by Dorien Grey
“Do you know of anyone else I might contact about him?” I asked. I was really curious about what sort of person Taylor Cates may have been. What little I’d heard had varied with the person I was talking to.
Still looking out the window, T/T said, “Not really, darlin’. He didn’t have many friends, I don’t think. He was quiet. Real quiet until you got to know him, and not many people did, I don’t think. He fought so hard against his ghetto days that I’m sure some people thought he was uppity. He had his own way of lookin’ at things, and sometimes he could be a little…well…” he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and grinned “…uppity.”
“Did he ever tell you about people he worked with, who he was dating, that kind of thing?”
T/T shook his head. “Not too much. Like I say, he was pretty quiet. I do know he didn’t get along with one of the guys he worked with…a ‘David’ somebody, I think. Taylor took his work very serious, an’ he felt this David didn’t. He didn’t like that at all.”
“Did he ever say anything specific?”
“Huh-uh. I could just tell every time he mentioned that boy’s name it was like he was suckin’ on a lemon.”
“How about people he was seeing?”
He looked at me. “I don’t think he had much of a social life,” he said. “I do know he was seeing some writer dude for a little while, but nothin’ ever came of it.”
“Did he say why?”
He sighed. “No, and I didn’t press him. Taylor didn’t take to bein’ pressed.”
“Did he mention anything about his work? Something he may have found out in the course of his cataloging?”
T/T pursed his lips and knit his brow. “Well, now that you mention it, he did give some hints that he knew somethin’ that would surprise a lot of people, but he never said what it was. I could tell he was pretty excited about it, though…as excited as Taylor ever let himself get.”
I thought a moment, not quite sure if I should risk somehow insulting T/T, but decided I had to take a chance.
“This is maybe an odd question,” I said, “but do you think Taylor might have been capable of blackmail?”
T/T’s eyes opened wide and he pulled his head back in surprise. “Blackmail? Oh, Lordy, no! That boy was as honest as the day is long. What in the world would ever make you ask a question like that?”
“Sorry,” I hastened to say. “It’s just that if Taylor’s death was not an accident, there had to be a reason for someone to kill him. He worked in a place that probably has a lot of secrets buried in all those research materials, and I wondered if maybe he found something that could be used to blackmail someone.”
T/T looked a little mollified, but still obviously unhappy over the perceived attack on his friend’s character. He shook his head solemnly. “Well, if he did find somethin’ like that, he never would have used it for blackmail. Never in a million years. He was a good boy.”
His voice cracked just a bit on that last sentence, and I realized perhaps for the first time just how much Taylor had meant to him.
“I’m sure he was, Teddy,” I said, hoping to reassure him. “But it’s my job to look at every possibility, no matter how remote.”
T/T reached over with one large hand and patted me on the thigh. “I know, darlin’, I know,” he said. “You just find out what happened to him, okay?”
“I will,” I said. “I promise.”
*
I dropped him off at his hotel and headed home, first offering to take him back to the airport for his return flight—he’d expressed a real interest in meeting Joshua, and I knew Joshua’s fascination with airports and airplanes, so…. He also said he’d join the gang after the show for a drink, which would give the rest of the guys a chance to say hello.
So what had I learned from him about Taylor? Not all that much, really. I realized that T/T’s firm denial that Taylor might be involved in anything even hinting of blackmail might understandably be colored by their long friendship, but I tended to believe him. Which meant that the mental picture I’d been forming of Taylor as an opportunist was probably wrong. So if blackmail didn’t enter the picture, what else did?
I kept flashing back to the missing letters and what I would stake my life on were missing manuscripts as well, and the answer as to who had taken them was obvious: Evan Knight. Somehow, Taylor had caught on to what Knight was up to, and Knight had killed him. Now all I had to do was prove it.
*
By the time I got back to the apartment, Jonathan had everything under control. Jared had called to suggest we might all get together for dinner at Napoleon before the show, and Jonathan had contacted the other guys to set it up. He’d also called for reservations for seven o’clock. I was impressed, especially when I compared him to the Jonathan I’d first met. He’d come a long way, and I was proud of him.
Craig came over around five. We hadn’t expected him until six, but I knew he enjoyed being around “older” gay men, i.e., adults. Being a teenager isn’t easy, and being a gay teenager is rougher still. The fact that he was out to his parents took a great burden off him, but still…he didn’t feel he really belonged with most of his peers—he was only out to one or two close friends at school. For the most part, he just played the game, and like many gay teens, resented it but realized the consequences of being totally out. And he was still far too young to fully participate in the gay community. He was very curious about the benefit and I could tell he would have loved to go, but, at sixteen, there was no way. The Metropolitan Community Church had just initiated a series of monthly dances and “socials” for teens, and Craig was looking forward to going to the first one, scheduled for the following weekend.
I gave Craig some money to run down to the local fried chicken outlet two blocks away and pick up dinner for himself and Joshua—Jonathan had already laid in a supply of milk and fruit, plus chips and pop for Craig for after Joshua was in bed.
*
Dinner at Napoleon was, as always, great. We were there early enough so that shuffling a couple tables around to seat all eight of us wasn’t a problem. The great thing about being with friends is that you can totally relax and just be yourself. We talked about nothing of any great importance, and laughed a lot. Jared and Jake, especially, took great delight in teasing Tim over the fact that Phil was featured in a new ad campaign for Spartan briefs, for which he was a top underwear model.
“What’s it like to have your lover be a J/O fantasy for every gay guy in the country?” Jake asked.
I resisted pointing out that so were Jared and Jake for anyone who’d ever seen them in their briefs.
“Yeah,” Jared said, “I went to take a look at it in Jake’s copy of MenStyle, but the pages were stuck together.”
Jake grinned and nudged Jared with his shoulder.
“Uh-huh,” Phil said, obviously embarrassed.
“Hey, let ’em look,” Tim said.
We actually got through the entire dinner without me being asked, mentioning, or even thinking about Taylor Cates’ death. As I said, a good evening.
*
We arrived at Steamroller Junction shortly before nine thirty, and the place was already fairly well packed. I was glad to see the crowd was a good mix of men and women, and a broad cross-section of ages. Dance bars never seemed to change much: same blaring music—probably different songs, but who could tell?—same pounding beat so strong that even the deaf could dance to it with ease; same strobes and flashing lights, and the same adrenaline-charged atmosphere. There was a live band in honor of the benefit, but the overall effect was the same.
I could also sense that Bob Allen was, as always, more than a little uncomfortable with the large crowd and I understood totally. The horrendous Dog Collar bar fire was ancient history for those who hadn’t been there, but for me, who had been walking up to the place when it began, and especially for Bob, who had actually been inside….
We ordered our drinks, and then maneuvered around the edge of the room to
ward the stage, positioning ourselves near an exit. Old habits die hard. And, as usual, Phil, Tim, Jared, Jake, Mario, and Jonathan headed onto the dance floor, leaving Bob and me—the only nondancers in the group—to guard the drinks. Since the music was too loud to make normal conversation possible, we just watched the dancers. To me there’s nothing sexier than a good male dancer. I was glad this was a benefit and not a regular mostly guys night when the shirts would start coming off as the evening progressed. I don’t think my crotch could have taken it.
Around five minutes till ten, the band finished a number and the DJ took over while the band moved their instruments to the back and side of the stage. Our gang left the dance floor to retrieve their drinks—Jonathan drained his Coke in one long series of gulps and went off for another. At exactly ten o’clock, the DJ switched on the “show” music, and the evening’s M.C.—the same incredibly androgynous lesbian as had M.C.’d the last show we’d seen at the Steamroller—came on to start the evening. She introduced William Pearson and Marv Westeen as heads of the Hospice Project and organizers of the benefit, who in turn spoke of the importance of the Hospice to the gay community, which was still being ravaged by AIDS. This was to be one of the first hospices in the country specifically for AIDS patients, and each of them pointed out that in addition to the need to help our own, AIDS was beginning to cross over into the heterosexual community, and that the Hospice would be open for all. “We will not politicize,” Pearson said, “and we will not discriminate.” They left the stage to unanimous applause.
The M.C. then announced the lineup of the evening’s performers, which included a top-ten-album female pop singer who, though straight herself, was noted for her support of gay causes. There was also a gay stand-up comic who I’d seen on a couple of TV comedy club shows, and Cree and Dunn, two cute male folksingers everyone assumed to be lovers, who had a large following in the gay community. And, of course, T/T, who had gotten his start in the local drag bars and gone on to be one of the most popular drag stars in the country. He, not surprisingly, was scheduled for last. If anyone could end the evening on a high note, it was T/T.
There’s something about minorities that those in the majority can never quite understand or appreciate—the sense of…well, almost euphoria…that comes with being totally surrounded by your own people in a positive, upbeat setting. Each successive act built the crowd’s energy level, which was allowed to let off some pressure during the fifteen-minute dance-break intermission, only to build again when the second half started.
By the time it was T/T’s turn, there was enough emotional electricity in the room to light up several city blocks.
We had worked our way as close to the stage as we could get and still be relatively close to an exit. And when the M.C. announced, “Ladies and gentlemen and everyone in-between, let’s hear it for our own Tondelaya O’Tool!” and a spotlight suddenly swept through the crowd to the front entrance where the doors swung open (we couldn’t see more than the tops of the doors, since the entire crowd was between us and the front), the crowd went wild. It took fully two minutes for T/T, flanked by four hunky Steamroller bartenders and bouncers clearing the way, to move through the crowd to the stage, waving, blowing kisses, and bestowing benedictions on old fans. She passed close enough to us to spot us, and zeroing in on Jonathan, she gave him a big grin and a wink, and a slow, languorous lip-licking motion. Jonathan blushed furiously but was of course delighted.
It wasn’t until he mounted the stage that we could fully appreciate the effect. He was a vision in pink—wearing a dress I’m sure he found in a store catering to the kind of high school prom dresses featured in 1960s musicals. But on him, it worked.
He said a few words about the importance of the benefit, and how glad he was to be back “home” among so many of his old friends, then launched into his set of classics—“You Gotta See Mama Every Night,” “Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home,” “Proud Mary,” and the one number I always associated with T/T because he used to seem deliberately to direct it to me and my ex-lover Chris whenever we were in the audience, the really down-and-dirty “The Butcher’s Son” (“I’m not the butcher, I’m the butcher’s son, but I’ll give you meat until the butcher comes…”). And he did it again, staring direct and hard at both Jonathan and me two or three times in the course of the song.
It brought the house down as always, and the crowd wouldn’t let him leave the stage until he did “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”
When the show was over, the M.C. made another brief appearance to encourage donations and continuing support for the Hospice Project, then turned the evening over to the live band.
While the rest of our little troupe returned to the dance floor, Bob and I waited near the rear stage entrance from which we knew T/T would be emerging. He’d said he’d join us for a drink, and about twenty minutes later, T/T in his Teddy persona came out from backstage.
“Honey,” he said, after working his way slowly through a cluster of fans to us, “would it be too much trouble if we went someplace else for that drink?” he asked. “I’d truly like to set myself down and relax.”
Bob and I managed to flag down the rest of the crew, who all came over to exchange greetings, handshakes, and hugs with T/T, and after a minute or two of discussion, we agreed to take a run out to Griff’s, a really nice piano bar not too far from The Central. None of us had been there in a while, and it would give T/T a chance to revisit one of his—and my—favorite places.
T/T excused himself to go backstage to make arrangements to pick up his things in the morning before Jonathan and I took him to the airport. That accomplished, we formed something of a flying wedge in front of T/T in order to plow through the crowd toward the door. It still took nearly ten minutes, interrupted nearly every step by Teddy stopping to exchange hugs and best wishes with fans. At last we reached the relative calm of the bar area in front of the main room entrance doors and, finally, left.
*
As we’d hoped, Guy Prentiss—who knew every song from every Broadway and Off-Broadway musical since 1929—was playing, and of course he called a never-reluctant T/T to join him for a number of songs. We sat around listening attentively during his sets and talking and laughing during his breaks. During one of them, Guy came over to join us. He and T/T were old friends and Jonathan was as mesmerized by listening to them swap stories as he was by their performing.
But as all good things must come to an end, so did the evening. We wound up closing the bar at 2 a.m.…something I’d not done since I’d met Jonathan. By the time we’d taken T/T back to his hotel and gotten back to our apartment, it was close to 3 a.m. I knew we’d probably pay for it in the morning, but it was well worth the price. And maybe the nicest thing of all was that I hadn’t given one minute’s thought to Taylor Cates, Morgan Butler, or the Burrows Library.
*
True enough, Sunday was a bit hectic. Craig tried to keep Joshua under as much control as possible to allow us to sleep a bit longer, but it wasn’t long before Joshua was banging on our bedroom door with the announcement that, “It’s time for Sunday School!”
We pried ourselves out of bed in time for Jonathan, Craig, and Joshua to make it to church on time, and rather than reading the paper as was part of my Sunday morning ritual, I went back to bed for an extra hour’s sleep.
T/T’s flight back to Atlanta was scheduled to leave at 3:20, which gave us enough time to do our breakfast-out routine. I was dressed and waiting when the Three Musketeers returned. Craig was beaming from ear to ear, and obviously excited about something.
“Is it okay if we go to the Cove again for breakfast?” Jonathan asked.
The Cove was where we’d eaten the last time Craig babysat, and where Craig had been smitten by one of a group of gay kids his own age.
“Sure,” I said. “Any particular reason?”
“Craig’s got a boyfriend!” Joshua announced happily, then ran off, shrieking with laughter, as Craig growled and made a fake lung
e at him.
“That was fast,” I said when things quieted down.
Craig looked mildly embarrassed, but his excitement overcame it.
“Remember those kids Craig’s age we saw at the Cove?” Jonathan asked. “Well, one of them was at church and he apparently recognized Craig and came over to tell him the same group was getting together again at the Cove after church. Apparently one of his friends—the one Craig was checking out—took a liking to Craig and…well, you get the picture.”
I got it. Oh, God! To be sixteen again! I thought.
*
Breakfast went well—especially for Craig, I’m sure. The same four teenagers were there when we arrived, sitting, not coincidentally, I surmised, at a table rather than in a booth. Though there were two or three empty tables, we took the one beside them. We all exchanged casual greetings as we sat down, Jonathan taking special care to seat Joshua between himself and me, with Craig taking the seat closest to the other teens. While Jonathan and I looked at the menu, Jonathan making a valiant effort to keep Joshua distracted by pointing at each item and reading it aloud to him, Craig and the other teens made tentative forays into conversation, exchanging information on their schools. Three of the others went to Iversen, one went to East, and Craig to Columbus. Jonathan and I were largely invisible, which didn’t bother either of us. It was too much fun watching—surreptitiously, I hoped—the bonding and courting rituals of teenage males.
The other table had finished eating long before we did, but sort of hung around until the waiter came and cleared away the dishes, leaving them with little excuse to stay. I felt a little like I was watching either a scene from Romeo and Juliet or a part of my own past. Three of the guys were more than ready to go, but the fourth—Craig’s new friend, whose name I gathered was Bill—was obviously reluctant. But finally they got up to leave, Bill looking back frequently as they stood at the cash register.
“Oh, go give him your number,” Jonathan urged, and Craig looked hesitant.
“You think I should?” he asked, his eyes still locked on Bill.