There were no cars on Royal Palm. There were no cars on Alton Road. There were no cars on MacArthur Causeway, and nothing moving on I-95. It was like one of those movies where some kind of germ bomb has done away with all the people but left everything else. The sun was shining. The clouds were drifting about. The palm trees doing their usual restless thing. Maybe the weather people had dreamed the whole thing up. But when we got out of the car at Ken’s place there was something kind of whiny about the wind. You could have easily ignored it, but knowing something was lurking you could sense a kind of light steadiness about the wind. It wasn’t coming and going, it was there. Not strong, but sort of like the Chinese water torture, steadily pressing on without any letup.
There was no sign of any people around Ken’s house either. He had a nice little house behind a bigger house. I’m sure the neighbors were peering out from behind their blinds as these people suddenly descended on this little place, long after everyone else was inside cowering under their beds.
Myrtle’s car was pulled up behind Macha’s Miata in the driveway and we parked behind them. I didn’t see a car for Ken. Maybe he had it tucked away in someone’s garage somewhere.
Inside, Macha was seated on the couch between Ken and Myrtle, watching the television. It was all weather, of course. Nothing much seemed to be happening. There was something really weird about seeing those weather dorks, all painted and styled and coiffed, talking in those reassuring voices about the incoming hurricane presently traveling with a force of 120 miles an hour heading in the direction of the Fountainbleu Hotel. As though somehow talking about it controlled it. I had the fantasy of the hurricane suddenly blowing the wall out of the TV studio, rain knocking their hair down in their eyes, their clothes getting soaked as they struggle to point to the chart to point out that the hurricane is in fact right on fucking top of them. Would that be great or what?
So here’s what we all did. Mom bustled about putting the food away. Even though we knew the electricity was probably going out, for the time being we could put the milk and eggs away. Ken wanted Mom and Glenn to take his bedroom but Mom said that they couldn’t do that and inconvenience him in his own home. Always a lady. She thought they’d be fine on the old foldout couch and she’d brought a couple of sleeping bags for Myrtle and me. That would leave the bedroom for Ken and Macha. “You can forget that,” Macha said from the kitchen where she was making grilled cheese sandwiches for everyone, including Ken’s dog. Everybody was so cool. Ken just cheerfully said that he didn’t suppose anybody was going to sleep a lot that night anyway and why didn’t we just fall down anyplace when we were tired? As it turned out he was so right.
I think Mom figured out that spending the night with a lot of people in a hurricane was going to be like taking care of a lot of kids. She had a jigsaw puzzle with her and her candles and set things up on Ken’s dining table so people could keep busy. The wind was picking up more and more and the plucky folks on the weather station were still at it. What they were able to tell us before the lights went out was that Hurricane Andrew was veering south away from Miami Beach and was in fact now heading right for Coconut Grove. Where we had been just lucky enough to go.
What Glenn Elliott did was just lie low. It was sort of like he wasn’t there. He watched a little television, he helped put things away in the kitchen. I think only I noticed that he always stayed as far away as possible from Ken. When we arrived, everyone said hello to everyone without introductions so I guess everyone just assumed that everyone else knew each other. But of all of us, Glenn Elliott knows Ken best and knows if he’s going to go all to pieces in the middle of the night telling the world about who’s sleeping with whom here.
Doesn’t seem too likely as Ken is bustling about being the host with the most. Filling the tub with water in case we run out. Giving the dog a tranquilizer when he started to whine with the rising wind. Opening the windows to let the air through so the roof wouldn’t pop off. Getting a mop and buckets ready if we had a lot of water coming in. Basically I think Ken is a good guy. He just thought, like all of us do, that love would take care of itself. And is kind of stressed out to find that it doesn’t.
Macha and Ken were working on the puzzle when the lights went out about nine o’clock. Myrtle was his usual funny self and helped a lot to lighten the stress. He certainly knows something is cooking between Glenn and me and maybe he thinks Glenn and Mom is just some sort of cover-up activity for Glenn. He doesn’t know that Ken figures in anywhere more than as a sort of casual boyfriend of Macha’s. So he’s just hanging with people he likes and getting through the night. He’s a brave person and one of my first choices for a hurricane companion.
Macha is the coolest of the cool. She doesn’t know where Ken fits into this but she’s sleeping with him, I would guess, so must have some sense he’s not one hundred percent heterosexual. She’s quick about this stuff and it well may be that she’s sussed the whole thing out and is just sitting on it. If there’s no solution, there’s no problem in her book. It’s just a situation. In the meantime she’s going to fool around with Myrtle doing the jigsaw puzzle and not show the least bit of nervousness that the wind is really beginning to slam through the trees outside.
And there’s me. Trying to be helpful. Making sure that I talk to Ken and tell him how great his house is and ask about his car (It’s in the landlord’s garage at the front of the house. They’re gone.) and not be aloof. And not be too chatty with Glenn Elliott so no one thinks we know each other any better than the son of his girlfriend should.
It’s not easy, subterfuge and deception.
iris’s hurricane
So what do you say about a hurricane? It was as if we got smaller and smaller. Intimidation and diminishing I think would be the words to describe the experience.
At first we all sat huddled in the living room in the dark, with a few candles flickering. Macha and Hugo’s friend Fred gamely tried to keep working on the jigsaw I brought but the wind through the slightly opened windows kept blowing the candles out. As the wind built I realized that the house we were in was a frail construction. We were protected to a degree by the big house in front of us, but we had been stupid not to go there. The owners were away and even if we had to break in, we would have been much safer. By the time we hurricane-virgins realized what we had gotten ourselves into, it was too late to venture outdoors.
The noise of the wind was so loud that it became no noise—a kind of gigantesque white noise. A loud knocking began on the roof. I don’t know what it was, there were no trees close enough for limbs to be striking the tiles. It was as though the wind was so strong it was almost a solid thing, like waves of wood itself.
This little house has a hallway leading to the bathroom and the bedrooms and I got everybody to move in there. We took some blankets and pillows and cushions with us. We huddled there with the doors closed like a bunch of frightened puppies, all sort of huddling together. Glenn and I sat side by side with our knees up and the others cuddled up to us. My brave Hugo sheltered Macha and Fred by bracing himself against the door.
Funny, isn’t it, that when the same unpleasant thing goes on and on and on there’s a sense of no time. Just we tiny little things caught up in this great noise.
A squashed ant must feel this way just as that great sole descends upon it. So tiny in proportion to the forces around it. Despair isn’t part of it. Or anguish. It’s just the reality of you, the tiny thing. And it, the huge force. You just wait, to see if it’s going to crush you or not. And the waiting doesn’t go on and on. It just is.
The house trembled and there was a feeling that the whole thing might just fly apart. You could really feel the wood tugging at the nails. It wanted to go. Macha said, “I think we should all get into the bathroom.” Maybe because it was even smaller it seemed safer. But crawl in we did, letting the water out of the tub so there was a little more room for us. Six adults in a bathroom. I suppose there are many jam-packed bathrooms tonight.
fred’s hurricane
Well, the wind blew and the shit flew. Very interesting to see how people behave in what might be their last hours. I guess we’re all scared, although I’m not so much really. It’s not that kind of panic you get before you go onstage and you wonder if you’re crazy to think anybody is going to want to watch you. Maybe I’m just too young to believe anything can really happen to me. It’s all sort of happening on television.
God, that wind isn’t happening on television. The curtains are standing straight out from the window. And there’s kind of a rumbling on the roof like the ocean is breaking right over us.
Everybody here is sort of at their most essential. Macha gets high on the adventure, I think. She’ll be lording it over her parents for the rest of their lives that she rode out the big hurricane while they were out of town.
She’s not one little bit afraid. She’d probably get a big kick out of being whirled over the treetops and out to sea, even if they were her last moments. She’s sort of sitting by herself, hugging her knees, listening. I think she knows this will never happen to her again and she doesn’t want to miss a minute.
Hugo and his mom, they’re just alike. They are the caretakers, they want to make sure that everybody else is taken care of. Bustling around, making sure the doors are locked and the windows open. Their big concern is the rest of us. Takes their minds off themselves. If your parents are your role models, he’s got a good one. He was lucky his dad was out of the picture, that creep from Brazil. I hope he’s out on Fisher’s Island being swept out to sea right this minute. Funny how nonfaggots always want to think that an overprotective mother and a dad that’s out of the picture turn you into a homosexual. My dad was certainly out of the picture but overprotective was hardly the word for Mom. All those kids, going out to clean house somewhere all the time. It was like a boardinghouse. She just felt relieved every time someone grew up and left home. I’ve got to send her some money; she’s still got Phil and Dolores on her hands.
I think you want to go to bed with that part of you that’s missing. Always was missing. Never was there. Never should have been there. That’s why when boys are growing up they want to sleep with other men. Stronger muscles. Bigger cocks. What they want to have. Unless, of course, they have them already. And then nature kicks in and you feel like dominating women or you don’t. If you yourself feel enough like what a woman feels, you don’t have much urge to make yourself feel good at their expense.
That’s certainly what’s going on with Hugo and that guy Glenn. Glenn’s handsomer than practically anybody, so who wouldn’t want to be in touch with that? He’s one of those guys who’s just sitting around waiting to fuck. You wonder how they ever find the time or interest to work. You can just feel those vibrations. Fucking is what they like to do best. And what they do best.
Funny how these situations just sort of roll up into place and they don’t seem hard to understand at all when you’re there with them. I mean, here’s this guy popping it to Hugo and his mother and it all seems sort of normal. Hugo is such a prince he wants his mother to be happy. The guy Glenn is such a fucking machine he just does what feels good and it doesn’t even occur to him that this could be a pretty messy situation he’s gotten himself into. I can’t quite figure out why Iris doesn’t get it. Her husband was gay, she was a model, she knows how the world works. But she hasn’t really tipped that Hugo’s making out with her boyfriend. Or is she making out with his boyfriend? I think he saw him first, by about five minutes. Yeah, Macha, I think you’re right. I think we should all move into the bathroom. This place is really rocking and rolling.
Let’s see, we’ll let the water out of the tub. I’m going to sit down here beside the sink. Let’s put that laundry hamper out in the hall. Glenn is going to sit on the toilet…. no, Iris is going to sit on the toilet and Glenn is snuggling down beside her with his arm around her. Ken and Macha can go in the tub, sort of like they’re bobsledding. And that lovebug Hugo can squeeze the door shut and sit with his back against it. Come here, you little blond noodle, I’ll put my arm around you so we can hug each other tightly out of sheer fright or something. He’s really a sweet kid. We’re really good friends even though we did get it on that night. He needed it. Funny how a fuck can calm you right down.
So here we are. I don’t quite get the picture on this guy Ken. I don’t think there’s much of anything going on with Macha and him. She’d be all over him if there was. He’s got that kind of gay look models have. Nothing really fidgety, but everything is calculated to attract. Men. Women like a nice ass, I know, but it’s not the first thing they look for.
Gay guys really are kind of sappy. Women have it all over them. They’re just like the kind of guys who read Playboy. Except the young blonds with big chests that they’re after are other guys. They buy the package and then they’re stuck with the stuff inside for the rest of their lives. Not really, of course. But you’d think they’d learn after a couple of trial runs. Women do. But gay guys never. To the end of their days they still want to latch up with a male bimbo. Well, not all. There are always those guys who like the really swishy ones. I always tell the flighty little fillies that they should butch it up a little. If a guy wants a girl there are plenty of real ones around. But that’s not entirely true. A lot of those long-term relationships are with a pretty straight-acting guy and one of those butterfly boys. But some of those kids are really hung and I’d guess they’re doing their Donna Reed number around the house and going upstairs and pronging the old man a good one. That’s the secret of their success. Weird. Twirling around the house in an apron and then climbing aboard and screwing the daylights out of their hubby. Weird, weird, weird. You never know, you never know.
Why hasn’t anybody had to go to the bathroom? That would be a real trip. Sitting here in the dark taking a big crap with five other people jammed up around you. Probably, like everything else, it’s all on hold, and when this is all over there will be six large dumps to be accomplished.
This is kind of okay. Sitting here with my warm little Hugo in my arms, a banging on the roof like some kind of giant would like to come in. Everyone just sitting silently, breathing, holding. Maybe the pipes and the weight of the bathroom stuff is protecting us more. I don’t know. We’re sort of like sextuplets sitting in the womb, waiting to be born. The world is out there, crashing and smashing about, no wonder we don’t want to go out there. But sooner or later, whether we’re forcibly snatched out or whether we just walk out, one way or another we are going to be born.
macha’s hurricane
This is definitely cool … sitting in a bathtub locked in the arms of a geek with the roof about to blow off. I love it. I love it. I love it. It’s like an old Dorothy Lamour movie. If I let myself go I could be very romantic. And here I am, sitting in a bathroom with one other woman and four men and they’re all queer. The men, that is.
Queerness is such a strange thing. Not at all what you thought when you were ten years old and you rode your bike down to Ocean Drive and Billy Bernstein said, “That’s a faggot” at some guy who just looked short and blond, and then he yelled, “Faggot! Faggot!” And we had to ride away real fast. You thought they were boys who acted like girls, and we used to make life hell for that poor kid, Remy something or other, in the eighth grade. Well, we girls didn’t, actually, but the boys did. Just because he wanted to play with us at recess and wasn’t any good at sports.
I don’t get it. All the really great-looking guys, the guys you could really get interested in, are gay. It’s true. None of these guys are girly. Well, Myrtle can be. But a lot of the time he isn’t. Hugo was on the swimming team. Ken told me he played basketball in college. Glenn Elliott was in the Marines. Maybe the whole world is queer and they just haven’t told women about it. So we don’t get disappointed.
Well, it makes sense, sort of. The one time I did get it on with Ken he didn’t really like the smoochy part. The good part. Not a great kisser. And you kind of get the feeling that pl
aying with your breasts and that sort of stuff is like something he read about in a manual. They just want to get it in and let nature take its course. I mean, if you don’t know what good is you could really be disappointed. No wonder Peggy Lee sings, “Is that all there is?” As soon as Ken got his jollies he was out of there. He probably figures I’m too young and too much in love to know the difference anyway. When I was looking for a T-shirt and found those sex magazines in his drawer it did not come as much of a surprise. I do not think that heterosexuals are very interested in Playgirl or Blue Boy. Not to mention Honcho, Hard, and some of those other little beauties he had. In a way it makes him more interesting and in some ways it doesn’t.
I guess I’m just old-fashioned enough to want to be a real turn-on for the man in my life. Whoever he might be.
I should probably think about the fact that I know so many gay guys. I really don’t want to be known as a fag hag before I even graduate from high school. But going to someplace like the Winter Palace makes me feel free. Like I’m a little gay guy myself. No plans to get married. No ideas about how many kids I’m going to have. What kind of career my husband will have. Where I want to live. What kind of house it will be and what kind of furniture and will I work after the children come? Out the window. Just jiving around to the music and I’m not even a cute gay guy. Nobody’s paying any attention to me. No problems. There’s a lot to be said for it. And in my head I suppose not being able to get pregnant is all a part of it. Could get AIDS, of course, but you have to sleep with somebody first to get that. It’s just the fun of it down at the Winter Palace. So much more fun than that awful place Prince has on Washington. Do I look all right? Will somebody find me attractive? Who gives a shit, right? This whole business of being good enough for somebody to love you is really boring.
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