The Coming of the Night

by John Rechy

  He drove past a surly group of young men and girls idling before a stained outdoor food stand. Why did they want to look unclean? He certainly was not an enemy of young people. Look at his affection for that young man down the road near his house. He did resent the “new gays,” as they called themselves, who denounced as “repressed” everything that had occurred before them.

  Did they know that the behavior they derided and even judged had been demanded in those times of outrageous pressures? “Vice” roundups of bars, routine! A bullhorn blasting its command, “All queers march out in single file!” Show identification while you stood in the glare of headlights. When they demanded to know if you were queer, answer, No, or they'd arrest you. Still, a voice out of the crowd would inevitably shout back at the cops something like, “Oh, ladies, you're too much,” and a derisive chant of “Oh, Mary!” would go up among the captives—and right here in the City of Angels, gay men fought police raiding a popular bar, years before that protest in New York everyone talked about. He himself had said to an officer, “Don't push me!” The officer had been so stunned he released him. Thomas smiled at the treasured memory.

  He was driving past what had once been a fabulous dance emporium, now a congregation hall for some demented fundamentalist religion.

  Those times! “Soliciting”—a crime. Entrapment—rampant. Men ordered to register for life as “sex offenders,” forbidden to frequent “known gathering places for perverts,” police breaking into homes, violent headlines you lived with, “HUNDREDS OF PERVERTS ROUSTED, QUEERS QUESTIONED.” Sinners! Neurotics! Criminals!—judgments from pulpits, psychiatrists, the courts. Thomas had slowed toward Hollywood and Vine. Only Musso & Frank's Grill remained. Other great Hollywood restaurants—the Derby!—all gone! Ghosts of Astaire and Rogers—

  Did those “new gays” spinning about like giddy tops in discos care to know that dancing with someone of the same sex was punishable as “lewd conduct” then? Still, a club in Topanga Canyon boasted a system of warning lights. When they flashed, lesbians and gay men shifted—what a grand adventure!—and danced with each other, laughing at the officers’ disappointed faces! How much pleasure—and camaraderie, yes, real kinship—had managed to exist in exile.

  Did those arrogant young people know that, only years ago, you could be sentenced to life in prison for consensual sex with another man? A friend of his destroyed by shock therapy decreed by the courts. Another friend sobbing on the telephone before he slashed his wrists—

  Thomas's hands on his steering wheel had clenched in anger, anger he had felt then, anger he felt now. And all those pressures attempted to deplete you, and disallow—

  “—the yearnings of the heart,” he said aloud.

  Yet he and others of his generation had lived through those barbaric times—and survived—those who had survived—with style. Faced with those same outrages, what would these “new gays” have done?

  “Exactly as we did,” he answered himself.

  The wind had resurged, sweeping sheaths of dust across the City, pitching tumbleweeds from the desert into the streets, where they shattered, splintering into fragments that joined others and swept away.

  Now, they said, everything was fine, no more battles to fight. Oh, really? What about arrests that continued, muggings, bashings, murder, and hatred still spewing from pulpits, political platforms, and nightly from the mouths of so-called comedians? Didn't the “new gays” know—care!—that entrenched “sodomy” laws still existed, dormant, ready to spring on them, send them to prison? How could they think they had escaped the tensions when those pressures were part of the legacy of being gay? Didn't they see that they remained—as his generation and generations before his had been—the most openly despised? And where, today, was the kinship of exile?

  He had neared Barnsdall Park. He never could pass by without turning up into the circular drive to delight in the splendor of the Hollyhock House. He did that now, and there it was, one of three homes built by Frank Lloyd Wright in the City, timeless architecture, old and futuristic. Oh, thank God for it!—and for the miracle of Monet's “Water Lilies,” La Divina Callas, and for Proust.

  He had driven down Sunset, toward downtown, in the area known as Silverlake, down a side street, another—Where exactly was he? He slowed his car.

  My God, there was the tunnel Herbert had mentioned. A gaping mouth, dark even at this time of day, opening from the street—

  Thomas drove away from this terrible coincidence.

  He turned, circled the long blocks—and parked his car, not near, away Having driven here—unintentionally—he wanted to see the place that Herbert claimed as his.

  He walked there slowly, past an abandoned lot full of weeds, and, now, palm fronds shaken loose by the heated winds.

  He stood at the mouth of the tunnel, looking up the stairs. He took one step in, another. The smell of urine assaulted him. Up ahead, at a landing on the concrete steps, a pale light—no, a shaft of light spilling from the street itself—created shadows. Actual lights within had been gouged out, shards of glass pulverized by shoes.

  Thomas continued to stand in awe of this terrible place. Now he was able to see that on the walls of the fetid steps—certainly no one would use it to cross the street anymore—there were gnarled words, splotches of paint, carved scrawls. He walked a few steps up.

  I WANT A BIG COCK UP MY ASS—Next to that, a crude giant penis had been etched into the wall.

  SUCK MY BIG DICK—A long phallus, bags hanging from it.

  Thomas squinted to read.

  I WANT BIG HAIRY GUY TO WHIP MY ASS, SHOVE DILDO—

  MEET ME 2/30 A.M.—SHOW HARD FOR BLOW—

  Real proposals? Fantasies?

  SIT ON MY FACE, I EAT ASS

  —YOU DRINK PISS? EVERYTHING YOU GOT—

  Who read these? Who scrawled them?

  The rancid odor overwhelmed Thomas. He gagged. He covered his nose and moved farther up into the tunnel. He stood in the shaft of gray light from the street. He heard the rumble of a car above him. He heard the wind, distant, like moans. He heard a noise, scraping, scratching—He froze. The wind had hurled a tangle of weeds and trash from the street down the stairs. There it lay, gnarled, twisted, and—

  Someone else was in the tunnel.

  Orville

  AFTERNOON

  There were several gay neighborhood bars in the Silverlake area, a section of Los Angeles that bears spotty signs of better times, especially in spacious houses that perch away from it all on the slant of hills gathered about an artificial—silver—lake. Early Saturday afternoons in these bars, gay men gathered to shoot pool, drink beer, catch up on bar talk—and, of course, to cruise—but serious cruising occurs mostly at night.

  When Orville walked out of his house earlier—he always paused to assess his surroundings, gentrified houses on hills dotted with wild flowers—he decided, definitely, that he would avoid the hot-night's cruising, sexy but also frantic if you got caught up in its fever. He would go to a couple of bars nearby, look them over, try to connect early, something mellow.

  Holding on to his cowboy hat, he hopped into his pick-up and drove to one bar, had a beer, talked with friends, played a game of pool—no one there who interested him—and then drove away to another bar.

  There, cars spilled out of the lot into side streets, everyone stirred by the Sant'Ana. Orville parked his pickup and cocked his hat. The wind tossed it into the street. As he ran to catch up with it, a car drove by, brakes screeching. That was always alarming in this area—lots of punks prowled, harassing gay men. The car had apparently stopped for him to reclaim his hat.

  “Ride ‘em, cowboy!” Laughter.

  Stupid kids, Orville dismissed the group driving away.

  He walked into the bar, a heavy cruising bar at night. During the day, it was kept dark like all other gay bars. The flush of light announcing an entering presence always drew evaluating eyes, withdrawn if there was no further interest.

  Orville pau
sed at the entrance, his imposing figure a silhouette. From the sound of voices—and laughter, a forced laughter often heard in bars—he could tell there were many more men than usual, and that the more relaxed cruising of weekend afternoons would be replaced by more serious hunting. When his eyes adjusted, he walked in, recognizing a few acquaintances. Although it wasn't a leather bar, there were two or three men in leather. That scene was becoming so prevalent that you'd see leather guys even in dance bars, the silvery studs on their outfits blinking like sequins. Orville was not into leather, but if someone was attractive, he'd go with them, after informing them he wasn't into “S & M.”

  He decided to sit alone, to signal availability. He waved at a cluster of men he recognized—maybe he had made it with one or another, wasn't exactly sure. They waved back, in tacit understanding of his separation. In sex-hunting places everything else became secondary to a conquest.

  An attractive guy was staring at him, about thirty, masculine. “Buy you a beer?” the man asked Orville.

  “I'll have one with you, but I'll pay for my own,” Orville said. He always liked to assert equality. As they sipped their beers—the shirtless bartender recognized Orville but discreetly kept from more than greeting him—Orville did what had long become automatic for him. He looked for signals that this man was not interested in him because he was black. Even when two men indicated interest in each other in a gay bar, their eyes were constantly searching about, evaluating other possibilities. Orville noticed, with the usual relief this precipitated, that the man's eyes glided away toward attractive white men and then returned to him. Orville moved his leg so that it touched the man's groin. The man's cock was hardening.

  “Your place or mine?” the man asked.

  “Mine,” Orville offered, always proud to show off his home.

  Outside, Orville stood deliberately for seconds in the bright glare of the afternoon. The two exchanged directions about where their cars were parked, where they would meet, one to follow the other.

  “Nice place,” the man complimented Orville's house. They were in the living room. He pointed at the enlarged photographs of glamorous stars. “Those are great.”

  Not surprised by his home—and he had admired the photographs, easily. Orville noticed that the man's chest was brushed with hairs, just dark enough to show, a turn-on. Plus the guy had slim hips, another turn-on. This would be a real good scene, Orville was sure. He would keep his cowboy hat on, his boots, and—

  The man took off Orville's hat, placing it on a chair nearby. Then he groped Orville's crotch. “Wow.”

  Bewildered for only a moment—maybe the wind had tilted the hat precariously and the man had intended only to adjust it—Orville reached for the other's groin. This was just preparation. They'd move into the bedroom, take off each other's clothes. He'd keep the boots on.

  The man pushed Orville's hand away. “No, let me.” He slid down on his knees, unbuttoning Orville's jeans, pulling off his boots, the pants. As he knelt before Orville's hardening cock, he seemed to be whispering to himself.

  What? Muttered words. Orville listened instead to the wind.

  The man's mouth opened, sliding Orville's cock into it, sucking hungrily, making urgent, gagging sounds.

  Orville reached down, to touch the man's crotch. The man pushed his hand away. “No. Let me. I want to suck your big, bl—”

  Orville thrust his cock into the man's throat, throttling the words.

  The man pushed his head forward, swallowing the cock, gurgling as if gasping, allowing the cock to slip out, grasping for it with his mouth, swallowing it again. He pulled back and stared up at Orville. “You like to see a white man on his knees sucking your big dick? Yeah, look down at me while I deep-throat your big black cock.”

  Orville closed his eyes.

  “Yeah!” The man was groveling on the floor, running his tongue around Orville's balls, up the length of the cock, interrupting himself only to gasp, “Black cock. I'm sucking off a black stud. Ummmm. Look down at me, black stud—ummm—look at this white man sucking your big black cock. Ummm-ummmm. Yeah! I'm your white cocksucker—sucking black cock.”

  Orville shoved the man back. Excited, the man crawled toward him. “Yeah, black stud, yeah, push me away, call me your white queer!” “That's it, man,” Orville said. “Get the fuck out of here!”

  Paul

  AFTERNOON

  “You didn't believe I'd go out and cruise, did you, Stanley?” Sitting on the porch of their house, Paul could hear the wind stir distant waves. “I know why, too, because all along you've taken me for granted. I've been stupid to put up with your bullshit.”

  “I'm really sorry, Paul. You call the shots now. Nothing's worth losing you. I'm not going to San Francisco, not this weekend, not next. Let's fuck, babe, cummon. I love you. Why else would I have driven back from the airport?”

  But he hadn't. Paul sat alone on the screened porch that had charmed him and Stanley when they had leased this house by the beach. He had been sitting there since shortly after Stanley left, imagining that he would turn around at the corner and come back. When time stretched, he imagined him turning off the freeway. Then he imagined him rushing back from the airport.

  Would he be able to go out on him? The bars would be charged with sex on this hot, windy day

  Paul had been very active soon after he came out—hunting for sex every night, several encounters in one day. That had been before Stanley. Unlike others who welcomed that life, who wanted only lots of sex, never with the same person twice, Paul was always looking for one person to share his life—friend, companion, lover. During those times of cruising bars and discos and, soon, shadowy parks, dark alleys, spontaneous orgies in garages, it became difficult to enumerate how many people he had made it with, and, even then, he would still be left unsatisfied—and curiously frightened. He would imagine what it would be like to wake up with someone he would get to know, would have breakfast with, go out with, and return home with to have great sex. He did not narrow the possibilities by creating a strict fantasy of what that person would have to be. He would know when he met him.

  He did, when he met Stanley at a disco. They kept abandoning other partners to dance with each other. Soon, they were dancing only together, both shirtless, gyrating back, back, and then toward each other, closer, dancing pressed against each other, open mouth on open mouth, flesh on flesh, tongues probing, hard cock against hard cock. And they talked!—outside, between dances, as they stood cooling off on a balcony, talking about themselves and asking about each other, asserting their identities.

  There followed “the perfect almost year” that included their moving in together into the small house in Venice. Whether during that time Stanley went with others, Paul would wonder only later. Not then. All he knew, then, was that he was happy, and that he did not miss the world of anonymous sex which had begun to terrify him.

  Stanley did miss it. That became clear with sudden absences, quarrels—and it all led to their present arrangement, Paul “faithful,” Stanley in what he chose to call “a committed open relationship—and no contacts within the same city”

  Paul had, at first, tried to equalize the arrangement. When Stanley was gone, he went to discos, only to discos so that he could tell himself he had “gone dancing.” That would turn out to be true. When an agreement was made to go home with someone, he would separate with an excuse—“I just remembered”—and go home, hoping Stanley would be back. But Stanley never came back early, often extended his days away.

  That son of a bitch made me come while I blew him and he had no intention of coming—thinking that would pacify me. “This is it, Stanley,” Paul said aloud. “No more. I swear it.”

  Inside, he stood over the turntable where Stanley had left the record he'd played last night, “Judy Garland's Greatest Hits.” No question about it, Garland was a great performer, but she made Paul nervous with that edge-of-despair note in her voice. Gay people said things had changed a lot, but Garland rem
ained a favorite among many gay men, often a closet favorite. He replaced the Garland record with a favorite of his own, from last year, Geraldine Hunt and “Can't Fake the Feeling.”

  The telephone rang.

  Stanley! He would be calling from San Francisco, to say he was coming back. Maybe he'd just waited at the airport, here, didn't even take the plane, thinking it all out, and now—

  “Hello?”

  No answer. Hang-up. A wrong number. Oh, no, it was Stanley—Paul was sure of it—Stanley, making certain he was still home—Stanley, rushing back to him, at this very moment. Paul lifted the needle from the turntable, to stop the record Stanley wouldn't like. The needle slipped and scratched across the surface.

  Nick

  AFTERNOON

  He'd gotten into three cars—and not a single hustle had worked since that cocksucker jerked himself off in his car. The reason he'd come out earlier than usual was to make extra bucks, maybe rent a motel room for himself tonight, watch TV Sant'Anas made you weird, man, and if you became frantic on the street, you didn't make out. Where the fuck was all the money today?

  “Hustling?” A man had stopped his car at Nick's corner.

  “Yeah.”

  “How much to blow you?”

  “Fifty.”

  “Okay Get in.”

  Nick did, and saw, ahead, a guy standing at a corner, an older man. That's how they worked, in two's. A cop picked you up, drove to a corner where another cop stood, both would flash badges, cuff you.

  “Changed my mind,” Nick said, and jumped out, sure he'd saved himself from being busted.

  When he looked back, he saw that the man he had seen at the corner was a woman—the dusty wind and his imagination had converted her into a man.

  Goddammit! The guy hadn't been a cop, and look at him taking off with another hustler. Fifty bucks blown away. What the fuck was happenin’ today, man?