The Distant Echo of a Bright Sunny Day

by Patrick O'Brien

  “That’d be great!”

  “And if you need any help in doing it, just let me know. You can just come by my office, and I’d be glad to help.”

  The young man stood up.

  “I really do appreciate that,” he said. “That’s awfully nice of you.”

  “No problem. Any time.”

  After the young man left, Mike bundled up the papers he had been grading moments before and stuffed them into a leather briefcase. He could take them home and finish them up later that evening. In the meantime…

  § § § § § §

  Tony had just renewed his contract with the owner of The Ritzy Club. Located two blocks off lower Burnside, next to a storefront Gospel mission for down-n-outers on one side and an adult arcade on the other, it had been around for years as one of those establishments that periodically undergo a personality change. Originally, it had functioned during the sixties as a smoky after-hours spot for Portland’s jazz aficionados. Then, in keeping with a West Coast trend, it had transformed itself into a “wiggle and jiggle” joint, complete with bare-naked young women in high heels performing all manner of sexual gyrations for liquored-up young men willing to pay a hefty cover charge as well as jacked-up prices for drinks. As the novelty of the trend gradually diminished, a gay entrepreneur turned it into a low-profile eating and drinking emporium for a gay community not yet sufficiently comfortable with being openly gay. The darkly lit atmosphere, apron-clad, waist-coated waiters, and piano bar gave it the feel of a cozy but classy haven for gay couples just wanting to be themselves together in public. Its latest makeover had been brought about by an ex-Arthur Murray ballroom dancer who had set out to revive what he considered a moribund art form—burlesque.

  By the time Mike arrived, the seven o’clock show had finished a few minutes before, and the male strippers had all trotted off for an extended smoke break and a breath of fresh air in the back alley. The lights on the small stage had dimmed, and a tuxedo-ed piano player sat at a Steinway baby grand in another part of the candlelit room, moodily gliding through a rendition of Cole Porter’s “My Heart Belongs To Daddy.”

  Mike ordered a double Scotch; sipping it, he sat in a booth at the back of the room and waited for the next show to start.

  Exactly fifteen minutes into the wait, the footlights came on and the stage lit up. The incessant hum and babble of conversation faded to a hushed silence, and all heads turned expectantly in the same direction. As the caparisoned wait staff removed themselves discreetly to the back of the room or stepped outside for a quick smoke, the atonal pitch and squeal of bamboo reed pipes, Moroccan oboes, tambourines, hand castanets, and a variety of Oriental percussion instruments suddenly burst into a pulsating rhythm from an overhead sound system. From one corner of the stage, wearing red, silken pantaloons embroidered with gold sequins and cinched tightly and provocatively at the waist, halfway between his belly button and his pubic region, Tony rumbaed into view.

  Undulating gracefully across the polished wooden floor on his bare feet, his arms and wrists jangled with silver and gold bracelets, and the long, ebony tresses of his wig swaying back and forth like the thin filaments of underwater sea creatures, he wiggled his hips and sashayed his shoulders with exquisite sensuality. Lips parted and eyes half-closed, he gazed past the footlights and out into the darkened room with an expression of languorous bliss, as though having transported himself into a paradisiacal realm.

  As the music spun out into a kind of roisterous, maddening swirl, he allowed himself to be drawn further and further into it. The clang and blare of exotic instruments all combined in an exuberant, seemingly improvisational deliverance of an improbably melodious sound, to which he responded with a progression of movements involving whirling himself about, letting his arms and hands flow back and forth in arabesques of voluptuous spontaneity. Losing himself in a sort of rapturous frenzy, he danced round and round and round, until, as though with a jolt, the music stopped.

  Blinking, he stopped as well.

  It was over.

  His naked torso gleaming with sweat, he looked out at the audience.

  The audience cheered, whistled, clapped, and shouted.

  Removing his wig, he smiled and bowed.

  The audience continued its ovation.

  He bowed again, then, blowing kisses, left the stage.

  Twenty-five minutes later, he joined Mike in the booth they usually reserved for themselves and had the waiter bring him two double whiskey sodas. He had changed into street clothes: pearl-gray slacks and a blue blazer over an open-collar white shirt. As he left the dressing room area and entered the restaurant proper, he had stopped to say hello to a number of patrons, all of whom had proffered congratulatory comments and well wishes. As he walked over to his table, a few had even reached out to squeeze his hand or simply to touch him on the shoulder.

  “Cock of the walk this evening, huh?” Mike said with a touch of envy.

  Tony sipped from one of the two whiskey sodas the waiter had set on cocktail napkins in front of him.

  “It’s actually quite exhausting,” he said. “I absolutely have to lose some weight.”

  “Nonsense. Your baby fat becomes you. It’s part of what makes you attractive. You look like a delicious little butterball.”

  “You’re so encouraging. You oughta become a diet consultant.”

  Mike leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Be thankful people like you just as you are.”

  “I’m ever so thankful. But I still think I could lose a few pounds.”

  “Try drinking less.”

  “Oh, that would never work. But I might give up creamed asparagus.”

  “Do you eat creamed asparagus?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then, there you go—that oughta be worth ten pounds all by itself.”

  “I feel so much better already. Aren’t resolutions wonderful?”

  Over the next hour, several friends and acquaintances stopped by the booth to exchange pleasantries, bits of gossip, or just to say hello. A female impersonator came on stage and sang a Judy Garland number, did a passable rendition of a Julie London melody, and moved on to “Just Walkin’ In The Rain,” as sung by Johnny Ray. His act was followed by a set of blond, muscular male strippers, both wearing cowboy outfits, complete with boots, tight jeans, leather chaps, fancy shirts, and hats. As each item of clothing vanished into the wings, an appreciative audience bombarded them with bills of different denominations; at the end of the routine, they both hurried offstage to count their take.

  “They’ll go home happy tonight, won’t they?” Mike observed.

  “They go home happy every night. And they’ve each got a sugar daddy that meets them backstage afterwards.”

  “Really?”

  “One’s a surgeon who drives a Corvette, and the other owns a big ranch in eastern Oregon. He lives here in town, and has somebody manage it for him.”

  “Speaking of ranches, Tony, have you made up your mind about Montana?”

  “Oh, do I really have to?”

  “Well, no, but Heidi would like you to.”

  “Oh, poo on her. I just don’t know anymore…”

  “I know. I think everyone took Whit’s death quite badly. It was such a jolt.”

  “It was more than that. As far as I’m concerned, it was a total game-changer. Out with the old and in with the new, is what I say.”

  “Meaning?”

  Tony had started on his second whiskey and soda. Setting the glass on the table, he sighed heavily.

  “Look, here, Mike,” he said, “I got into this because you told me it would advance my photography career. But all I’ve seen so far is a couple of pictures on the Internet. And those don’t even have my name on them. They’re just attributed to the group’s photographer; I’m anonymous. Do you know how it feels to be anonymous? Do you know how it feels to have something you’re so very good at go unrecognized? At this rate, I could live into old age and never have ma
de my mark except as an exotic dancer, which is much too fleeting. Besides, how do I put together a portfolio if I’m forced to keep myself under wraps?”

  “You yourself told her not to use your name, Tony. You told her it would be too risky.”

  “I know. But the point is, it doesn’t really do me any good. I need something to show people, something that I can brag about and claim as my own. Don’t you see?”

  “Of course I do. But why don’t you just use a pseudonym? Like Liberace? Or Cher? It’s not all that uncommon, you know. And you could even consider it a nom de guerre…”

  “Ooo, I like that. Isn’t that what Che did?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Well, we’ll have to think of something, won’t we?”

  “Something romantic…exciting…exotic…”

  “We’ll run it by Heidi.”

  “Does that mean you will? Shall I tell her yes?”

  “I suppose. After all, we all know how much it means to her. And it is for a good cause, isn’t it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, then…”

  33

  Ralph and Misty lay on their queen-size bed in their Laurelhurst condominium: an ivy-covered, renovated three-story apartment building dating from the late 1940s. From their living room window, they had a view of Laurelhurst Park across the street, and from their bedroom window they could look down into the lushness of a communal area given over to roses, perennial shrubs, a stone-cut birdbath, and hanging bird feeders of different shapes and sizes. The roses, the shrubs, and the birdbath had come with the building and were maintained by the management. The hanging bird feeders had been Ralph’s idea; he paid for the food himself and kept them filled, as needed.

  Ralph, his hands folded behind his head, looked over at Misty. She lay on her side and had her head propped against one hand, while the other idly twirled the sparse growth of red hairs on his chest. She had been listening intently to the two formative events he insisted, more than anything, justified his decision to go along. He had been trying to convince her that, for him, it was the only right thing to do. He wasn’t sure yet if he had won her over, but he continued.

  “It’s all about restoration,” he said, “restoring yourself to something that maybe you never were in the first place but that you know you need to become…”

  As he spoke, the images of those long-ago events kept appearing and reappearing, like two phantoms that refused to go away. Though having occurred years before, he could still see them with undiminished clarity. And the pain of remembrance, the humiliation that had seared itself into his very soul, had not lessened with time.

  The decision had been made in his early twenties…

  Hoping to acquire “real life” experience (though whatever part of life was more real than any other part of life, as he pondered the question in later years, he had never quite figured out), shortly after college, he had enlisted in the Army. The decision had surprised everyone, friends and family alike, and they had all sought to discourage him. But he told them not to worry. He had no intention of making a career out of the military. For one thing, the regimented lifestyle did not really appeal to him, as it was too restrictive. For another, he had already laid out a career path—as an ornithologist. And he was not looking to escape into a better life; nothing like that. But he was troubled nonetheless and felt a restlessness that could not be attributed to any one thing in particular. He just knew he had to break out of the secure, happy little box he had always lived in. He knew he had to explore beyond its limits and see what else was out there. The foray into the unknown did not have to be permanent, just long enough to satisfy a niggling curiosity about what lay beyond a comfortable upbringing, complete with loving parents, brothers and sisters, a middle-class home, doting grandparents, predictable Christmas mornings and Thanksgiving dinners, and birthdays that were always remembered. If he had been pressed to talk more about it, he might have expressed it as an urge to get out and rough it; but instead, he chose the equally vague, though platitudinous “I just want to try something different.”

  Indeed.

  His first day at boot camp had been a revelation. He was not used to being hollered at by men who seemed totally indifferent to, and astoundingly unmindful of, personal sensibilities. He was not used to being hollered at, period. Though intellectually he understood its necessity—the inculcation of discipline—he nonetheless found it rude and offensive. He considered himself quite a reasonable person; he only had to be asked to do something, and he would do it. Intimidation, browbeating, bluster, and coercion—all the psychological methods used to whip a young recruit into fit material for the military, in his case at any rate—he viewed as redundant. They could just as well have given him a list of everything he was supposed to do, from the prescribed arrangement of boot socks and underwear in his foot locker to making his bed in a certain way. He did not require anyone barking orders at him; his desire to cooperate should have been taken for granted.

  But the biggest surprise concerned another kind of fitness. He was not an especially robust specimen. Though he stood over six feet and had a heavy (though gangly) build, he had never played any kind of organized athletics. The most outdoor activity he had ever engaged in had been bird-watching treks along dirt roads, in farming areas, and up and down wooded hills. From childhood, he had been fascinated by birds, and the bulk of his exercise had centered on studying and observing their habits and varieties. Almost none of it had involved the deliberate, sustained effort to develop aerobic stamina, athletic coordination, and a muscular physique. Except for the field trips and outings bird-watching entailed, when it came to regular exercise, he was, in fact, on the lazy side…a trait that did not at all prepare him for boot camp.

  The discovery had come after the first week. Up until then, because of the need for gradual conditioning, marches and calisthenics had been of limited duration. Most recruits, even though young, could not step off the bus, drop to the ground, and snap off twenty pushups without visibly straining, let alone hike twenty miles without keeling over. And a blustering, red-faced drill sergeant, considering an affront to his manhood the sight of “pussies, wimps, and sissies,” didn’t help; he certainly didn’t encourage anyone with a preternatural aversion to the very kind of exercise the Army used as a qualifying test. To anyone in this category the only lessening of anxiety came in the optimistic belief that, given enough time, his sub-par level of fitness might meet the standard. But to a man of Ralph’s shortcomings, optimism did little to quiet such apprehension—though it has to be said that, over the first week of living in open barracks and going through the daily routine of boot camp, he gave it his best.

  But his best was not enough.

  The incident happened on the way back from a map-reading class. The distance between the classroom and the barracks had been four miles, and the weather had been hot and humid. The company had marched the first mile down a dusty road; then the drill sergeant had bellowed out the command to double-time, and the steady, rhythmic pounding of marching feet had turned into a steady, rhythmic shuffle, and all accompanied by a metronomic marching chant begun by the drill sergeant and picked up by the troops.

  A short time later, after another mile or so, the company crossed a paved road. A line of Army trucks, trundling over its surface, was stopped in either direction. Road guards, standing at parade rest, had been posted. On the drill sergeant’s orders, the troops had quickened their double-time pace, and everyone had stepped it up.

  Except Ralph.

  He had had trouble from the beginning. Marching, per se, did not create much of a problem. It was not unlike many of the bird-watching rambles into the countryside he had done for many years with a camera and binoculars strapped around his neck and broad-brimmed hat protecting him from the sun. He was not fazed by mile after mile of plain walking. In fact, he enjoyed its rhythmic motion. It energized him and lifted his spirits, and it was the one activity that didn’t present itself as a
physical weak point. As long as he could coordinate himself to his own pace, he was fine, did not become bushed or fatigued. Only when he had to increase the pace did he find himself feeling exerted beyond his capacity. The march that particular day had taxed him in just that way.

  Feeling the effects of the heat, his brow sweaty and hot, breathing the dust kicked up by two hundred pairs of combat boots, his eyes glazed over with a rising sense of lethargy, aware also of a blister forming on the back of one heel, and above all forcing himself to tramp along at a treadmill gait, he had only one thought—to get back to the barracks, take off his boots (new, at that), lie down on his bunk, and close his eyes. At that moment, too, he felt mocked by his decision to broaden his life experience with a stint of military service, and the realization that he simply couldn’t walk away from his contractual obligation made the irony that much keener. Like it or not, the government had him in its thrall.

  This state of mind was not conducive to a healthy adaptation to his immediate circumstances. Certainly, while not the cause of what happened, it contributed.

  As the soldier ahead of him nudged forward at a slightly faster jog, and the soldier behind did likewise, Ralph’s effort to keep up fell short. Caught between two moving bodies making their own attempt to synchronize with those around them, the only thing that could happen did happen—he tripped. He not only tripped but tumbled head-first onto the pavement, and in such a way that three or four others, landing in a pile, cascaded onto him.

  A bystander witnessing the mishap naturally would have assumed that the drill sergeant would have called a halt. But the drill sergeant had not attained his rank based on concern for his fellow man or, necessarily, on common sense. Contrary to expectations, his response was a sharp command to keep moving. To make matters worse, after the others managed to scramble up and rejoin the ranks, with the kind of mystifying, scarlet rage he had become known for, he laid into Ralph with a barrage of scorn and invective. In one fell swoop, he let everyone within the range of his voice know exactly what he thought of this new recruit. And his choice of words did not reflect a colorful, good-ol’-boy repertoire of cutesy terms and phrases intended to elicit an admiring chuckle from a group of trainees. On the contrary, “pussy,” “momma’s boy,” “slob,” “weakling,” and “faggot” seemed to reflect a pathological hatred for someone who, in his mind, represented the soft, indulgent background a real man could only bristle at.