations of the real men who often pose before them.

  Cheap peeling paint, cracking plaster, sweating bodies rubbing against them, scrawled markings, have distorted many of the drawings, yet others remain sharp. The result is that some of the faces convey vestiges of expressions, but even those may be delusive, ecstasy transmogrified into pain by one broken line, a slice of shadow, a swirl of smoke. Other visages, square-jawed, obdurate, are blank of any interpretive emotion.

  Each panel depicts figures in poses of assault or submission—but which, is often equivocal because of the melding and fading of clarity and ambiguity in the lines; a vague surrendering figure in one panel slides into a bold posture of assault in another. There is no discernible sequential order in this pornography of implied violence, but one or another rudimentary figure may recur, the same man in faint outline perhaps transmuted later into assertive delineation.

  The series ends abruptly in a blank panel. The barest trace of an unfinished figure lurks there like a ghost. The remaining area once blank is carved now into an anarchy of male organs, lines, Xs, cruel scratches. There are even some clumsy inked attempts to resurrect the missing figure into an even further bloated parody.

  At times Endore has made cursory inquiries about the drawings, but transitory bartenders trying to evoke past invisible owners of the Rushes have merely added to the mystery of their origin.

  As Endore penetrates the Rushes farther, he feels he is shedding his past. His whole life compresses into this night. To all but himself and those who know him beyond it, like all the others here he will be what he appears to be or says he is. Lies will be true if believed. Only what is heard or felt or seen—in here—is real. The Rushes demands mysteries; secrets exposed are not necessarily revealed. People not present are phantoms in unsolved mysteries whose solutions lie in the abandoned past. Even the allowed splinters and fragments of memories—clues—are hued by the red subdued light. The past is the moment of walking into the Rushes, the future is in making out. In between are the entrances and exits of others intersecting the trajectories of constant glances.

  A shirtless man, wrists bound, faces another man, in a uniform. Endore is staring at the painted panel depicting those two figures.

  In the strip next to that one a leathered man is holding another’s arms—. . .

  Endore’s attention is pulled from the drawn figures on the walls to a familiar form facing them. Back to him, the slender, tautly muscular body is arched. The man wears a black leather vest, no shirt, a tilted leather cap hugged by a small-linked chain. Tight black leather chaps embrace his legs. Studded leather straps encircle his biceps. His belt is formed by large, silver motorcycle-chain links. He is talking to one or more men, but forms passing now before Endore cut them from his sight. Despite the many others here similarly dressed, Endore recognizes the expertly choreographed leathered figure.

  Rising simultaneously from different parts of the Rushes, laughter detonates above the voices and the moaning music. Endore listens. Is the laughter attempting to smother the cries of the enemy screaming outside for blood? he pursues its origin. But the hollow in the haunting laughter is passed.

  Moving farther in, he feels the clawing eyes that reach out to whoever enters the bar. He has already become a cool, handsome, desirable—pastless—man among other cool, handsome, desirable, pastless men. Eyes connect with eyes. But it is too early for firm commitment. This is the time of messages of possibility only, like the message he exchanges with a handsome man staring at him.

  The blond man wears a low white tank top to exhibit a magnificently sculpted muscular body. Endore does not move away too quickly, no, knowing that to do so may sever the possible connection irrevocably rather than extend it; and he extends it by holding the look, then just allowing his eyes to slide-not pull-away.

  As always, he will wait, alone or with friends, in the “safety zone”–one of the, quieter enclaves near the entrance. He will collect glances, and he will send them out, careful never to extend too overtly. As successful a sexcruiser as he is, he that way thwarts possible rejection, a knif
e poised to stab the most beautiful as well as the ugliest. Rejection without later redemption is death in that night’s life at the Rushes.

  “Endore! Endore!”

  2

  O Lord, I love the house in which You dwell.

  AS OFTEN as he comes to the Rushes, Chas is still rocked by its rampant sexuality—a sexual banquet, he calls it. A part of all this sensuality and rough male beauty, he experiences a sense of communion with other like men. Only homosexual men can be truly masculine, he believes, because they have had to battle to be that, to thrust away the effeminacy shoved on them by those who now, in late justice, imitate his new breed. He is revolted by “sissies.” When, as the tired evening wanes he sees the leathered masculinity often wilt about him, he is outraged. That never happens to him, no; he remains the tough man of his own pornographic fantasies.

  Chas prefers the Rushes to the more overt leather bars. A bar for sexual adventure and discovery, it is ripe for converts. That tempers the fact that, for Chas, many of the men here are looking for–he sneers–“just plain fuckin and suckin”– and even, far, far too many, for an illusive, single “lover.”

  For Chas the Rushes is alive. It inhales the odor of sweet male sweat and exhales the odor of poppers. Music pumps its pulse. The red-tinged currents of smoke course like blood into the veins of this huge body which contains the individual sex warriors united in sensuality, and banded against the hated invaders–the “straight” punk hustlers, the “queer-haters,” and the effeminate men, the transvestites.

  Chas loves this enclosed world and lives almost for his incursions into it. It is the first “faggot bar” he ever entered—“faggot” is a word he uses with earned pride, the way some black people use “nigger.” Often he tries to evoke that first startling time; but just beyond the memory of a series of mental “orgasms,” he pulls back—that night’s greatest excitement is wafted by fear.

  There is a rough masculinity about Chas. Goodlooking, dark, 27 years old-more imposing than tall-he conveys a simmering brooding sexuality. His open vest reveals the field of dark hair on his chest. Occasionally his hand cuddles his large cock, which he attempts to keep in a semi-erectile stage by wearing a metallic cockring about the base of his balls, forcing a steady flush of blood. The dark-print handkerchief displayed like a banner in his back pocket, the heavy ring of keys, the tiny silver earring—all worn on his left side-proclaim his role as a dominant man in “heavy sex,” a good “topman,” one of the best. His “bottom-men” must be equally masculine.

  Proud, he has strutted in full regalia to chic fashion shows to which he is invited.

  He adds embellishments—silver chains, straps, even handcuffs—like earned medals. He has a collection of cockrings fitted to his scrotum. First, years ago, came the brown boots and jeans—brown, he would learn later, is the signal color of the curious, black of the initiated. For a time he even wore a cowboy hat. Then came the black boots. One propped on a low stool, the other planted on the floor, he stared at them in the mirror. The black leather jacket followed, in winter; the black leather vest, in summer. When he tried on his new tailored chaps, as black and shiny and tight as the sleek skin of a panther, his cock grew hard and full. The look complete now, he ground the heels of his boots onto the floor as if to stomp on something discarded. The tailor blew him. Chas’s hand pushed the head down his leathered thighs, to his glassy-black boots.

  Although he is not beyond “plain fuckin and suckin,” he is openly dedicated to S & M.

  During one of his periodic excursions to other cities in search of new “heavy scenes”–and his reputation as a topman precedes his forays—Chas was asked to play an auctioneer at a simulated “slave auction” in which attractive and eager men agreed to be “sold” into “a day of service” to the “highest bidder.” Only theater of pain, the auction was held in the enclosed patio of a private unkempt mansion in a nowshabby part of the city. It was a late afternoon lacerated by a desert-seared wind. Dead palmtree leaves scratched, angered, at their own shadows. Dozens of invited leathered men gathered for the charade. Onto an improvised platform, the “slaves” were led out naked in loose shackles, miming pain.

  Caught in the crashing waves of rushing amyl power, Chas strutted on the platform. He held a heavy chain wrapped about one fist, its loose end dangling in makebelieve menace. He vaunted the “prime meat” of the willing “slaves,” pinching their nipples, slapping their buttocks, “forcing” their avid heads to his groin, his boots: his heels clamped assertively to the floor. He was “binding” one of the “sold slaves” with imitation handcuffs when almost a hundred black-leathered policemen yelling, “Cocksuckers!” “Fags!” “Fuckin queers!” rushed in to arrest both posturing “masters” and “slaves.”

  Chas remained on the platform while the two uniformed factions—one pretending, the other real—fused, then collided within the heated wind. The real cops attacked with clubs. The spilled blood of the assaulted actors was real. One younger cop looked up at Chas. Choosing him, clearly choosing him, he jumped onto the platform. In a long stopped moment, the cop faced the similarly attired man only inches away. At the second before which, Chas knows, their lips would have connected—and then I would have pushed his head easily down to lick my boots, Chas is sure—the cop swung him around and handcuffs clanked.

  Chas felt the cold clasping iron bracelets on his own wrists. The cop led him next to the naked “slave” Chas had just “handcuffed,” the play handcuffs now replaced by real ones. Chas still held the chain in his hand. He dropped it.

  All charges were dismissed as spurious after the men at the auction were jailed for the night. When Chas remembers the incident now, it stops at the point at which he handcuffed the willing “slave.”

  He no longer rides a motorcycle. He sold his “Harley” when he was in an accident which left him with a “sexy scar” from his ear to his cheek—and he points out that the scar is on the left side. But Chas is no coward. On the piers one frozen afternoon which hardened the sound of footsteps on the rubble, he disarmed a “queer-basher” ready to lash with a chain at a cowering man. The attacker fled. Chas looked down in confusion at the heavy dangling chain in his hand and at the man still cowering there. Chas flung the chain into the water. He watched it moodily as it sank, only momentarily tearing the layer of stagnation, which quickly sealed itself in oily grime.

  Chas is often aroused by the impossible bodies drawn on the walls of the Rushes, though he wishes a new artist would restore the faded ones. Sometimes, leaning against one of the panels, he feels he becomes one of those exaggerated men. In the drawing he’s now facing, a leathered man is holding another’s arms pinioned behind him, a third man, in uniform, is about to—. . . Often Chas tries to imagine what the expressions were in each before they became blurred.

  “Is he here?” he asks in a husky voice.

  “Yes,” Don answers. One of the two men talking to Chas, Don calls out again toward the entrance: “Endore!” In his middle 40s, Don looks older. He cannot bring himself to wear “the uniform”—knowing he would look wrong; he tries to get away with traces, subdued plaid shirt, wide belt, ankle-length brown boots; even so, he feels uncomfortable. He will not come alone to the Rushes, afraid of being refused entry. He uses his friends’ attractiveness as admission.

  Standing next to Don, Bill waves to Endore. Almost 24, Bill is blond, slenderly athletic—more like a runner than a gymnast–boyishly goodlooking. He wears expensive, tailored Western–oriented clothes. Brown boots. “Endore!” he calls too. Then he feels a stab of trepidation. He hasn’t seen Endore for tense weeks.

  “That aloof bastard,” Chas says.

  “Aloof means can’t have,” Bill thrusts at him.

  Chas touches the ring of keys on his left side. “Bullshit—I’ve known Endore for years and there’s never been that between us.” His stance hardens.

  “We’ve all wanted Endore,” Don says. He is particularly fond of Endore, quoting from his columns as if they we
re gospel, quite often soliciting his opinions.

  “Too bad he doesn’t have sex with friends,” Bill says. But did he with Luke, that night? he wonders. No.

  “I’ve never wanted him,” Chas asserts. He spreads his booted feet farther apart.

  The three men stand in one of the islands of space near the entrance. This quieter, sparser area provides a vista of the bar, the forms roiling within the muddy redness.

  Chas turns his body away from the panels on the wall—and from Endore’s approach.

  At the elevated back of the bar, the only lighted pool table floats in a cleared dome. From where Chas stands it looks like a small lighted stage. He knows it well: Outlines are leaning toward the table, they sway—playing pool. The game is not important—only the poses it allows. A shirtless, arched body tilts, tenses; a sinewy arm thrusts the cue stick against the balls—when he plays. Chas always freezes that pose as long as possible, then rams the balls. The collision of the stick against the racked balls scatters a round of fading reports. Another body stretches to slide the scoring beads strung on a wire like a giant rosary over the table. Buttocks propped on the edge-of the table—when he plays, Chas always angles one leg—now the body leans back, pole extended erect, held by fingers tinged mascara-blue by smoothing chalk. The blade of light truncates a bare torso as it leans on the pole, flexed pectorals bisected by it, obscured chin propped on its tip, tightened thighs pressing the stick’s heavier end-when Chas assumes that pose, he slides the stick slowly up and down, up and down. In the perimeter of the severed light, other men pretend to wait their turn while their eyes–Chas always feels them first on his crotch—study the slow dancers in this interlude of the sexual ballet.