I stopped to look at him. His arm dropped off my shoulder. “I don’t get it, Glenn. What gives? You can’t be in love with both of us.”
“I’m not in love with either of you. I don’t fall in love with people. I never have. But I want to be with both of you. Not at the same time.” He turned and started walking again. I followed him.
“But what’s going to happen? What’s the plan?” I said to his back.
“There is no plan. Why does something have to happen? Maybe we’re just going to go along like this for a long time. Don’t you like what’s happening?”
“Yes, but it seems strange. Like I’m two people. There’s me that’s planning to go to college and preparing for my SATs and all that stuff kids my age do. And then there’s the me that’s dancing at the Bomber Club and sleeping with you and knowing that I’m never going to wake up some morning and be called Betty and be married to you.” I hated the way my voice sounded. All whiny.
“Would you want to get married to me?” Glenn asked, looking at me sideways.
“No. I don’t know. No. How could we? I’m too young. Yes, I’d like you to run far away with me somewhere like South America and we could just screw all day forever. That’s what I’d like. But that’s what everybody who’s crazy about someone else thinks. And what about Mom?”
“Yeah,” said Glenn. “Yeah, what about Mom?”
Now we were in front of the rooming house. Mr. Gawain was looking out the window. I didn’t want him to see me looking all frantic.
“Let’s go down to that cafe on the square and get a coffee,” I said.
At the cafe I decided to change the subject completely. “Tell me what you did before you came to Miami Beach, Glenn. I don’t really know.”
“I used to be in import/export,” he said looking down at his cup.
“In Miami Beach that means you sell drugs,” I said. Everybody’s in import/export around Miami.
“It sounds like it, doesn’t it? But not really. That’s kind of a tacky business and it’s real easy to get killed. If somebody doesn’t like you. Particularly around all those Cubans. Actually, I sold guns and stuff.”
“To collectors?” As soon as I said it I knew it sounded dumb. Hopefully he thought I was being a smart-ass.
He looked at me with a funny expression around his eyes. I could tell he was deciding whether to tell me the truth or not. And whatever he told me, I’d never know. I was surprised he was telling me anything at all.
“No, more major league than that. I used to be in the Marines. In Beirut. I met a lot of people out there. I stay in touch with them and they ordered stuff through me. Still do. I don’t get orders very regularly but I make a good percentage when I do.”
“Is it legal to do this?” I know I really sounded like a kid.
“I guess so. I never really ask. I guess sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. I guess I don’t really want to find out in case it isn’t.
“But I’m getting out of it. Completely. That’s why I’m in Miami Beach. Seeing what else I can do. And then I saw you. I’m really not into kids but you’re a real cutie, Hugo, whether you know it or not. And your mother is something quite special, too. And here we are. Kind of up in the air.” He was looking around for the bill. He obviously had said a lot more than he had planned to and didn’t want to go on.
When we got back he said he wanted to take a nap. I wanted to say all kinds of things, about how I didn’t care what he did and how I wanted to stay with him the rest of my life. I wanted to cry and have him hold me and tell me he wasn’t ever going to let me go. But instead he went down to take his nap and I went up to say hello to Mr. Gawain, having nothing better to do.
I really don’t think Mr. Gawain had been drinking when he told me his story, although it sounds like it. When I came in he asked, “Mr. Hugo, would you like a cup of tea?” I said I would and we began to talk about nothing in particular and I asked him how he happened to be running the Centra. He said, “Oh, I hadn’t been doing anything for a while after Charlie died and it just occurred to me. I had some money and I need to do something that wasn’t very complicated and that would require a lot of attention to detail.”
“Because you missed Charlie?” I said. Obvious question.
“Missed?” he said. “Missed? It was much more than missed.”
“I know something about love,” I said.
“I’m sure you do,” said Mr. Gawain. “I’m sure you do. I never stop thinking about it. And I don’t talk about it a lot. I don’t tell everybody who passes through the parlor. Really I don’t. I’ve worked hard at not being just another dizzy old queen. Have I been successful? You’ll have to judge, Hugo. That evening I lost Charlie was like none other I’ve ever seen since. It looked rather like a movie set at the Morrison house when I went to pick up Charlie. They’d been sailing. When I got out of the car it was like a Magritte. Light in the sky, little clouds, darker down below but you could still see the green in the lawns. It looked like a set for a play. I entered stage right. They entered stage left. I don’t remember anyone telling me Charlie had drowned. It was just that suddenly everything began to compact into squeezed-together chunks. They’d left all the picnic things out on the lawn and they all at once looked all crushed together and I thought of the sandwiches and the mayonnaise soaking into the white bread. And the lawn chairs looked all crushed together. You know, like those sculptures where they crush a car into a cube. Everywhere in the shrubs, the people were scrunched up cubes. Or like pieces of club sandwich.
“I imagined them all stacked up on each other like a child’s fortress. And I’m sure you’ve read about people being in some extreme situation and hearing a voice crying out and it turns out to be theirs? It was just like that. This voice screaming, ‘You let him die,’ and it was mine. Charlie’s boss was there and his wife. She’s the one who grabbed me. She was wearing a royal blue silk dress and had on some little rings with red and blue stones in them. And her ankle was in a cast. Why I don’t know. But she dropped her crutch and pulled me down to the ground. There we were on our hands and knees, like two dogs, me slobbering and bawling, her holding me. Finally my father did something. He took me in his arms and dragged me into the backseat of a car and I cried and cried in his arms. You know, my father never touched me. Never. But he came through when I really needed him. I cried like that for days and days.”
“But you finally felt better, didn’t you?” I asked him. I really wanted to know. “When was this, how long ago?” “Oh, over forty years ago now,” he said. “But you’re all right now, aren’t you?” I really did want to know that he was all right. Mr. Gawain’s little story had me real shook up if you want to know. “Well,” he said, “what I tell people when they ask me how I am I tell them I’m fine, now that I’m dead. I’m fine now that I’m dead.”
Leaving Mr. Gawain, I went down to our room where Glenn Elliott was sleeping. He was lying under the beige and white bedspread on his stomach, clutching a pillow. I think our conversation made him sad. I lay down beside him and pulled his arm off the pillow and put it around me. “I love you, Glenn,” I said in his ear. “I love you, too, my little Hugo,” he said, and tightened his arm around me, and we both slept.
When we woke up it was getting toward seven o’clock, that sad time of day, and especially when you’re just waking up from a nap in a cheap boardinghouse. I wished Macha was with us. To say something wise-ass and make us laugh so I wouldn’t feel that life was a lot more than I could handle.
Glenn Elliott was lying on his back staring up at the ceiling. I jumped up and said, “Let’s get out of here. Aren’t you hungry? Let’s go eat somewhere really good. How about a steak?” I was talking a mile a minute, pretending I was Macha. I put on my new blazer that I wore to the interviews.
He laughed at me jumping around the room and said, “Okay, okay, okay. There’s a French restaurant just a block over, on West Fourth Street. The Belle Étoile. It used to be pretty good. Let’s go give it
a try.”
The restaurant was sort of romantic for a father and son, but the people there couldn’t have cared less who we were. In the Village they just don’t think about that stuff. I guess they figure everybody’s up to something weird so it’s nothing to get excited about.
Two sailors came in and took the table next to us. They didn’t know what to do with their caps and finally put them under their chairs on the floor. The restaurant was paying a lot of attention to them. The Village isn’t so blase that two cute guys in tight sailor pants can’t arouse their interest.
They were confused by the menus and asked Glenn if he could help them, so he explained what might be good. They introduced themselves. The blond one was Ben and the dark-haired one John. They were from a ship that was in port and had never been in New York before. They said they’d heard that Greenwich Village was kind of a wild place but so far it seemed old-fashioned and quiet. But certainly different from where they came from.
Glenn said, “I thought you guys could wear civvies off the ship?” They explained that usually they could but the captain had ordered everybody to wear their uniforms in New York, so people would know they had a navy. They laughed and said they thought it was because the captain thought maybe they would get into less trouble.
Ben was from California and John was from Iowa or somewhere like that. Glenn introduced us. He said, “My name is Glenn and this is Hugo.” They reached over and shook hands. They were both very polite and didn’t ask us anything about ourselves, except where we were from. By dessert we had pushed our tables together and they were telling us all about the aircraft carrier they were on. How they’d been to the Mediterranean. Glenn Elliott told them some stories about when he’d been in the Marines in Beirut. He took a couple of glasses of wine from their bottle. I didn’t drink anything or say very much, but they were having a good time together and didn’t seem to care.
We all left together and since it was pretty early Glenn Elliott suggested we stroll around with them and show them the Village a little. We walked down to Sheridan Square and then across to a very busy street with a lot of shops still open. Eighth Street.
Glenn and Ben walked up ahead and John walked with me. He asked me where I was in school and I told him I was in New York interviewing for college. He said he wanted to go to college when he got out of the navy and was thinking of doing some kind of engineering course or computers or something like that. Probably out in the Midwest somewhere. He was getting out of the navy in a year and probably would start school the same time I did.
He was almost twenty-one. He seemed like a real grown-up to me, even though he was only about three years older. He was quite handsome and lifted weights on the ship so he had a bodybuilder’s kind of body, but not overly so. Pretty groovy-looking guy in fact.
Glenn said when we’d walked down below Washington Square, “I can’t invite you guys for a drink in a bar because of Hugo, but maybe you’d like to come back to our place. I’ve got a bottle of Scotch there.”
They looked at each other and John said, “No, I think I’ll head back to the ship. I’ve got duty tomorrow morning.” But Ben said he’d be glad to, and putting John in a taxi, we walked back up Bleecker Street to Mr. Gawain’s place. I wondered what was cooking exactly, but knew I’d find out soon enough. Ben thought our room was a great place. Glenn took a couple of glasses from the bathroom and pulled a bottle from his suitcase. I’d never really seen him drink before. He’d never suggested that I drink anything with him. The bottle said “Grants’s.” Ben was impressed. I’d never heard of it.
He handed Ben his drink and said, “What do you say we get out of some of these clothes and get comfortable?”
“That sounds like a good idea,” said Ben, cool as a cucumber. They stripped down to their underpants, Ben folding his uniform carefully over the back of the chair. He must have lifted weights with John because he had a great body. Tan. I guess they let them lie out on the deck on that ship of theirs.
“How about you, Hugo? Want to join us?” Glenn asked me. What was I supposed to do? Scream or giggle or what? So I took my clothes off and hung them in the closet. Glenn lay down on the bed and I sat down on the other side. Ben sat in the rickety easy chair.
“I’m not going to be able to sit here very long without getting a hard-on,” Ben said. “Hugo and you are both pretty good-looking guys.”
“That’s fine,” Glenn told him. “I’m getting one myself thinking about what we might do here. Why don’t you come over to the bed and let me get you out of those encumbering navy undershorts?” Ben got up and came to the side of the bed. Glenn undid the buttons and pulled his shorts down with some difficulty as his pretty sizable cock was on its way up and had to be extricated. Glenn put it in his mouth and Ben shut his eyes, swaying slightly.
Pulling back, Glenn said, “Let’s see, what’ll we do here? How about …” He put his knees up toward his chest and pulled his own jockey shorts from under his butt and off his feet. Pulling a pillow from under his head he put it under him. “How about condoms?” Ben said from where he was kneeling on the end of the bed, steadying himself with one hand and holding his hard-on with the other. “Hugo, look in my bag,” Glenn said. “There are some condoms there and some KY.” I thought, wait a minute, this little party wasn’t entirely by chance.
I found the condoms and Glenn unrolled one down Ben and squeezed some KY into his hand and slipped it under him. “Here, Hugo. Come here. Sit on the head of the bed and hold me.” I slipped under him and held his head and shoulders in my lap. He pulled my head down and kissed me and grunted slightly as Ben pushed his way into him. Ben groaned, too. Pulling Glenn down a little he pushed my Calvin’s down and slipped me into his mouth. Glenn wrapped his legs around Ben’s waist and put his arms around his neck. Ben and I came at the same time.
I pulled away and went into the bathroom. When I looked back Ben was straddling Glenn Elliott and putting a condom on him. They were smiling at each other. Before I looked away he was sitting down on him. Glenn had his hands on his thighs and was pushing up. I closed the door and looked into the mirror. This is quite an evening, I thought. I looked at my watch. It was only 12:30. I sat on the toilet seat and waited until the bed stopped creaking. It took quite a while. Then the refrigerator across the room shuddered to a stop, too, at the same time.
When I came out Ben was pulling on his underpants and Glenn had the bedcover pulled over him. “Thanks,” he said to Ben.
“It was my pleasure,” Ben replied, very politely and as though he meant it. “You’ve got quite a dad here, Hugo,” he added. He didn’t sound as though he was kidding. I didn’t say anything. Then after a while I said, “Yeah, isn’t he something.”
Glenn asked Ben if he wanted to stay overnight but Ben said he had to be going and besides he thought three would be crowding that double bed. He put his sailor hat on at a jaunty angle and came around the bed to kiss me good-bye. He smelled good and felt warm. He leaned over the bed to kiss Glenn. When he was at the door I said, “Ben, do John and you fool around?”
“We have a couple of times,” he said, “but we’re really not into each other’s types. But, yeah, sometimes if we’re in a hotel together and we haven’t scored, we’ll get it on.”
“He’s good-looking,” I said.
“Very,” he said, opening the door. “Well, see you guys around.”
“We’re in the phone book in Miami Beach,” Glenn Elliott said from the bed. “Call us if you’re ever in town.”
“I wouldn’t miss that,” Ben said and was out the door. Glenn looked up at me from the bed. “Are you okay, Hugo?” he asked.
“Oh, very okay, Glenn Elliott,” I said. “Very okay.”
“Well, what did you think?” he wanted to know.
“What do I think?” I slipped into bed. “What should I think?” We put our backs together and he patted me on the hip.
“Whatever you think,” he said.
“I think you’re quite a trip,
Mr. Paul,” I told him and went to sleep.
The next morning we dressed, had greasy eggs and bacon at the little restaurant next door, and left for the airport. On the plane I heard a man behind me say to another man, “If we can avoid the problem, we don’t have to find a solution.” Mom met us at the airport and was very glad to have us back.
the bomber closes
The Bomber is closing. I think somebody wants to open a boutique in the space. It’s just down the block from the Versace store so it makes sense. And it’s summer. There aren’t many out-of-town gay guys around and the locals have been to the Bomber so many times the dancers probably look like their cousins. I’m glad it’s over. Too much fantasy time on the part of the clientele. The guys who are dancing aren’t really such hot tickets. Just guys. I don’t think anybody when I was there loved the attention from the crowd all that much. Maybe Maximilian a little. But I don’t think the rest of us think we’re such beauties the world owes it all to us.
When I worked there the chance the news would leak out to Mom always worried me. She’d feel bad for a lot of reasons. That I’m in such a bad environment and that I’m working to get money for college, which makes it look like she couldn’t handle it. There were a lot of reasons that it’s good the club is closing.
There’s a club up on Lincoln Road, the Winter Palace, that’s doing good business with stripping and drag acts, but that’s not Louie’s thing. I wonder if inside that fat body somewhere he doesn’t like guys himself. Because that’s what he wants for acts. “Drag queens,” he says. “Equal rights for drag queens. Not until they get rid of those terrible shoes. Whoever saw a woman who looked like that? Some of those religious revivalists on TV maybe. Tammy Lee Whatever. What guy would ever want to sleep with that? If a guy wants a woman there’s plenty of real ones around. Those guys just do drag because they’re too lazy to go to the gym.” He may have a point. I talked Fred/Myrtle into dropping his Carmen Miranda number and doing a straight act, if you’ll pardon the expression. We did that Karan layered look. So Fred had a lot of stuff to take off before he got down to his skivvies. He’s been coming to the gym with me more, too, so his body is getting really buff.
My Worst Date Page 14