"Hell, they don't give us anything."
"No, maybe they don't. Not much anyway. That is in coin of the realm. What they give us is what we give them—one human being touching another. One human being mattering to another. That's our purpose. Our real purpose in life. To make a difference. To matter to others. That's our goal. Not money."
"You, of all people, to tell me that. You, who've probably made more than ten other beggars combined."
"Sure, I've made money. Because I'm good, because I care. But don't you see, money's not the important part."
"Money's not important? I'm blown away, you know? I can't believe I'm hearing this."
"I didn't say that. Money is important, maybe even more important to me than it should be. But other things are more important."
"Like what?"
"What I meant was the clients. But more than that, Thommy, you and me. What we meant to each other. What we mean to each other."
"I can't see it, man."
"Our relationship?"
"I mean being a damned stick-in-the-mud. My way's best. You'll see, it is."
"I don't think so."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"What you've said is that you want to take only a few minutes each day to be at our post, only a few minutes of begging. One intense effort, and that's it. No more responsibility for anything."
"You got it."
Much as it hurt him, Jarvis had no choice. "Then I'll have to terminate your apprenticeship and recommend your seeking another occupation."
"You don't mean that!"
"I'm sorry, Thommy, but I do."
"Well, screw you too, old man. Yeah, old man. That's what you are. Antiquated, outdated, worthless." The words were a twisting sword in Jarvis' gut. He turned his head away, tears like a river flooding his cheeks.
When he turned back, Thompkins was gone. Later, he heard the boy was working in a fast food restaurant as a bus boy. He heard he couldn't get anything else. As the years went by, Jarvis thought less and less about him till Thompkins, who could have achieved such success, was simply only a memory.
Moral: Don't put all your begs in one ask it.
OF HUGS AND HANDLEBARS
Once upon a time there was a man named Aristophanes Papadopoulos who had two passions in life, bicycles and other men—especially young, well-built and handsome men.
Now Ari himself was not handsome; he was plain. He was not especially well-built. He was a little too thin, in fact, almost emaciated.
The reason he was emaciated had to do with his passion for bicycles. Just as a person who runs a great deal can look like a racing cadaver, a person who rides a bicycle hours and hours each day can look like a cadaver on wheels.
Nevertheless, Ari was a nice young man, with a pleasant smile and a warm personality. He cared about people, spending the hours he wasn't working at his bike shop or riding his own bicycle, volunteering at local hospitals and nursing homes, working with sick people and generally being a good sort of man.
This, however, wasn't enough to account for a rather astounding fact. It was that men and women he barely knew often came up to him, especially when he was out bike riding, and embraced him.
He didn't understand, but, of course, he didn't complain. In fact, he took to riding his bike through the gay sections of town whenever he could. It was there he received the most hugs. He tried to analyze why but couldn't figure this out either. Certainly, he was gay, but so were a lot of other people, who didn't receive nearly as many hugs as he. And many of these men were handsomer, better built, and just as kind-hearted and generous.
He thought about the phenomenon more and more and realized it was when he did trick-riding that he was much more likely to have people try to embrace him, sometimes hardly waiting till he'd come to a stop.
Why would trick riding attract so many people and make them behave so physically? It wasn't that the tricks were all that unusual. He rode up and down steps; but so did lots of people. He spun in circles, but so did other riders he observed, and nobody much hugged them. His favorite trick was what had come in the 1960s to be called a wheelie. That is, he rarely rode on two wheels anymore, preferring to balance the front end of the bike in the air and ride only on the back one.
It was kind of like riding a unicycle and it saved wear and tear on tires. Even though he owned a bike shop and so could buy his own tires wholesale, Ari was a thrifty sort of person, who'd always heeded the advice to "waste not, want not."
He'd often thought of actually getting a unicycle, but he was much more comfortable with a two-wheeler, and besides he needed the security of something to hang on to—the handlebars—when he wasn't hanging on to another man who was giving him a hug.
Well, Ari went on for years and years, receiving embraces wherever he went, and he remained puzzled about the reasons. But he never wanted things to change. But then one day, he decided he was too old to do tricks anymore and took to riding sedately.
And suddenly the embraces stopped. Well, they didn't stop completely. His friends still hugged him, but no longer did complete strangers rush up to embrace him, except in that rare instance of mistaken identity, which caused nothing but embarrassment on both sides.
Ari often longed for those old days when men practically stood in line to hug him. But then he discovered Reggie, the light of his life, and they settled down to live happily ever after, the unexplained embraces a thing of the past. Yet sometimes late at night in the darkest hours before dawn, Ari would sit bolt upright in bed remembering the embraces, wondering about them, puzzling over them. But then he'd snuggle close to Reggie and go back to sleep.
Moral: The wheelie Greek gets the squeeze.
THE HIGH-PRICED SPREAD
Long ago in the land of Peoria lived a young man named John. Well, actually, he wasn't that young. He was thirty-two years old and all his relatives wondered why he had never married.
At family reunions cousins and aunts would ask: "Found a girlfriend yet?" or "When are you going to get hitched up and give your poor mother a grandchild?"
Yes, John was the only child of a widowed mother, with whom he lived. He was a devoted son, who treasured his mother above all others, the reason perhaps being that she didn't question him about marriage. She accepted him for what he was and didn't try to change him. He was certain his other relatives would not have been so charitable.
John was gay, utterly, irrevocably gay. He'd worried about that for years, feeling guilty that he never would have children. For years he went from one psychiatrist to another, seeking to change from gay to straight. Not that he didn't like being gay. He did; it was only that he felt he was somehow a great disappointment to Mom.
One evening after their dinner of pheasant under glass (John's father had left them well provided for), his mother, for the first time, broached the heretofore unbreeched subject. "Look, John," she said, "I don't care one iota that I won't have grandkids. One kid was enough. And I'd never find another as good as you."
"Aw, Ma," John said. He was a shy boy, a waiter by trade. "You embarrass me."
"Don't mean to," she said in a no-nonsense voice. "Just thought we should get this out into the open. Clear the air, so to speak." She smiled at him benevolently. "I understand the reasons, and it's okay."
"You mean you know that I'm—"
"Queer?" she asked.
He looked down at his plate. "Yes," he mumbled. "Though I wouldn't put it exactly that way."
She chuckled. "A rose by any other name smells just as sweet. And you're my rose."
"Aw, for God's sake Ma, I ain't nobody's rose," he said. English had always been his worst subject in school.
"Well, you know what I mean." She paused, clearing her throat. "We'll talk about this now and never again, is that understood?"
He glanced at his mother's face, laugh lines around her eyes, her full lips, her marcelled hair. "Okay," he said, knowing maybe it was worth suffering through if it would never be brought up again.
"I've known for years," she said. "Ever since that Brooks boy in high school."
"Brooks Johnson, you mean?"
"Whatever," she answered. "And that other guy named Brooks. The one who lived down the street for a time?"
"Oh, yeah, I remember," he said. "Brooks Schwartz."
"Why the hell is it anyway," his mother asked, "that every damn boy you're interested in is named Brooks?"
"I don't know," he mumbled. "The name, I guess. Turns me on."
"What did you say?"
He looked up at her again, his face burning. "The name I said," he practically shouted. "It turns me on somehow. Maybe I'm weird, I don't know. And if you think it's easy to find all that many people named Brooks, you're sadly mistaken."
"Okay, okay," his mother soothed. "I didn't mean to get you upset."
"Sorry," he answered. "I can't explain it. I mean for years the only Brooks I ever heard about was Brooks Atkinson. The critic. I didn't even know what he looked like or anything, but the name. Ah, yes, the name."
His mother shifted uncomfortably. "Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to bring this up."
"Maybe not," he said, anxious now to leave the table.
"But just one more thing, John. This is as embarrassing for me as I'm sure it is for you. But I wanted to tell you ..."
"Tell me what?" He felt himself beginning to fidget. He wanted to be out of here, up in his room listening to records, down at the restaurant working an empty shift.
"I know you've been sneaking around, seeing your ... your— Is boyfriends the proper word?"
"Oh, Ma."
"I was young once too."
John turned away to stare at the wall.
"What I'm saying is you don't have to sneak around. There's the extra bedroom upstairs, next to your room. Bring in your friends. Entertain them there."
He swallowed hard. Had she emphasized the word "entertain?" He wasn't sure. He glanced at her.
"You know what I mean," she said. "There's that beautiful old bedspread there. The one that belonged to your grandmother. All I ask is you treat it with care and respect. Do you understand?"
John's face felt hot, absolutely aflame. He jumped up, ran to his room and slammed the door. He sat on the edge of his bed, breathing hard. He couldn't understand why she'd said those things. She'd never done anything like that before. How could he ever face her again?
Then he remembered he hadn't cleared the table. He sighed. Setting and clearing the table were his jobs, and he had to do them, particularly considering the meals Mom always fixed. He walked out to the hallway and down the steps.
"Honestly, John," his mother called. "You'd think I were the younger generation, not you. I thought people your age believed in having things out in the open."
"I don't know, Mother. I suppose so." He'd hoped it was over.
"Look, John, I'm trying to make it easier," she said. "You bring your friends here from now on."
He didn't say a word as he went about his chores.
In the days that followed, he thought more about what his mother had said and finally talked himself into it. Why not? It was often difficult to go to Brooks' place because one particular Brooks lived with two roommates, another with his family, another with a married sister.
So before long he started to bring them home, even introduce them to his mother. And he did follow her urgings to use the extra room.
Weeks later he came home from the restaurant one day to find his mother furious.
"Damn it, John," she said. "I told you I'd not bring this up again. But I have to. I said you could entertain your friends in the extra room, but to be sure to be careful of the bedspread that belonged to my mother. It means a great deal to me; I thought it would to you too."
"What are you talking about?"
"I don't like to launder it. That wears it out. And dry cleaning's getting so expensive."
"I don't understand."
"That Brooks boy the other day had mud on his feet; the one two weeks ago came straight here from the garage with all that grease on his clothes. And that Brooks character you met at the restaurant had all that goop in his hair. I didn't think anyone used that crap anymore."
"I'm sorry, Mother."
"Sorry doesn't quite rectify things. You know!"
"What are you getting at?" John was angry too. After all it had been her idea for him to bring friends home.
"I made a mistake. I thought I could trust you, but I find I can't. So you'll have to go somewhere else. You and all those damn Brooks characters. You've practically ruined the bedspread; it's so filthy it'll never get clean. And if it does, it will be so worn it will fall apart." She stared at him a moment, burst into tears and ran to her bedroom.
John walked into the living room, turned on the TV set and stared at it without comprehension.
Moral: Too many Brooks soil the cloth.
THEY WERE REAL HAMS
Once in a magic kingdom called Las Vegas, a man named Mr. Jeffrey decided to produce a show.
There was nothing at all unusual about this because in this magic kingdom there were all sorts of shows running every day of the year—shows with beautiful women and beautiful men.
Each show tried to be more fantastic and magical than any of the others so that hundreds of show boys and show girls flocked to this wonderful land to seek their fortunes in the world of make-believe.
Because each show was so lavish, producers came up with one gimmick after another—wild costumes, wild animals, wild humor. One or two of the most successful and magical of all the shows involved guys in drag.
This is what gave Mr. Jeffrey the wildest, most extravagant and most fantastic idea he'd ever had, even when producing plays in the abandoned school building that served as a little theatre back in Wheeling, West Virginia. His penchant for the unusual is actually what drove him out of Wheeling. Strangely enough, the local audiences simply would not accept an all-male cast appearing semi-nude in Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie.
So Mr. Jeffrey, or as he was known then, Jeff Johnson, issue of Molly and Sam Johnson whose other son was a successful city councilman, was not-so-politely asked never to show his face at the theatre again.
Head high, he hiked to the Greyhound Station and took a bus straight through to the magical kingdom, where he just knew his innovations would wow the most difficult audiences, and so he'd live happily ever after.
At first it was rough going. He wasn't exactly a young man—close to fifty actually. But he managed to talk his way into a few auditions and even a few bit parts in musical extravaganzas. Soon he gravitated to the drag shows where he was eventually hired as assistant director, then director. Well on his way to "happily-ever-after," despite Sam and Molly's dire warnings that he should "shape up and forget all the homo stuff," he soon became a producer.
Tennessee Williams in the semi-nude was nothing to what he imagined now. And to Mr. Jeffrey, to imagine was to create. His hits became legendary. Finally, it came time to produce his masterpiece, the boldest, most imaginative project ever. But what could he do? Well, instead of a few wild animals like Siegfried and Roy used to have, he'd involve dozens, scores, hundreds of untamed animals.
Costumes for human and beast alike would be the most lavish ever seen in Las Vegas. The final result would be an extravaganza involving five hundred young men in drag performing in sketches, songs and dance with five hundred wild animals.
Working day and night at a feverish pitch, Mr. Jeffrey planned the production to the minutest detail. It would be incredible! Young men in drag would dance with gorillas. Scores would simultaneously insert their heads in the mouths of lions. Each act would be even more outstanding and wondrous than the one preceding it.
It took all Mr. Jeffrey's talents to plan and organize, to see to the details of procuring and casting all the wild animals, as well as the wild young men.
The most utterly fantastic act would be the last. Two hundred men in Carmen Miranda costumes would ri
de wild boars from deepest Africa. The ride would be a ballet in intricate patterns of circles and spirals.
Unbelievably, Mr. Jeffrey had found a wild boar trainer who promised his animals could learn any dance ever choreographed. All that was needed was a person to guide each boar through his paces, so to speak.
Then at the very end of the dance, all the other animals and human performers would fill the stage in a "danse extrordinaire."
Mr. Jeffrey was so excited by the prospects of the show that he could barely sleep. He sent announcements to all the trade papers that he wanted males to audition for parts. Most would appear in drag, except for those with the bodies of gods who would simply wear platinum jocks and perhaps a golden armband or two.
The animal trainers said they'd wait to see who was selected for the production before they chose the animals. They wanted to be sure to match temperament with temperament. And this is where the trouble began.
Mr. Jeffrey decided to cast all the other animals and humans first before trying to put together the final number. Dozens, hundreds, even thousands of would-be "girls" showed up to audition, each more talented and more beautiful than any he'd ever seen.
As the time for the final selections drew near, Mr. Jeffrey was so excited he had trouble breathing and his heart pounded like thunder.
The trainer of the boars and his assistant were standing by just waiting for the cast to be selected before matching human and porcine. At last Mr. Jeffrey was satisfied. He nodded for the trainer to bring on the boars. And that's when disaster befell the project.
The boars saw the humans and started to squeal and race through the aisles, completely out of control. It took hours to round them up.
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