by John Rechy
As Za-Za dashed away from Smythe's perch—he remained un-budging while his guests scattered—she looked at the cast of Frontal Assault running wildly about in search of their clothes, some abandoning their search. I hope the fire singes their asses, she thought, especially that heartbreaker Tony Piazza, who had, this fiery afternoon of devil winds, squandered—yes, squandered—what he had denied her. Now she would walk regally away from the mansion—and then she would run away screaming to her car.
Thomas Watkins
EARLY NIGHT
He stood with the others, leaning against the wall to avoid being shoved by the wind, and he waited to be allowed to enter the popular bathhouse. He felt confident—nicely warmed by the extra scotch he'd allowed himself before coming here—that he would soon be inside the famous emporium. Perhaps he didn't look quite as young as some of the other men in line, but young enough, as his expertly altered—adjusted—identification would verify Even if he was dressed a tad less informally than the others, he had removed his tie and opened an extra button on his shirt. The line moved slowly.
Thomas's eyes focused on a young man ahead. He wasn't attracted to muscular men, no—often they repelled him—but this young man, with dark hair—and he was quite short—looked highly sensitive, for all his muscularity. Thomas closed his eyes and imagined him inside the bathhouse. The sensitive muscular young man would be lying on a small cot, and he would be covered only by a white towel. His body would not be hairy. He would have rejected three people in a row just as he, Thomas Watkins, paused at the door of his room. There would be an immediate synapse. The young man would sit up, letting the towel drop to his feet, and he would stand there, his body glistening from steam. His penis would be semi-hard, in anticipation. It wouldn't be a large penis—that had never mattered. “Hello,” the young man would say. “Hello, young man.” Once he was inside the cubicle, as others drifted by envying him, envying them together, the young man would close the door, and he and Thomas Watkins would—
“I.D.”
The line had moved fast these last few moments. “What?”
“Your, I.D. I gotta see I.D.”
Thomas Watkins fished in his pocket, for his license.
“This yours?”
“Do I look that much younger?” Thomas Watkins was flirting with the man, who clearly wanted him to linger. What were those men behind him giggling at?
The man threw Thomas's identification back to him. “Look, sir, I don't want to be nasty or anything, but you see over there—”
Sir! How odd. Thomas Watkins looked to where the man at the door was pointing—a posted sign, vague letters. He hadn't brought his reading glasses, and so his vision was blurred.
“It says that we reserve the right to—”
“—refuse entry!” a giddy young man chortled.
“Why!” Thomas heard a pleading voice.
“Look, sir. We're not issuing new membership cards now.”
“Membership cards?”
“Oh, move the line,” someone behind Thomas ordered.
“Yeah, you gotta apply for membership.” The man at the door pushed a card toward him.
“I'll fill it out, now” Thomas Watkins could hardly hear his own voice. “Let me have a pen.”
“It takes longer than that to become a member,” the man said through tightening lips. “Now why don't you go to the baths on Melrose?”
“Go to the baths on Melrose!” the giddy young man shrieked. “That's for oldies, grandpa.”
“Stop holding up the line!” another young man shouted.
“I demand that you look at my license.” Thomas kept his dignity.
The man at the door said, “Listen, buddy—I tried to be nice. Now get the hell out of here.”
Thomas Watkins saw a burly man approaching them from inside the bathhouse. “Trouble?”
“No, he's just drunk, he's going.”
Drunk! How dare they, how—? Thomas Watkins walked back down the stairs. Was he imagining laughter? He stumbled on the last step and fell. Someone in line helped him up.
“Are you okay, sir? Can I walk you to your car?”
Thomas Watkins pushed at the hands helping him up. “I don't need help, I'm not feeble, I'm—”
Orville
EARLY NIGHT
He'd go to the Barnaby Coast before he went dancing. He didn't like gay bars, and he suspected that many others didn't. You didn't say so because then why were you here? Still, he might get lucky and find someone early at this bar.
The Barnaby Coast was so crowded that he had to wait in line. That was uncomfortable because you couldn't help evaluating the people going in but you didn't want to convey that you were already cruising, before entering. So you tried to pretend you didn't see anyone and no one saw you.
The resurging wind blew his cowboy hat off. He ran after it. An old woman walking along the block with her husband bent down, grabbed it, and put it on her husband. “Now he's a cowboy, everyone's a cowboy,” she said in a heavy accent. The old man imitated a bow-legged cowboy Guys in line laughed and applauded. The old man removed the hat and extended it back to Orville. Orville let the wind carry it away along the street. He considered going to another bar after that. But someone in line called out that he'd reserved his place for him and so he went back.
He didn't have to wait long to get in, because a group of men left the bar, laughing loudly as they walked out. Christ, that goddamn laughter that some queens assumed. Orville always winced at it. It started like ordinary laughter and then it just looped back into a goddamned giddy shriek, not even like laughter anymore.
Inside, Orville made his way to the oval bar in the middle of large room surrounded by tinted windows. Men stood about, in groups or alone.
The bar was dim, the air thick with cigarette smoke. The music was loud, as if to keep you from thinking too much other than about silent cruising, Orville always thought. He asked for beer. In this bar he'd look less masculine drinking bourbon.
He stood apart, casing the room. Oh, no, over there, a type of crew that annoyed Orville. They'd come in all giggly and giddy, like they were just slumming because they weren't here to make out as long as they were in a group. They'd camp it up, looking at everyone “to die for,” pretending to swoon, and calling each other “girl.” If you saw them, later, alone and cruising, they would have turned macho—or tried to—their hands clenched to their sides, hips stiff to avoid swinging. Oh, hell, that guy coming over to him, not attractive. Orville walked away
And everyone was looking for sex, heads swiveling, laughter erupting over constant music, cigarette smoke stinging your eyes, guys talking to guys staring at someone else, no one connecting, everyone laughing, looking for sex, and no one coming over except wrong guys, music pounding but not as loud as the laughter, and you moved and stood and caught someone staring at you and you stared back but someone came and talked to him or to you, the wrong person, and broke up the connection that lasted only for moments and wouldn't have survived anyway and you noticed two guys leaving, to make out, and you thought, I'll stick around, and you saw a guy you'd go with but damned if you'd let him know it with his attitude and damned if he'd let you know it with yours and so you walked by and ignored him, and he ignored you, and you pretended you'd been going to the bar for another beer, and you got one, and there was more laughter and people looking for sex and shouting to be heard over the music and laughter and the giddy squeals going up from tight little groups getting drunk and screaming, “Oh, girl, really!” and now here was another wrong person and you walked away and someone walked away from you and it made you mad because you weren't even interested and then someone you wanted came and stood near you and you stood next to each other, both looking for sex, and stood and stood waiting for the other one to talk first until you knew it wasn't going to happen and so it was a contest about who would reject first and then another wrong guy came up and you moved away looking for sex and hoping for a lover.
Look who was
here—Danny, who'd agreed to come over for dinner and then called back because he'd lined up a trick.
When Danny saw him, he tried to retreat.
“I thought you had a hot date,” Orville called out.
“Uh, well, you know, I did, but he—”
“Stood you up?” He wasn't mean, but this guy could've come over and neither one of them would have to be here.
“No—uh—he had to—uh—go to San Francisco.”
“Right. Ciao.” Orville made his way along the crunch of bodies, listening to Billy Squiers and “Don't Say No.” Why did every song in a gay bar seem to be telling you something?
“Buy you a drink?”
Christ, it was Bruce, coming over—the guy he'd made out with earlier. He wouldn't mind making it again—and this time the guy would stay over, whatever his plans had been earlier about more cruising. Maybe he'd had enough. “Hi.”
“Oh, my God. Orville! For a moment I thought, Who's that hot man? Yum-mee. Well, I'll sure call you again, okay? Good to see you.” He groped him as he walked away to talk to someone else standing alone.
Son of a bitch.
A desolate unattractive man stood next to him against the railing along the walls. Orville moved away.
“Fuckin’ faggots! Queers!”
A car driving by braked right outside, men in it shouting.
In the bar, motions slowed. Everyone listened. Did the punks have weapons? Guns? The car screeched away
Slowly, it would all resume, the laughing, the talking, the cruising—just another bad incident, not rare. Orville had been in a bar in Westlake one night when a squadron of punks in motorcycles—about ten of them—lined up outside when it was almost last call. They had thrown bottles at the bar, shouting, “Faggots!”—daring anyone to come out and be gunned down. The bartender had called the police. They hadn't come—not rare, either. The motorcyclists had roared off after hurling cans of garbage into the bar and firing one shot into the air.
There was no one Orville hated more than punks like those. Often he imagined that he confronted one, smashed his face. Just thinking that made his fist clench.
“Fuckin'faggots!”
The punks had come back, braking again.
“Fuckin’ queers!”
“—a new song, not out yet—,” the DJ hurried to identify his next record, his voice prodding the men away from the shouts. “We got a peek”—often records were tried out in gay bars, versions not yet released. “It's sure to be next year's biggest hit.”
“Fuckin’ faggot queers!”
The car roared away.
The DJ's exuberant voice rejected the tense moments that continued to hover over the bar. “And here's the song”—he waited, to allow the songs edgy synthesized sounds to assert their urgency before he finished—“and it's called, Tainted Love.’”
Before Orville walked out, he checked the street. Punks like those yelling were known to lurk around, rush anyone leaving a gay bar. The street was bustling just as before.
The man at the door of the Studio Club was checking I.D. He had just rejected a chubby young man. When he saw Orville, the man at the door started to ask him for I.D., the first signal of rejection. “We require—” Then he stopped, looking admiringly at him, and allowed him in.
His looks always allowed him entry into dance clubs, bathhouses, orgy rooms that questioned black people. When he saw one or another turned away, he considered leaving in protest, but every step forward had to be taken. That's how you broke barriers.
He walked into the swirling pit of sweating bodies, smoke, poppers. Multi-hued strobe lights illuminated bared torsos revolving in the large arena.
By the long bar, Orville took off his shirt, knowing that the lights would linger on the sinews of his dark-brown body.
“Dance?”
“Yeah.”
A blond guy, good-looking. If it all worked out, would he go home with him? Yes. The guy held a small vial to Orville's nose. Amyl? He snorted, powder. Cocaine. The rush accelerated his dance movements. Someone held an ampule of amyl to him and his partner, and they breathed it in. His body pulsed with desire. As he continued to writhe before the other's body, becoming part of this terrific spectacle of gorgeous bodies curving, melding into one churning mass—in contortions of intercourse or torture—
What?
The unwelcome impression was gone after the initial rush of coke and amyl.
“Want to get together? I mean, go home with me?” Orville decided to risk it.
“Ah, jeez, yeah, I'd love to, but later—huh?—the night's still young.” The blond guy looked around at available sensual flesh everywhere. “Let's just dance now, okay?”
Orville turned away from him, to leave, walk away from the shimmering bodies. That was it for tonight. This disturbing night was taking its own bad direction. He paused. He had seen a handsome guy—shirtless like so many others with terrific bodies. The guy had broken away from the man he'd been dancing with, and his eyes were scanning the room, toward him.
He'd stay a short while longer, Orville decided.
Paul
EARLY NIGHT
Oh, yes, he was back, like a repentant lover. Scanning the room after he'd danced with a guy he hadn't finally been all that attracted to, Paul saw a terrific black man, who seemed, like him, isolated. The black man was looking at him. Paul walked up to him.
“My name's Orville. Want to dance?” the black man said quickly.
“Yeah—and my name's Paul.” How remarkable, to give even first names so soon, to push away anonymity, often retained after the most intimate sex.
They danced, moving together, kissing as Queen lamented a final dance, a final chance.
Their torsos pressed against each other, glued by perspiration, hardening cock on hardening cock, they held on to each other and laughed. They stopped, went to the bar for drinks—and then, in the soft light of a corridor farther in, they talked.
“You want to come home with me?” Paul rushed his words. His throat tightened, girding for rejection.
“Yeah, sure. Yes!”
Paul leaned over and kissed the guy gratefully, and the guy kissed him back just as eagerly. The thought of Stanley intruded only for moments—but now it did so like a shadow, receding. If he does come back early, let him find me with this great-looking guy. When he thought that, Paul knew, with certainty, that he was through with Stanley, that nothing Stanley could do or say would ever change that certainty.
“Okay, let's go,” Paul said. The night would end as he had wanted it to, softly, throughout this strange day
Nick
EARLY NIGHT
“How much for a fuck?”
“I don't fuck.”
“I know, I meant how much to fuck you?”
Nick walked away furiously from the car that had stopped for him. What the hell! So many guys wanted to fuck you. Didn't they know hustlers were straight, man? Maybe others got fucked and didn't admit it. Maybe—
Nick stood at his corner. The winds had stopped! No—here came gusts of dust right at his face.
Did guys on the street get fucked? The ferns, man, sure, the wispy boys who acted like girls and flirted with masculine hustlers. They'd get fucked. Drag queens and transsexuals, almost women—natural that they'd get fucked. But straight-looking guys, man—straight guys, like him and that Mexican kid, the guy who said he was Angel—real masculine, good-looking, too, like guys, good body and everything—Would Angel—if that was really his name—did he take it up the ass? Angel—if they did meet up later—and maybe they would, huh?—maybe he'd ask him. No—the guy might misunderstand, get mad, or—What would it feel like, to put it in a guy's ass, a tight ass, not like that fat old guy earlier. Tighter than a cunt? What would it feel like to have it in your own ass? Well, he'd never find out any of it because that stuff wasn't for him. Whatever other guys on the street did, he was straight, and that meant—
“Fuckin’ queer!”
A twisted face had
leaned out of a car and screamed that.
“Fuckin’ cocksucker!” another voice yelled. The car attempted to stop. A door almost opened.
Honks, and shouts from behind it, demanded that the car move on. It proceeded, slowly because of crammed traffic. A hand threw something out.
“Faggot queer!”
Grimy pieces of oily food splashed on Nick's bare chest. “I ain't no faggot, motherfuckers,” he shouted at the car. He bent down for a bottle on the curb and flung it. It hit the car's tires and smashed on the street.
The car braked again, cars in back forced it on.
Nick wanted to wait, face the punks down, man, but there were three of them, mean-looking, one had a shaved head. So he walked in the opposite direction. The street could turn dangerous—cops, punks, psychos like that guy who'd wanted to see his back. Was that kid he'd warned about the weirdo okay? On these streets you were the only one who knew who you were, and that meant bad things could happen to you and no one would know or care. Fuck, you could fuckin’ die, man, and nobody would know.
Clint
EARLY NIGHT
He tossed on the bed. If I could get up, place a towel on my face, to cool—He fell into deep, dark sleep.
The phone rang. “Norman?” His closest friend, the only one who knew he was in Los Angeles.
“I've worried about you, Clint. You seemed troubled when you left. You're all right?”
“Yes, of course. Yes.” He was cool again. He felt resurrected after the deep sleep he'd fallen into. “Your voice sounds strange, Norman.”
“—terrible news. His sister called me just before I dialed you—”
“What?” Clint tried to register the words Norman had spoken.
“—Troy Lawrence, yes. He died—”
Troy—dead? One of the most vibrant presences on the scene, one of the handsomest, in discos, bars, orgy rooms, Fire Island in summer. “An accident?”
“No. A strange kind of cancer—pneumonia first. His sister wasn't entirely clear. Apparently he was sick a long time and stayed away so no one could see him because he lost so much weight. I keep remembering how proud he was of his beautiful body. Remember?”