Like People in History

by Felice Picano

  "Most people would call thumping about on the roof of Gracie Mansion antics."

  "Except, of course, if you had been one of the people doing it."

  "And especially since I know very well why you did it," Wally said.

  "Really? Care to let the rest of the world in on the secret?"

  "For the same reason you did that 'Eleven O'Clock News' spot." "What are you talking about?"

  "You really think I'm too naive to see that was planned?"

  "Planned? Planned? That business with the TV reporter was a complete surprise. Totally spontaneous. You were there. You saw how it happened!"

  "I saw your old childhood buddy arrange it all. First with you, then with the reporter. That's what I saw."

  "Ronny Taskin? You're crazy!"

  "I know what I saw," Wally insisted. "One minute he was talking to you, the next he was meeting with the reporter, and not long after, the reporter shoved a microphone in front of you and the video camera was going."

  I'd suspected that Ronny was a Very Efficient Queen, but that efficient?

  "I had nothing to do with it, Wally. I didn't! Honest!"

  "And the proof of that statement is how completely tongue-tied you were once you were in front of the camera."

  "Are you saying I knew what I was going to say? That I practiced it?"

  "Or were fed it all by your palsy-walsy."

  "That's a lie. It just... came out."

  "With every comma, every period, just right," Wally sneered.

  "Well, I'm a public speaker. I'm used to it, you know." There are few things I hate more than having to defend myself for abilities. "And I do sometimes teach. I'm used to standing up in front of... Anyway, if you're right about the interview being set up in advance... how could that possibly fit in with being caught and arrested? That couldn't possibly help the image I was supposedly projecting."

  "You know, Rog, just because I'm half your age doesn't mean I was born fucking yesterday!"

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning, you know damn well that saying something and doing something are two different things. No one remembers what you say. But I'd lay money down that when we get home there's going to be a dozen messages on the phone machine left by newspaper editors and magazine reporters and radio and TV news program producers. All because of your shenanigans atop Grade Mansion tonight."

  Wally was right. I'd not thought about it; the media would descend like locusts. Then what? I knew: I'd lock myself in. Not say a word.

  We'd reached Fifth Avenue, across which the chest-high brick wall surrounding Central Park was illuminated by those sulphur-yellow streetlights they put up a few years ago that supposedly give off an "Old New York" glow, but instead make everyone look as though they've got the first stages of hepatitis. I grabbed Wally by the shoulders.

  "Maybe that's true, Wally. Maybe everything you said is true, and maybe unconsciously or subconsciously or without being completely aware of it, I did act like a heel, like a louse, like someone bent on exploiting the situation. But openly, consciously, at the time I believed I was doing it because I thought you wanted me to."

  You could have knocked Wally down with an unwrapped condom.

  "Me?!"

  "That's what James and Junior and that guy Paul told me. That you'd put together the whole thing with the banner and—"

  "I knew nothing about it!"

  Now it was my turn to be skeptical.

  "Come on. They said you were the brains behind it! They told me how disappointed you'd be if it weren't hung on Gracie Mansion. That's why 1 did it. To make up to you. To do something you'd be proud of... happy about... for once."

  Wally was shaking his head. "I never knew anything abou— Are you trying to tell me that they...?"

  "Conned me into doing it," I shouted, realizing the fact. "They were counting on being caught and arrested. Especially on me being caught!"

  I thought it through in a flash: how the subject of the banner hadn't come up till they were certain Wally had left the demonstration and gone home; how they'd played on my stupid pride in my past history of activism—they probably had set it up with Ronny Taskin so I'd be interviewed; how Paul had managed to get away at the end; how calm Junior and James had been about being jailed; how, more than likely, they'd tried to get away earlier with that phony stuff about Junior being acrophobia What a fool I'd been. I moaned.

  "You know, Wally, I'd accept all that if it weren't that the bastards managed to drive a wedge between us."

  When I looked up, Wally was somber, his handsome face motionless, in thought.

  "They did keep avoiding me," he was thinking aloud in a quiet voice. "It took me forever to find them when we first got there."

  "Then you do believe me."

  "I don't know. It's possible." He sounded half-convinced.

  We crossed the empty street and began walking the uneven stones alongside the Central Park wall. I began to tell him exactly what had happened from the moment they approached me, playing up those aspects that I was now certain confirmed the conspiracy theory.

  "Am I forgiven?" I asked, laying a tentative hand on his shoulder.

  "I still want to talk to them. Or... maybe not. Maybe I don't ever want to talk to them!"

  "They were just being good revolutionaries. Using whatever was at their disposal for the greatest effect."

  "All I know is tomorrow afternoon's 'European Film Auteurs' class is going to be pret-ty awkward."

  "If they're there. After a night in jail, they might not be."

  Wally seemed to be coming around to seeing the situation from my point of view. The way he held me around the waist as we half stumbled over the cobblestone sidewalk seemed to prove it.

  We'd reached the Seventy-eighth Street entrance to Central Park. It looked no different now than it would look at any time after dark, except, of course, for how quiet and unpopulated the entire area was.

  I knew from many daytime walks that this entrance went clear through the park, letting us out north, at Eighty-first and Central Park West. I'd sometimes use the route from my periodontist's office to East Side museums—the Whitney, the Gug, the Met—treating myself with late-afternoon art for having heroically undergone periodic assaults upon my gums.

  In fact, this path went through the park too directly. It descended and thinned to single-person width along the two-lane road cut into the earth to speed automotive traffic through Manhattan. It would make escape difficult if not impossible if one were being chased or attacked. As a rule, and despite yellow journalism headlines about attacks in the park, I didn't feel especially unsafe here. But I had Wally to think of. Even so, and despite the darkness and contorted paths, I preferred an indirect route: a chain of paved and dirt walkways I knew semicircled the boathouse and lake would take us through the paved terrace and up its stairs, straight along the road at Seventy-second Street a ways. Then, where it curved, we'd turn off, threading small meadows and softball fields, crossing one north-south road, bypassing the Carousel, until we exited in the low seventies, not far from Tavern on the Green.

  I suppose I was expecting Wally to contest my route. But he didn't, and I made sure we remained pretty well within areas illuminated by overhead lights. I'd expected to see many homeless people sleeping in the park, or at least wandering its paths, disheveled and madly nattering, but it might have been too chilly; we didn't encounter a soul. Once we were a hundred yards in, the sighing of wind through the trees was louder, clearer. Paradoxically, the night was colder, yet less breezy.

  Naturally such peace couldn't last. We were both too nervous, too het up from earlier in the evening. And since there was no one else to irritate or scare us, we'd have to do it ourselves. Afraid of once more being the victim, I attacked first, hiding it under miles of goo.

  "Wals," I began all lovey-dovey, "remember what you said before?"

  I felt his body stiffen, despite my constant caressing ministrations as we walked.

  "Mnnnn. I forget," he s
aid. Meaning "Drop it if you know what's good for you."

  "You know, Wals," I went on in that half-cajoling, half-whining way lovers use when undecided how much they're succeeding in irking their partners. "About whether I still thought saving Alistair's life was important or not?... Why did you say that?"

  His back stiffened more. "I wondered," he now allowed himself to say. "You have to admit, you have been of at least two minds about it all tonight. Before that phone call, you were ready to rush to Alistair. Afterward..."

  "Wals, you reminded me I had plenty of time before Alistair's party was over."

  Which was only half-true.

  "Maybe so. But I wasn't aware at the time you'd end up getting yourself arrested. What if you'd never got out tonight?" "But I did get out."

  "It's reasonable to assume that you might not have."

  "I don't see why you say that. I..."

  "And, since it's reasonable, it's equally reasonable to ask why you'd even take the chance, why you'd allow the possibility of not getting back to Alistair tonight. Unless you had no intention of returning."

  "Are you saying I got arrested on purpose?"

  "No. But since we were talking about the unconscious before..."

  "Then you're saying that by getting arrested, I was setting myself up so I wouldn't be able to keep Alistair from taking the pills?"

  "That still may be the case," Wally pointed out. "Which is why we're going there now. And why we're having this conversation."

  "Let me get this straight, you mean I hate Alistair so much—"

  "I mean you found whatever was handy to support your earlier decision. Which, as you recall, was to assist, to abet, indeed to make possible his suicide tonight."

  "No, you're saying I hate Alistair."

  "Which you do. At times. As at times you love him."

  I couldn't deny it. We walked on, no longer arm in arm, but still holding hands, if at a bit of a distance. We were coming up on that section of terrace that stuck out into the lake by the Bethesda Fountain. It was empty now, as glamorously romantic as it appeared in print ads for perfumes and in TV commercials featuring mannequins trailing yards of tulle; as romantic as it must have looked when Olmsted first built it a century ago. I recalled summer Sunday afternoons here in the late sixties and early seventies when people gathered in wonderful, innocent masses to fly kites, to brunch at the restaurant laid out in parasoled tables, while under the overhanging bridge competing groups of madrigalists sang Gabrieli and Monteverdi motets.

  "But you don't know the entire story," I defended myself. "I mean of Alistair and me."

  "I'm sure I don't," Wally said with enormous sangfroid.

  I'd been heading toward the steps. He pulled me away toward the lake. The moon was out again, pale and, yes, fall. It glittered on the water. For a moment I thought he wanted to waltz. Instead, he held me by the waist.

  "How can you be so sure?" I asked.

  "Because I've heard plenty already and there are obvious gaps."

  "Gaps?"

  "Obvious, substantial gaps. One gap in particular."

  We were beginning to tread on dangerous territory. I disengaged myself and sat on a low granite wall. Wally joined me.

  "Until tonight," he went on, unswayed by the beauty of the scene, "I was never certain how substantial that gap was. Now I see it's crucial."

  I wasn't about to admit a thing. Especially in light of how Wally had acted earlier in the evening at the mere mention of Matt's name. I wished I knew how to change the subject. I wanted nothing more than to be kissed by him here, now. Then to make love, partly here, partly at home, in our own apartment, our own bed. The very last thing I wanted tonight was to have to deal with Alistair and/or the White Woman again.

  "Of course I'd picked up bits and pieces of it earlier," Wally continued, "but something Dorky said earlier confirmed it."

  I was afraid to ask what he'd said, I was aware that our intertwined fingers had become strangely dry and hot. I lifted his hand to my mouth and kissed. Let it go, Wals, I silently pleaded.

  "I admit," Wally continued, his telepathy dimmer than usual, "I made a mistake in how I reacted when it came up. That was my fault, Rog. I was still feeling vulnerable, still affected by what Dorky had said."

  I was biting my tongue. I couldn't stand it. I knew if I asked, it would end all possibility of romance here, now, tonight. At the same time, I knew we had to face it or it would always fester.

  "What did Dorky say tonight?"

  "What he said, or rather what he let slip, earlier this evening was a' particular phrase. And while I don't for a second remember the context, the phrase was, and I quote 'You know, that gorgeous poet who was the Love of Roger's Life.'"

  I heard the capitals in how he said it: Damn the White Woman! Damn!

  "That's exactly how he was described," Wally continued. "I have to assume that's how Alistair described him. I have to assume that's how you'd describe him."

  "Poor Wally."

  "Don't patronize me." He tried to pull his hand away.

  "It's a terrible thing for you to have heard."

  Wally was motionless. I became aware of a shudder running over and through him.

  "You mean you're not going to deny it?" His voice was tremulous, incredulous.

  "How can I?"

  Wally stood up. I grabbed at his jacket, but he fought free.

  "So, you can understand," he said in a somewhat changed tone of voice, "the awkwardness of my position at the demonstration, when the man who is supposed to be my lover gets up and publicly names—the Love of His Life!"

  "You had every right to be upset. To ran away. To move out. To never speak to me again. Every right in the world."

  For the first time ever, I heard what sounded like begging in his voice. "You're not going to even..."

  "Even what?"

  "I don't know... ameliorate it? Question it?"

  "No. I'm not. Matt Loguidice was the great love of my life. The lover fated for me. No question of it. No amelioration possible."

  I swore, despite the bad light, that tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

  "I never... I never dreamed you'd be so cruel to me!"

  So he was capable of melodrama! Wonderful!!

  "Oh, Wally, I'm not being cruel. I'm just telling the truth!"

  I managed to pull him down next to me.

  "I'm not saying Matt was the only lover in my life or the best lover, or even the lover I liked most! You're that, Wally. You're sweet and funny and too smart for either of our good. You're mysterious as the Loch Ness monster and at the same time as comfortable as an old sweatshirt, and you're pretty much everything in between. If I'm not a complete jackass and if you can put up with me, I'd like it if we remained lovers till one of us dies.

  "But Matt Loguidice... Someone, something like Matt happens only once in a lifetime. Everyone within a certain radius is affected. Like an H-bomb dropping. Some people, most people in fact, never experience it. Shakespeare did. The Dark Lady of the Sonnets he writes about, that's what Matt Loguidice was. A quirk of destiny, a force of nature. You're going along living your life and the Dark Lady arrives—male or female, good or bad, young or old—and you're forever changed. I was. Alistair was. All in our circle were. It almost had little to do with Matt himself after a while. Especially after he began to be photographed, and appeared in all those magazines: Mr. Macho. Mr. Leatherman. Mr. Whatever-Your-Dream-Is-I'm-Better-By-Far.

  "You see, Wally, it's not a matter of competing. You couldn't compete with Matt. No one could. He was of another ilk. Of another era. Some people claimed even back then that he was that era. I wouldn't want you to compete. You're too ... too much Wally for that. Whereas Matt... I sometimes "wonder what Matt was. And I'm the one who knew him best, who was with him at his most human, at his weakest, his most vulnerable!"

  You could have driven a truck through the silence that ensued. Hell, you could have driven the entire Indy 500 through it!

 
I wondered whether I'd made a Major Error. I'd known since earlier in the evening that Wally and I would have to have it out sometime. Had I been wise in laying out my entire hand now? Too late for second-guessing.

  I waited for Wally. Behind him I heard a soft hooting sound: an owl. I'd read that the Parks Department had been stocking owls to keep down the wild mice and rat population attracted by human debris. It sounded again, distant and cold and very wild: untamed, untamable. The wind rose and riffled the lake in shirred patterns. Matt would have turned it into a poem. But Matt was dead.

  "Well... I asked." Wally's voice sounded hurt.

  "Don't take it like that." I was trying to pull him down next to me. "It's ancient history. It's over a decade since Matt and I broke up. What were you doing in 1979? Studying social studies in the fifth grade? Playing with the Donkey Kong computer games? Think, Wals. Think how far away it is. How much has happened since then."

  "And you did break up."

  Better. Sometimes the tooth had to be pulled lest it forever rot.

  "A complete divorce."

  "Incompatibility?" Wally asked.

  "It's a long story."

  "Involving Alistair?"

  "Involving a lot of people," I said, too glibly. "Involving Alistair," I admitted.

  "Dorky said you two didn't talk to each other for years after." -

  "Six!" I admitted. Reminded of Alistair, I stood up and pulled Wally with me. "It's getting late. We'd better go."

  As we were climbing the steps out of the fountain plaza, Wally said, "If you're willing to let Alistair die, it's because of what happened then, isn't it? With Matt? In 1979?"

  "I don't know. I think I forgave Alistair. I told him I did."

  "Because he stole Matt from you?"

  "Oh, Wally! It should only be that simple!"

  "Well! Tell me!"

  We were walking in the middle of the road that led off Seventy-second Street on the East Side, headed west.

  "You'd have to know the entire situation! All the shit going on between me and Sydelle and Harte at Manifest. What was going on between Patrick and Luis, our housemates at Withering Heights that summer. The way all of us—"

  "Withering Heights?"