A Night at the Ariston Baths

by Michael Murphy

  The nature of the notations was quickly revealed when one of the patrons who had just dressed was roughly shoved toward the table. Theodore saw the man he’d spoken with earlier, the one who had warned him to leave, as well as another man he’d seen in the bathhouse that night, both dressed in police uniforms, standing beside the table.

  “Name?” one of the seated men bluntly ordered without bothering to look up.

  The bather haltingly gave his name, which was dutifully recorded in the ledger.

  “Address?”

  Again, the information was provided and recorded.

  The man seated in the middle of the table looked to the two men who were dressed as officers—the men who had apparently been there under false pretenses. They both shook their heads as if to say no to some unspoken question. What was even more odd, though, was what happened next.

  Theodore and the other bathers listened as the man in the middle of the table, clearly the man in charge, gave a stern lecture to the man standing in front of him. “This is a den of iniquity, a house of immoral and sinful behavior. Nothing good can come from this place. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “I had no idea,” the standing man pled.

  “Pay more attention to your surroundings next time and stay away from places like this and the degenerates who congregate in such places.”

  When the first man was led away, another man, who had dressed, was marched in front of the table, and the process was repeated. Theodore’s focus abruptly shifted at that point when he felt a hand on his arm.

  “Martin!” he whispered when he spotted him as the one who had touched his arm.

  “What the hell are we going to do?” Martin asked him, appearing to be in a panic at least comparable to the one Theodore was experiencing.

  “They’re questioning each man. I just saw them release one. I don’t know what else.”

  “Quiet,” one of their guards ordered, which effectively ended their brief conferencing.

  Slowly Theodore’s panic started to ebb at least a bit as he watched, listened, and saw several men released and sent on their way following the same caution about immoral and degenerate behavior.

  After watching as ten men were released, Theodore was hopeful that the entire incident was a gigantic misunderstanding and that they were all about to be released with just a stern warning. But that hope was dashed when yet another man was brought in front of the table and the previous pattern was broken. Theodore watched the two men in uniform standing beside the table both nod with a quick glance at each other.

  “I want that man,” one of the uniformed officers who’d been playing the part of a bather said.

  “Put him in there under guard until we get enough to fill a patrol wagon.”

  “Wait!” the man implored.

  “Shut up, you,” one of the officers ordered, roughly shoving the man out of the room.

  “Oh hell,” Theodore heard Martin mutter. Theodore turned toward Martin and raised an eyebrow in a questioning gesture. Martin whispered, “I was with him.”

  Theodore could have sworn his heart skipped a couple of beats.

  Had Theodore felt panicked before, his anxiety went absolutely through the roof when he felt a strong pair of hands grab him and shove him forward. “You’re next,” the gruff officer told him as Theodore was roughly manhandled onto what was in effect the center stage.

  Since the two men standing seemed to have the power, despite the fact that they were standing and the others were sitting, Theodore looked toward them. They both shook their heads, and then like clockwork, Theodore got the same questions followed by the same lecture that the others released earlier had received. Before he could say anything or look back toward Martin, he was quickly rushed to the front door of the bathhouse and released.

  When the door opened to the street, rather than feel free, Theodore faced an assault of a new and totally unexpected sort. Several dozen men formed a gauntlet through which he would need to walk if he wanted to indeed be free. Theodore stepped forward, but when he heard the catcalls and the rude things the strangers were shouting angrily at him, things about how unnatural he was, how he was an abomination, he stopped and stared at them.

  When one of the men spit at him, Theodore froze. Part of him wanted to flee to the shadows and hide. But another part of him was just plain furious. He was overwhelmed with a sense of righteous indignation, which trumped his fear and desire for anonymity. He wiped the stranger’s spit from his face and looked at the man responsible and demanded, “You, sir, do I know you?”

  “I don’t associate with your kind,” he yelled at Theodore.

  “Then how do you know anything about me?” he asked angrily. His use of logic seemed to momentarily confuse the man, but he quickly recovered. Theodore would have doubted that his time working with cranky customers would ever be of any use to him once he left the store, but that night—or morning, actually—the skills he had learned from years of dealing with complaining people paid off big time. Even though he most certainly didn’t feel this way inside, on the outside he held his head high and met the nasty man eye to eye, not giving an inch of ground.

  “Yer in that kind of place, ain’t ya?”

  “A bathhouse? Is that what you mean? I was dirty and needed a bath?”

  “How’d ya get dirty, boy?” he hurled back at Theodore.

  “From working—something you might want to try some day since you seem to have ample time on your hands to stick your nose into other people’s business.”

  “Why, you…,” the man angrily said as he formed a fist and took a step toward Theodore. But that was all he took before another of the police stationed at the door spoke one word, called the angry man by name, and shook his head. That one word was sufficient to get the angry man to back off enough for Theodore to pass.

  Had the police arranged this entire circus? Was that possible? When no one else said anything to him, Theodore moved quickly past the crowd. He took about a dozen steps and then stopped.

  By that point, though, the door to the bathhouse opened again and another man faced the same gauntlet that Theodore had just run. The attention of the crowd was entirely focused on their newest victim, and Theodore was old news, forgotten and irrelevant. Theodore felt somewhat helpless as he watched the newest man verbally assaulted in the same way he had been. Only this man didn’t stop, didn’t argue, and didn’t offer any resistance to the harassment he was given.

  Once that man had cleared the gauntlet, Theodore wanted to go up to him and ask if he was all right, but he didn’t have the chance. The man moved as fast as his feet would carry him, dashed across the street, regardless of the ongoing traffic, and disappeared into the darkness on the other side. Practically before Theodore could form the idea in his head, the opportunity was gone.

  Theodore would have loved to disappear into the darkness, but he could not leave—Martin was still inside, and Theodore was full of hope that each time the door opened and another man was released that it would be Martin. But despite his hopes, time after time after time, Martin did not appear. Dozens of men were released, more than Theodore could count—and that of course was only once he’d been released; he had not counted how many had been released before he was.

  For an hour the pattern kept repeating every few minutes until ten minutes passed with no further activity. Then the door opened again, and for a couple of seconds, Theodore was full of hope that this time Martin would be released. But Theodore’s heart broke with what he saw.

  An officer who had been inside the bathhouse marched out, followed by a line of men, all with their arms and legs chained together in one long string of men. Those men were led through the gauntlet of angry men that lined the space between the door of the bathhouse and the waiting carriage. The words, the insults that were hurled at the chained men were far worse than had been thrown at him and those like him who had been released earlier. The officers seemed completely unconcerned about the angry mob of
men who were hurling vicious insults at the prisoners, prisoners who had no means of fighting back should the confrontation move beyond words and spit.

  Theodore held his breath, convinced that the crowd was one step away from turning into a mob throwing punches at the prisoners. One by one the men were loaded into the waiting patrol wagon for transport elsewhere. It pained him in yet another way to watch the difficulty the men had in climbing up into the patrol wagon all chained together.

  Theodore hadn’t thought to count how many there were, but it seemed to be a couple of dozen men, clearly more than the patrol wagon was designed to carry. Someone slammed the door closed, locked it, and sent it on its way.

  Another vehicle quickly took the place of the first one and the process repeated. He could hear some of them that had been loaded inside first complaining bitterly about how there was no more room for more. The only response that earned was one of the police taking his nightstick and rapping it against the outside.

  One of the last men out was, as Theodore had feared, Martin. For the second time that night, Theodore felt his world collapse in on itself. He wanted to fall to his knees and cry to the heavens above, imploring the entire heavenly host for relief from the injustice of the episode.

  Martin glanced up and met Theodore’s eye. Before Theodore could speak, Martin ordered, “Theodore, go home. Take care of yourself. Find a lawyer for me, please. You know where I keep my money.”

  Before Theodore could offer an answer, though, he saw one of the officers hit Martin with his nightstick and shout, “Shut up and get moving, you pervert.”

  Martin was shoved inside the nearly full coach. One more man came after him, then the door was swung closed and was padlocked. A whistle was blown and the horses started the laborious task of getting the wagon moving.

  Spotting the officer who had spoken to Theodore inside much earlier in the evening, he asked, “Where are you taking them?”

  “Forty-Seventh Street Station house,” the man responded before walking off with several of his colleagues in the same direction.

  Chapter Fifteen—What Now?

  THE CROWD that had surrounded the exit to the bathhouse dispersed with the departure of the wagon. One minute Theodore stood watching a large crowd of angry strangers harangue the prisoners, and then, when the wagon departed, so did the men. The sidewalk was suddenly remarkably quiet. The only remaining sign that anything unusual had happened were the many wet spots on the sidewalk where men had spat on the prisoners.

  Theodore moved a few more feet away from the Ariston and found a spot in the shadows that felt at least a bit safer. From that safe spot, he watched a handful of other men exit the Ariston, all smiling and congratulating one another on the success of the raid. Theodore wanted to run up to them and demand to know what they planned to do with his friend, but he was able to resist that urge. After a round of handshakes those last men also disappeared into the final hours of the night that seemed to have gone on forever.

  With no further reason to remain where he was, Theodore slipped across the street. He leaned his back against the wall of the first building he came to and closed his eyes. Shaking his head back and forth, he whispered, “Why? Why? Why?”

  A noise from somewhere off to his right caused Theodore’s eyes to snap open. His heart rate jumped easily thirty beats a minute. Without realizing that it was happening, the age-old survival instinct kicked into overdrive. He didn’t wait to see what had caused the noise but instead took off like a man with a mission that had to be accomplished right that minute.

  Theodore ran with every ounce of energy he possessed all the way back to their house.

  By the time he reached the boardinghouse, Theodore was panting from the exertion. Never before had he covered such a distance so quickly. With more noise than was probably reasonable, he let himself into the house and tromped up the stairs and down the hall to his room. Slamming the door closed, he threw himself against it as if to keep an enemy from invading his inner sanctum.

  Theodore didn’t move from his spot to turn on a light. He didn’t move to remove his mud-caked shoes. Instead he stood with his back to the door. It was only when he heard the sound of the door rattling that he realized he was shaking. The air in his room was a little chilly, but it wasn’t enough to account for the way his entire body was alive with uncontrolled movement.

  One revelation finished, and he was immediately dealing with material for his next: he was crying. It wasn’t just silent tears—Theodore was sobbing. His sobs might have contributed a little to the way his body was shaking, causing the door to rattle. For the longest time, he was aware he needed to get himself under control before he disturbed his fellow tenants more than he already had.

  But knowing that and doing it were two different things. He was simply beside himself with grief, with anger, with embarrassment, with entirely too many emotions to catalog. What had happened was horrible—it was catastrophic. He had no idea what was to become of Martin. Everyone was going to find out. Martin would be ruined. Theodore had no idea what happened to a man who was caught having sexual relations with another man, but the fact that those men had been arrested and shackled before being carted off to jail was a good indication of the severity of the matter.

  It took him close to thirty minutes, but Theodore finally pulled himself together a bit. With his last tear shed and his last uncontrollable gasp of air, he slid to the floor and sat with his long legs drawn up tight to his body, his arms wrapped around his legs as if they were about to escape. With his body once again under control, Theodore was confronted by his next major problem: what in the world should he do now?

  Martin had told him to find a lawyer, but Theodore had no clue how to go about such a task. He had never had any dealings with lawyers, and he didn’t know how to evaluate which lawyer he should hire once he had located a few, nor how much he should be prepared to pay for their services. His primary problem, he decided, was that there were entirely too many unknowns in the equation. He needed information—lots of information—before he could make any decisions or plans.

  He had no idea what time it was, but he knew it was late—terribly late. The first rays of morning light were coming in his window when Theodore finally stirred. He had not slept a moment and knew he was going to be operating at less than his ideal energy level. But such things could not be avoided.

  With the new day dawning, Theodore was able to see just what a state he was in. The mud that had adhered to his shoes had dried and was making a mess on the floor of his room. He hoped that he hadn’t left too much of a mess in the hallway as he ran inside and up the stairs when he’d returned home a few hours earlier. But, regardless, he had no way to change the facts of the matter. As with Martin, it was what it was, and his only choice was to deal with things as they were.

  Theodore decided that one thing he could do was to clean up and change into his most presentable clothing before making his way to wherever Martin was being held. While he always did his best to look good whenever he went out in public, Theodore did have one particular suit of clothing that he thought looked best, so after washing his face and hands and cleaning up the dried mud, he dressed in those clothes. Taking a deep breath, he was ready for whatever came next.

  He grabbed his winter coat and made his way quietly down the stairs and out the front of the boardinghouse. Each morning he passed a uniformed policeman, so he set off that morning in search of the man. Theodore was always friendly to him and to everyone, but he doubted that the officer had any clue who he was. Still, it was a place to start.

  That morning he found the officer very close to where he passed him each weekday morning on his way to work. It was a Sunday morning, and he was not on his way to work, but Theodore had hoped for the best, and for once it had happened. Walking directly up to the officer, Theodore started, “Good morning, sir. I wonder if you could help me.”

  “If I can,” he answered with an obvious hint of an Irish accent.

 
“I need to locate the Forty-Seventh Street Police Station. Can you tell me where that might be?”

  With directions that Theodore believed he could follow, he asked another question. “Do you know how I might find a lawyer?”

  “What in the world do you want with one of those people?”

  He should have anticipated that question, but he hadn’t. Opting for honesty, Theodore told him, “A friend of mine was arrested last night, and he asked me to hire a lawyer for him, and I don’t have a clue where to go to find them. I’ve never had any dealings with lawyers.”

  “Forty-Seventh Street Station you say? I hope your friend wasn’t mixed up in that mess at the Ariston last night.”

  Theodore just looked at him with a blank look. “Excuse me?” he finally said, not knowing what else to say.

  “What did your friend do?”

  Theodore, ever truthful, for once in his life lied. “I don’t know. I need to go find him and try to get some details. What Ariston thing were you talking about?”

  “There was a big raid at the Ariston Baths last night. A whole bunch of deviants were swept up and taken into custody.”

  “I don’t understand,” Theodore said. “For taking a bath?” he asked, hoping the question came across with appropriate innocence.

  The officer laughed, which Theodore took to be a good sign. Lowering his voice to speak in a whisper, as if the information he was going to provide could not be allowed to leak out or be heard by the wrong people, the officer gave a recap of what Theodore already knew. Theodore did his best to act mortified by the news.

  As soon as he could, he got away and made his way to the police station in search of information on Martin. Since it was Sunday morning, he could not find a lawyer that day. That task would have to wait until the next morning. He wasn’t sure yet how he was going to get to work and also find and hire a lawyer for Martin at the same time, but that was what he had to do.