City of Night

by John Rechy

  And it waits to be alerted of an imminent Fall.

  Off Hollywood Boulevard—in a pseudo-New-Orleans decor of grillwork and French posters, draped scarlet velvet, dusty winebottles—the gay world of Hollywood finds its headquarters at the Splendide bar: In the subdued amber and pink lights, friendly to its overwhelming, if imposed, guilt, it finds its haven; in its members, it finds its fleeting nightlong meaning (the unsatisfied hunger, the hurried goodbyes after sexual intimacy . . .). Among its patrons are the Young, the good-looking, the masculine—the sought-after—and, too, the effeminate flutterers posing like languid young ladies, usually imitating the current flatchested heroines of the Screen but not resorting to the hints of drag employed by the much more courageous downtown Los Angeles queens.

  It was at the Splendide that I first heard of Lance O’Hara.

  Next to me at the bar sits a blondhaired effeminate fairy talking to a thin dark youngman.

  “Guess who is back in town?” asked the blond one, answering himself: “Lance!”

  “Lance O’Hara?” said the dark one, pretending nonchalance. “I didnt even know he was gone!” He sipped his drink studiedly.

  “Well,” said the blond one, propping an elbow on the bar, hand dangling loosely from the wrist like a tulip, “he did go to New York. He was going to do a Show—but—” He shrugged his skinny shoulders, glancing nervously around. It’s almost the desperate hour and he hasnt made a conquest for Tonight. “Well, you know about Lance’s ‘shows’—they never seem to get Produced any more. . . . I heard hes working again at one of the studios—but not as an actor.”

  “How does he look?” asks the other, his head like a swivel, his eyes searching the bar. (When two homosexuals who have no Sexual interest in each other talk in a bar, they seldom look at each other—their eyes scan the bar for a new, Available anyone.) “I havent seen him in years! I thought he’d—Retired!”

  “Youre exaggerating. We went to his house last summer—remember?—when he acted like he didnt want to see anyone. Anyway, he looks Awful!” he said gleefully. “Youd never believe he’d been the Raving Beauty. Hes simply oh-ful!”

  “Really?” said the dark-haired fairy, intensely interested now. He touched his face as if to feel if the skin is still smooth. In this world, more than in any other, Youth is a badge; Beauty a treasure.

  “He might be coming in tonight—and then you can see for yourself.”

  “I heard he doesnt go to the bars any more.”

  “Well, he does! . . . Oh, look, theres Teddy, (I think hes very cute, dont you?) Teddy! Teddy! (But too femme for me, I like them butch.) Teddy!”

  “You take what you can get, honey.”

  “Dont be bitchy. I dont notice anyone cruising you—” and then in a lisping whisper, “—and look at that number near me, hes been staring a hole through me.”

  “How interesting: a new hole.”

  And the blond one squeezed like a snake through the thick crowd, to a tight little group, where Teddy obviously was; and hisses: “How are you? . . . Guess whos back in Hollywood? Lance!”

  “Lance O’Hara?”

  “Hes back from New York?”

  “That bastard!”

  “How does he look?”

  “Hes a Mess!”

  “Well, it’s about time!”

  And so the chorus, alerted now, prepares At Last to announce the Fall of Lance O’Hara—“prepares,” because Lance, in the waiting eyes of the whisperers, had not yet become Ridiculous.

  And for the chorus to claim its victory, the God must admit his fall. . . .

  It was through the vindictive whispering chorus that I heard, soon after, of Esmeralda Drake III.

  “I saw Lance the other night, and it’s True: He looks Awful,” a fairy I was with said at the Ivy bar. A small group huddles by the unlit fireplace. “And you know what I heard?”

  A long, long pause. . . .“That Esmeralda Drake is dead!

  “Esmeralda Drake the Third!” someone corrected.

  “Yes—I forgot: The Third!”

  “Well, it’s no wonder: She was at least 100 years old!”

  “Older!”

  “Dont exaggerate.”

  “Figure it out: She admitted to being over 60. . . .”

  Then the group disbanded like birds fleeing a nest, and the invoked shadow of Lance blends into the other shadows.

  “Theres Lance!”

  He stood at the draped door of the Splendide as if undecided whether to come in. He was an imposing figure: tall, slender, broad-shouldered. But I couldnt see his face from where I sat.

  “It is Lance!” another fairy at the bar said.

  “How does he look?”

  Impatiently: “I cant tell any more than you can till he comes in!”

  “Lets go talk to him And See.”

  They hurried toward the shadow entering the bar. I can see him better now. From the distance—despite the damning whispers I had heard—he was an extraordinarily handsome youngman: black wavy hair, thick arched eyebrows, features perfectly molded. . . . He acknowledged only cursorily the two fairies who had rushed-gushed toward him—leaving them indignantly widemouthed as he passed through the crowd, briefly greeting the constantly turned curious faces of the many there who knew or recognized him. He made his way to the far end of the bar at the back of the room, and sat there alone.

  Despite his handsomeness, he looked somehow like a ghost—or, rather (and it could have been the mellow light which bathed him), like someone who is haunted.

  2

  At the Splendide again.

  This time I was with Chick and Jamey, whom I had met just a few minutes earlier on the Boulevard. They had come on with that bulldozer approach of the type who believes firmly that everyone—almost anyone—can be made. And they asked me to have dinner with them. By then I had already been in Hollywood long enough to be pegged as one of the many Hollywood drifters who fall into this world out of at least announced convenience, not strictly “belonging” to it—yet . . . I say “announced convenience” and “yet” only to be fair to that world, because in it most active members are convinced that eventually those unreciprocating vagrants and wanderers into their world will cross the sexual boundary that separates them now—and they wait almost vengefully for the crossing of that line—to the Other Side—their side. . . . So Chick and Jamey asked me to have dinner with them, and I told them I didnt have any money, which was untrue, and they sighed, and Chick said: “We know, we know—weve all read the script many times.” . . .

  Chick is possibly in his middle 30s—would be almost-fat but squeezes his waist mercilessly so that he is like a caricature of Mae West. Jamey is younger. Tonight he is wearing a cowboy hat and boots, and because hes quite effeminate, despite the costume and the pose, at best he looks like a slightly masculine cowgirl.

  “I heard something really delicious about Lance,” Jamey said. “I heard that Lance—the beautiful Lance who wouldnt dream of falling in love—remember, Chick?—well, hes Flipped! Hes in love with this young kid. . . . Can you imagine, Chick? Lance—in love?”

  “Frankly, no—I dont believe it. I think it’s just gossip,” said Chick, “though I will say—as much as Ive always adored Lance and still do and everyone knows it—I will say it might be the best thing that ever happened to him.”

  I remember the poised man I had seen that previous night—who had sat alone and walked out by himself a few minutes later—and even without knowing him, I couldnt imagine his being in love.

  “And have you heard about Esmeralda Drake the Third?” Jamey said.

  “Well, what about her?”

  Jamey said: “I heard shes dead.”

  “Why, I just saw her the other day,” Chick said. “She was hobbling along the street with her cane. If shes dead, she got run over, I bet. . . . Which reminds me: I went to this queen’s funeral once, and they had dressed her in drag!”

  “Youre too much!” protested Jamey.

  “It’s the t
ruth. That was how she wanted to go: dress, high heels, gloves. It was in her will.” Then: “This kid you say Lance flipped over—do you know him?”

  “Oh, yes!” squealed Jamey. “And everybody’s had him. Hes one of the Hollywood Boulevard tramps—. . . Oh!” He covered his mouth naughtily, the cowboy hat almost falling off. “Excuse me, baby,” he said, patting my arm, “I forgot we just—uh—met you on the Boulevard,” and he grinned treacherously. “Anyway, the kid is a tramp! . . . Why, Chick, didnt you and I try to pick him up one night—at Coffee Andy’s? . . . Or was it you with me? We bought him a hamburger, then he left. Why, his name is Dean—Dean something. . . . No, you werent with me. I was with Rick that night, I remember. Rick liked him, I didnt. . . . Anyway,” he repeated, “this Dean is a tramp.”

  Dean? Dean. . . . I remember that name.

  “I dont believe it about Lance,” says Chick, with touching loyalty. “Youre just being bitchy, Jamey. Lance may not be as Young as he was, but hes still too special.”

  “All I can say,” said Jamey, “is that he certainly had his day.”

  “Babe,” Chick said to me now, “Lance was the handsomest boy in Hollywood.”

  “I never thought he was that good,” said Jamey.

  “He was,” says Chick staunchly, explaining to me: “He had them all scratching at his door. He was in the movies—we all were, then—he wasnt a Star, but everyone knew him. Why, he had an affair with Pierce Flint—the big moviestar. And Pierce loved Lance so much that when Lance left him, Pierce got married—to a woman! . . . Thats when Lance met Esmeralda Drake the Third.”

  Jamey interrupted Chick: “Were you on the set the day Esmeralda first saw Lance?”

  “You know damn well I was, bitch, you tried to push me out of the camera each time you came on—like every other nelly upstart chorus boy. It was that Betty Grable musical we did—”

  “Rita Hayworth,” says Jamey.

  “Well, one of those, who cares? It couldve been Shirley Temple!”

  Jamey began to hum a tune from a musical, to sway his body to the rhythm. “I was just a Kid, then, but I remember it like it was this morning.”

  “You werent that Young,” Chick said; then to me: “Lance was doing this number with Betty Grable—or Rita Hayworth—one of those—that was right after he broke up with Pierce. Well, babe, I mean to tell you, dont let anyone tell you a moviestar isnt Powerful in this damn town. Why, when Lance left Pierce, Pierce fixed it so Lance couldnt get any work, hardly. Lance might have been a Big Star today if it hadnt been for that Anyway, they had to finish this movie—and Lance knew he had to do Something, but quick—Lance always looks out for himself—”

  “Except maybe that time in Laguna,” Jamey said.

  “Well, you dont know what really happened, and dont pretend you do. You want to believe the worst about Lance. . . . Youre just: Jealous!”

  “Me? Jealous? Ha!”

  “Anyhow,” Chick continued, “Lance is doing this dance with Betty—or Rita—when Esmeralda Drake walks in—”

  “Esmeralda Drake the Third,” corrected Jamey.

  “Actually,” says Chick, “her real name was Gregory—Gregory Drake—and she came from A Fabulously Rich Family—the Drakes—and she was The Third—”

  “And the last—”

  “Yes, it’s sad. She was the only man left in the family—and, honey, she was queerer than I am,” said Chick.

  “Impossible!” said Jamey, throwing up his hands, this time completely knocking the cowboy hat off. “My chapeau!” he squealed; goes on: “No one—not even the dead queen who got buried in drag—is that queer!”

  “Shut your hole, Mae; youre swishing so much youre going to make a hurricane—not that a breeze wouldnt be welcome in this place.” Chick begins to fan himself with Jamey’s retrieved hat. “Anyway,” he continues, addressing me, “Lance nicknamed Gregory Drake the Third, Esmeralda Drake the Third—she was that nelly. Oh, babe, she was such a faggot! Awful. When Lance met her, Esmeralda was a very old man—”

  “Tell him what Esmeralda looked like,” Jamey said delightedly, and goes on to tell me: “She was a skinny, bony, old old man, with cheeks that looked like caves—”

  “And can you imagine?—that lecherous old man fell in love with Lance. The moment she saw him on the set, she Flipped—and let me tell you, Lance looked Magnificent!”

  “Tell him what Lance did to Esmeralda.”

  “Im coming to it, if you let me. . . . Nothing like a nervous queen on Saturday night when she thinks shes not going to Make Out and have to go home and jerk off,” Chick chastises Jamey. “You are going with me, arent you, baby?” he asked me. . . . “So Esmeralda Drake—Lance gave her that name right after he met her (he called her that to her face; we all did)—well, Esmeralda Drake flips over Lance—and I mean, babe, she fullipped! And Lance couldn’t get a job, because he’d tossed Pierce over. So he decides to play the old daddy for everything shes worth. Lance let her take him out to dinner, every day. . . . But this is the twist: He wouldn’t let her put a finger on him.”

  “Thats what Lance claimed, anyway!”

  “It’s True. Everyone knows that: Youre just being bitchy. Everyone knows Esmeralda never so much as touched Lance!”

  “I think you were in love with Lance, if you ask me,” said Jamey. He shrieked in pretended annoyance when someone passing by said to him: “Honey, I didnt recognize you in that cowgirl drag!”

  “Who wasnt in love with Lance?” Chick said. “And who was it that followed him into the dressing room that time and locked the door and—”

  “Vile gossip!”

  “We all saw you, and Lance pushed you away so hard you fell and threatened to sue the studio and they promised to put you at the front of the chorus line.”

  “Thats not true. I could have had Lance just like that—” Jamey snapped his fingers.

  “Dont listen to her, babe,” says Chick. “Shes just Nervous cause she’ll have to go home alone,” He turns now to Jamey: “That cowboy drag youre in was a definite mistake, honey—you look like an extra on the wrong set. . . . Anyway, let me continue—if this giddy bitch lets me—Lance was getting money from the old auntie, but Lance is Smart. He got the old man so fuckin hot after him that the old man was going out of her head. She bought Lance a car, everything he wanted, and, babe, this isnt gossip. It’s The Truth. Still, Lance wouldnt let her touch him. Then Lance made this deal: He’d move in with Esmeralda Drake—”

  “—the Third.”

  “—the Third. He’d move in with Esmeralda if Esmeralda would have the papers on the house made out in both Lance’s and Esmeralda’s names. The next day, Esmeralda was with her attorneys, and Lance moved in. Then Esmeralda tries to make out—and Lance says nothing doing, He promised to move in, and he did. But Touch him, no. . . . The old man was a case, I mean Ive never seen anyone so nervous. And she says to Lance he can have Anything. All right, says Lance, he wants the house in his name only. It was a magnificent house, babe: Lance still has it: all gorgeous modern furniture, original paintings (all the way from New York)—drapes like in the Movies—everything! . . . So the old man calls her attorneys again, she has the house put in Lance’s name—And Then Guess What?”

  Jamey gulps his drink in anticipation. “Youll never believe it!”

  “We were all there—Jamey was there—all the kids from the set. Lance gave this party, to celebrate his new house, and Esmeralda is there hobbling around on her cane, following Lance, smiling, nodding—thinking at last shes made it. Well! It was real late, and Lance goes to Esmeralda Drake the Third, and says to her—”

  “He really said this, we all heard it.”

  “—and says to her: ‘Get out of my house, I dont want to see you here again!”

  “And the old man looked like a ghost—”

  “Yes, like he was going to die right there, and Lance saying: ‘I mean it, I mean it, get the hell out, youve bugged me long enough, get out.’ And he shoves Esmeralda Drake through the do
or right in front of our startled eyes. . . . Well, you know, Lance is a big fellow. And he had no trouble. The old man almost stumbled on her cane. Well, it was about four oclock in the morning—”

  “It was later—dont you remember someone had just said lets watch the dawn?”

  “Yes, youre right. We were so tanked, remember?”

  “Yes, and remember how Ronnie slapped you when you tried to make his boyfriend?”

  “Ronnie slapped me? I slapped Ronnie!”

  “Thats not what I saw,” sang Jamey.

  “How would you know, Miss Mess? You were trying to make everyone; they couldnt drag you out of the toilet. . . . Now shut your hole and let me go on. . . . So, babe,” Chick says, turning his back on Jamey, “Lance shoves the old man out, and about seven oclock the poor old bastard (well, yes, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him)—the poor old bastard comes beating on the door with her cane—Lance had locked the door, and Lance yells at her, ‘Get away from me, you lecherous old man!’”

  “No. He called her a dirty old man.”

  “All right, all right—it’s just a polite way of saying the same thing. And dont talk so damn loud, everyone’s looking.”

  “And whats wrong with That?” says Jamey, striking a pose.

  Chick went on: “And the old man is beating on the door. Then Lance went to the telephone and calls the police and says, Theres a man trying to break into my house, I want him arrested!’ And the old man keeps beating on the door with her cane and shouting, ‘Let me in, let me in!’”

  3

  The legend of Lance O’Hara was running through the bars—rather, the echoes of the legend. Incidents are being remembered, motivations supplied; and some, who had envied and Desired, now are obviously pleased: Who cared, for Now, if each new day another “great beauty” stormed their world? What mattered to them, for their momentary justification was that the “beauty” of their time, the one who had relegated them brutally to the background (and who, importantly, from the very beginning, had announced himself as one of them), must soon relinquish his throne. . . .