“Leonardo.” Theodore interrupted. “Hush. There’s a lady present.”
“I’ve never been on a camping trip,” Ruth remarked. “How fun that must be.”
Jake arrived at the service well and ordered, “JB soda, Tanqueray tonic and a glass of house Merlot please, Ruth. When you hear people talking about going camping on Castro Street, they’re not usually referring to tents, but feather boas.”
Ruth made the drinks and smiled indulgently while everyone else within earshot laughed. She asked, “How did you happen to meet while camping?”
Theodore answered, “A mutual friend...”
“In other words, we were set up!” Leonardo laughed.
“Those things so rarely work out, you know,” added Theodore. “But in this case, we just can’t thank him enough.”
“Ah, yes,” Leonardo said, “he gave a sit-down dinner for eight and our place-cards just happened to be side by side.”
“Your friend gave a sit-down dinner in a campground,” Ruth asked, “complete with formal place-cards?”
“Yes, ma-am,” Theodore answered. “He did five courses out of three igloo coolers and a Coleman stove! Oysters on the half-shell and Caesar salad…what else?”
“…a divine Cassoulet…”
“Oh yes… and Steak au Poivre with green beans…”
“…and potatoes au gratin.”
“That sounds wonderful.” Ruth said. “Is your friend a professional chef?”
Leonardo answered, “No, he’s in hospital administration, but he loves to entertain. You should see the Christmas party he throws every year. It’s to die for!”
“I’d love to,” Ruth said and she meant it.
“He has a fabulous apartment on Russian Hill,” Theodore said. “But can you imagine lugging all of that stuff to the Russian River? Each course had its own wine, crystal stemware, silver candelabra, linen tablecloth, and the works!”
“But the best part was the music… don’t you remember that, honey?” Leonardo asked.
“Oh, yes.” Theodore nodded. “How could I forget? He trucked in a white baby grand piano with huge silver candelabra and he hired this absolutely gorgeous number to play it.”
“Naked!” Leonardo chimed.
“No, really?” Ruth thought that by now they might be pulling her leg.
Jake had stepped up to the service station again to order, “two Stoli tonics, a Bombay gin screwdriver and a bourbon and seven, please.” He looked over at the photo album and nodded. “Hey, I know that guy. The piano player…I forget his real name, but there’s a good picture of him in the back of the B.A.R. too…only from the neck down. It doesn’t show his face. He played here for a couple of weeks when Viv was on her honeymoon with the cowboy. He’s really hot. It’s too bad he didn’t play naked here at Arts. He would have packed the place.”
“He wasn’t totally naked at the river,” Theodore said. “He wore a collar and bow tie like the Chippendale dancers.”
“And cuffs with gold cufflinks,” Leonardo added.
“And dress shoes and socks with those old-fashioned garters like men used to wear in the 40’s.”
“And don’t forget the gold lamé jock strap. But he took all that off afterward and spread out naked on top of the picnic table. For dessert they popped the champagne corks and everyone gathered around to lick whipped cream and eat fresh strawberries right off the pianist.”
“Oh, my,” said Ruth. “I’ve never been to a party like that. I’ve never even heard of anything so elaborately decadent! So that was your first date?”
Theodore said, “We couldn’t keep our eyes off each other all during dinner. We let the others finish dessert. Leonardo had a pup tent a few yards closer to the river and we hardly came out of it for the rest of the weekend.”
The only kind thing Ruth could think was how romantic and extravagant it all sounded.
“Yoo-hoo! Hi everybody!” They all looked up to see the commotion at the front door.
Ruth said, “Speaking of pianists. Can one of you boys help Vivian with the door?” Viv was trying to hold the door open with her knee while both her hands were full of shopping bags.
Patrick said, “Hey, Viv. It’s comedy night. What are you doing in here on your night off?”
“I’ve been shopping in the neighborhood and I told Roy to pick me up here at six o’clock sharp to go out to dinner. I hope he won’t be late. I’m hungry. He’s got my kitchen all torn up and he’s not even finished painting the outside of my house and then he got sidetracked with some new gardening project. He loses all track of time. Could you make me a white wine spritzer while I’m waiting, Ruth?”
“Of course, Vivian,” Ruth said. “The fellows here were just telling me the most romantic story about how they met last summer up at the Russian River. I’ll bet you and Roy have some romantic stories too, don’t you? How did you two love-birds meet?”
“Roy and I met on the beach… at sunset,” Viv let out a dramatic sigh and took a sip of her spritzer. “My last husband Walter and I got in the habit of going for long walks after he had his quadruple bypass surgery. The Cardiologists told him to try to walk at least a mile a day.”
“It is good exercise,” Ruth agreed.
Viv went on, “Well, I started going along just to keep him company and I really enjoyed it. We’d walk maybe a mile or two every morning—I live out near the beach, you know—but of course Walter chain-smoked the entire time we were walking, so I guess it wasn’t doing him all that much good.”
“In the morning?” Ruth asked. “But I thought you said you and Roy met at sunset…”
“I did. I did,” Viv answered. “Be patient. After Walter died I stopped walking entirely, but then I noticed I was putting on a few pounds and I missed the exercise so I started in again, just on my days off and when the weather was good. And I kept seeing this tall handsome stranger at about the same time every week, usually near the windmills in Golden Gate Park.”
“I think I know where you mean,” Ruth said. “Tim and I went for a walk in the park just the other day. I’m not sure if it was him or some of the other boys here in the restaurant who mentioned the windmills in Golden Gate Park.”
Jake snorted, tried to stifle his laughter and reached for a paper cocktail napkin to wipe his nose. “They’re popular with some of the guys, you know… the Dutch guys, mostly.”
“You should see it in the spring,” Viv went on, she and Ruth both oblivious to the fact that the windmills had been a notorious gay cruising area for decades. “It’s so pretty with the tulips in bloom! Anyway, one evening I was just resting on a park bench and this handsome stranger sat down right beside me and introduced himself and said his name was Roy Rodgers, but with a ‘d’ in it, not like the movie star. I thought he was joking at first because he had on those cowboy boots and a big old Stetson hat, but then he told me he was widowed, too and I could tell from the way he talked that he’d been lonely for a long time…”
“I knew you’d have a romantic story for us, Vivian,” Ruth said.
“Well, my Roy can be quite a charmer, as you well know, Ruth,” Viv smiled. “I told him the other day I only wished we’d met years ago. Walter was husband number five… or was it six? Anyway, I told Roy I’d always regretted not having any children, but now we’re too old for that… and do you know what he said?”
“No, Viv,” Ruth replied. “What did Roy say?”
“He said to me, ‘you may be too old to have children, but I’m not. Just look at Larry King! He’s older than I am with two little boys… and what about Willie Brown? He fathered a child when he was well into his sixties.’”
“Yes, it’s true,” Ruth agreed. “Men can parent so much later in life than women can, but I wonder if they have the energy to be as good at the actual fathering at that age.” She couldn’t help but think of her ex-husband Dan and the much younger women he was with now.
“My Roy is such a tease,” Viv smirked. “I just told him, ‘Don’t yo
u even think about it, you big old stud!’ Oh, there’s the Cadillac, now. I’ve got to run! Have a nice evening…”
“You too, Viv. Good-night.” Ruth was afraid it was going to be a long evening working alone behind the bar and the comics hadn’t even started showing up yet.
Chapter 17
Tim woke up in the middle of the night and reached to scratch his nose. His fingers discovered a bicep up against it and while they made baby steps across that smooth muscle, the afternoon came back into focus. A moment ago he’d been sound asleep and dreaming he was on a Ferris wheel going too fast, but instead of screams he heard a deep “mmmm…” and Nick pulled him closer. Nick only seemed like a dream.
Lots of men had been in this bed, but few had spent the night. Tim tried to remember how long it had been – probably since Jean-Yves, the French flight attendant, when he came to town this past summer for the big party at the Moscone Center.
Most guys started to search for their underwear—if they’d worn any—within five or ten minutes after sex. If they were cigarette smokers it was even sooner. They might have spotted an ashtray in Tim’s apartment, but it was only used for marijuana, not tobacco. With Nick it was clear from the beginning that he intended to spend the night. Tim didn’t need to use any of his psychic senses to figure that out. They’d been talking about the next morning’s breakfast already while they were driving back from the Legion of Honor.
The numbers on the alarm clock said 4:07. Tim wanted to get a better look at Nick sleeping, but there was hardly any light besides the clock and the dark gray squares of window panes facing the air well. He reached for the TV remote to hit ON and MUTE at the same time, flipped through infomercials and settled on an old Western on one of the movie channels.
Now that he could see Nick’s profile up close Tim remembered his first sight of him, the tanned muscular legs below a cardboard box coming down the back stairs yesterday. It all came back now, driving through Golden Gate Park to the fogged-in beach, their first kiss in the front seat of the convertible and making out in the parking lot above the ocean. Then they’d raced back to Tim’s apartment to make love—well, to have sex, actually. It was as furious as anything on the Discovery Channel, but tender afterward.
Tim took a deep breath and sighed. It was rare for him to feel this satisfied, not to want anything else in the world at the moment, not even ice cream. How long had it been since he felt this good? He wouldn’t let himself think how long it might last. He saw chopsticks and the red and white cartons and remembered when they’d called out for Chinese food, both liking the same things and doubling up on pot stickers. No wonder he wasn’t hungry. Then he remembered Jason’s murder at the house on Hancock Street—Tim’s house now. Was it possible that Jason and Nick didn’t already know each other?
Tim closed his eyes and drifted back into another dream. He and Nick were seated in the last row of the Castro Theatre watching a black and white movie from the 40’s. Bette Davis was pacing across the screen with a lit cigarette and Nick had one arm around Tim’s shoulder. Their shared bag of popcorn was in Nick’s lap. When Tim reached for another handful he felt something cold and wet, but he could barely make out what he saw in the shadows. Strawberries, ripe ones, dripped their juice like blood from Tim’s fingers and across the leg of Nick’s khaki trousers. Nick’s free hand was covered in blood, too, and he hadn’t even started eating yet.
Nick was in the aisle seat and Tim looked past him toward a theatre employee walking by with a flashlight. She was dressed like an usher from the same era as the movie – red jacket with gold braids and matching pillbox hat, black pants with a stripe down the side. Tim looked back down at Nick’s hand. There was no blood… no strawberries… nothing but popcorn in the bag. Nick smiled at him and pulled him closer. The usher walked back up the aisle but this time she didn’t have a flashlight. She carried a large chef’s knife dripping blood from the tip.
A fog horn bellowed as if it intended to wake him. Tim thought he knew by now the difference between a psychic dream and an ordinary one. He thought he could distinguish a mere nightmare from a premonition, but sometimes they weren’t so clear.
Sometimes he thought a guy was special too and then it turned out to be nothing but more of the same—nothing—a mere release and then moving right along to the next one. For Tim it was too easy to invest his heart into someone wonderful and discover later on that the guy he was with didn’t recognize that Tim was special at all.
Then he noticed the half-smoked joint in the ashtray. The bottom drawer of his dresser was wide open, which meant… ah, now he remembered digging through old jock straps and mementos of his sexual history to find the fresh lube he’d bought on Castro Street... how long ago? Nick stirred and pulled Tim closer again, shook back his hair, looked up into Tim’s eyes by the blue light of the television and mumbled, “Fog horns.”
“Huh?”
“Fog horns… outside…” Nick reached for the back of Tim’s neck, pulled his face down and kissed him and Tim forgot all about Jason. “Hey Tim…”
“What?”
“Did you know that San Francisco got rid of the foghorns once?”
“What do you mean?”
“They stopped them… years ago… turned them off.”
“I don’t get it?” Tim sat up and placed his fingertips on Nick’s cheek, tracing the outline of his face. “Wouldn’t the ships run into Alcatraz or something?”
“No.” He caught Tim’s index finger in his teeth, licking it from end to end until Tim lowered it to slide down the center of Nick’s chest. “Ships navigate by instruments these days. At least that’s what I heard. They don’t need foghorns anymore… they haven’t for years.”
“Then why can I hear them right now? I’m not dreaming that sound, am I?”
“No, you’re not dreaming. People missed the sound of the foghorns, I guess. They brought them back purely for aesthetic reasons… mmm.” Nick coaxed Tim’s mouth across his chest to his other nipple for equal time. “I think we should do more things for purely aesthetic reasons, don’t you? In San Francisco people understand that, but not everywhere…hey, don’t bite quite so hard… ooh… that feels great,” he moaned.
“Understand what?” Tim tried to ask, but Nick’s hand was still holding him down so that the words came out in a mumble.
“Like the ‘Summer of Love’ back in 1967. I don’t think it could have happened quite the same way anywhere else in the world.”
Tim wasn’t sure what Nick was talking about, but even though it was the middle of the night he would be happy to spend hours like this, listening to Nick’s voice in the semi-darkness and making the same triangular route from nipple to nipple to mouth and back again. Tim thought of himself as a runner on a baseball diamond. He lifted his head and took a deep breath. “I think it’s great that you grew up around here and you know so much.”
Nick arched his back and moved a couple of inches to the left so both his hands were free now and Tim was all the way on top of him. “You poor boy,” Nick rubbed the backs of Tim’s shoulders. “Growing up in Minnesota… deprived of the music of foghorns… I’m not sure, but… you’ll probably need years of therapy to recover from a thing like that.”
“We had tornado sirens, instead,” Tim said. “They’re almost as good, but not as romantic, I guess.” When he settled back down into the nipple-mouth-nipple pattern, it occurred to him that he was only working the outfield. The next time he rounded the bases, he went all the way down to home plate where the batter was standing at attention. The top sheet and the comforter slid off the foot of the bed when Tim crouched to his knees. It was high time for a grand slam home run.
Nick held the back of Tim’s head down and moaned until his breathing quickened and Tim couldn’t stop until Nick arched his back and let go with a long, loud groan, his mouth wide open, head thrown back and another foghorn drowned out the sound of his release like thousands of roaring faithful fans.
Ruth woke the next
morning to hear men’s voices in the garden outside Tim’s kitchen. She stuck her head out the back door and asked, “Good morning?”
“Good morning,” Tim jumped up to greet her and Nick stood, too. “I’d like you to meet Nick Musgrove. Nick, this is my Aunt Ruth I told you about.” They shook hands while Nick tried to hold shut the robe Tim had loaned him, but it was too small. “Nick’s grandmother lived upstairs in Jason’s house on Hancock Street and he’s been helping her move to Alameda.”
“It’s good to meet you, Nick. Oh, look at me. No, don’t look at me! I’m a mess. I’m sorry. I just woke up. What a terrible first impression I must make.”
“You look fine,” Nick said. “It’s good to meet you, too. We didn’t even hear you come in last night.”
“It was late,” she said. “Those foghorns were really something, weren’t they? I’ve never noticed them so loud before. The conditions must have been just right for the sound to carry, but they lulled me to sleep like a baby, anyway.”
Nick wondered what time she’d come in and how much she’d really heard through the thin walls of Tim’s apartment, but he changed the subject. “Tim was telling me how much he enjoys having you here. Have you decided to move to San Francisco yet?”
“I’ve been thinking about it… seriously. I like the people I’ve met here so much and last night Artie said they’d love for me to stay on more or less full-time if I’d agree to it. I need to make a decision before he hires another bartender. It’s not that I need the work, but it’s so nice for me to feel needed. And everyone’s so good to me. Oh, before I forget… last night some customers gave me a pair of tickets to the Giants game this Thursday afternoon. They said they have season tickets, but they’ll be out of town. How would you two boys like to go to the game together?”
Nick said, “I can’t. Thank you, though. I have to go back up north today. I’ve got to get a lot of work done this week so I can come down on the weekend to see your nephew again.”
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