by Larry Kramer
And the crowds began to rush rush rush!
“This is Dennis,” Dinky said, introducing both Fred and Irving, not only to each other, but to a tall and blond and not very special-looking young man dressed all in leather.
Fred asked himself: Who the fuck is Dennis? And: So that’s Irving Slough? Two weeks with that?
“I forgot to tell you both about Dennis.”
And Fred watched and Irving watched as Dinky took a dog’s lead and collar studded with silver knobs from a hook on Dennis’s belt and put it around Dennis’s neck.
And Irving’s thoughts runneth over: Who the fuck is Dennis? And: So Dinky is in leather and boots already! So Dinky is in leather and boots already!! Is there no surprise left he hasn’t surprised me with? And: So that’s Fred Lemish. Yes, Fred Lemish is coddling his Pandora’s Box of Pain. He does not understand that Dinky is collaring this Dennis as a retreat from all our pressurings. And: This Dennis is his defense against feeling and involvement, his barricade thrown up against any commitment or anger, love or pain. And: How can I use all of this to my advantage? Particularly when this Dennis, and this Fred, are pains in my box, too. Dr. Irving Slough put his hand to his own belt and unhooked his own dog’s collar.
Dinky, his eyes on no one, said: “I forgot to tell you that I had this date tonight with Dennis. We’re going to do a leather scene.”
Irving found himself heaving his fifty-five-year-old body in creaking basic black leather not so broken-in as he thought, down to its knees, and offering up his own canine accoutrement in homage, and then further bending into grovel as he kissed Dinky’s chunky boots. “I thought we had a date. Do it with me, too,” he begged.
“Get up, Irving,” Dinky said. “You look very silly in leather. But we’ll experiment later. I’ll show you a few things later. Dennis doesn’t like threesomes. Do you, Dennis?”
Dennis obligingly shook his head No.
“I thought we were spending the night,” Fred said, his stomach’s ballast heaving from port to starboard with nary a port to rest.
“We will. We will. Tomorrow on the Island. We’ll spend the night tomorrow on the Island.”
“What are you going to do?” Irving asked jealously, pulling his own port back up.
“Oh, Dennis will crawl around naked on the floor with his cock in a nice little black leather case we’re fond of and I’ll order him about and he’ll obey me. It’s all kind of silly. It doesn’t mean a thing to me, fellows. Believe me. I might even have to leave him for a few minutes to go out of my room and laugh. You see, I can step in and out of it and look at it from up above and outside of it and think my goodness isn’t this silly and then step right back into it with him. I usually wind up fucking him. And letting him shoot all over my boots. He really likes my beautiful boots.” And he tugged on Dennis’s lead and Dennis obliged this time with a Yes.
OK, Lemish. Now you’ve heard it. Now you’ve seen it. Rome built and destroyed in a day. How do you feel about it? Still on your fence? How do you fence with this fence? Quick! This is a moment desirous of action. Quick! what’s the Proust line?—that we’re attracted to those people who have qualities we hate in ourselves? Is he attracted to me because he hates his perversions? Or am I attracted to him because I hate myself for wanting to be Dennis right this very minute? Marcel, come help me! Whose fantasy man is whose? And why is it that both of our fantasy men seem completely different from those we’re choosing! Sweet & Dreckness! what did they say? Quick! In their semenal The Abandonment to Sex…?… “Two lovers must feel free to explore their fantasies with each other to the utmost…” What two lovers? What love? Where’s love? Tomorrow! Always tomorrow! What’s going on here today? Why is he doing these things? To himself! To me! I’m a fucking towerful power of rage! I’m all wound up!
And wind up Fred did. Just like in his lesson at the Y. And slugged his Dinky in the puss. Take that! Dreck & Sweetness! And down went Dinky. Splat.
“Fred!” Gatsby rushed up. “I suggested a confrontation, not a main event!”
Fred fell into Gatsby’s arms, his Robert Redford to the rescue. “He’s fucking himself up!” Fred tried to tell his friend. “And he doesn’t know it!”
“If he’s smart enough, he would know it,” Gatsby sensibly answered. “And if he doesn’t know it, he’s not smart enough and you shouldn’t want him,” he just as sensibly continued.
But what had any of this to do with sense! Fred tried to find words to tell them all. “You…you…you don’t know what you’re involved with!”
“You’re crazy, Mister,” Dennis said, none too pleased his Master had been floored, but helping him up anyway.
“No, he’s not,” Irving said, nodding, looking at Fred. “He’s in love.” And he walked away. Angry. Very angry. I think our Dinky must now be punished. For the error of his ways. Tomorrow in The Meat Rack.
Bo Peep, who had seen it all, rushed up to help man the comfort station. “Oh, Fred,” the sweet face said, “it’s the oldest story in the world. You must say to him I’m not going to see you anymore as long as you treat me this way. I’m more special than you’re treating me.”
“Have you said that to Tarsh?” Gatsby’s sensibility once again intruded.
“Well, not exactly. But I will.”
But Fred had walked away, too. Events were now passing beyond the realm of even Cary Grant.
Fred paused outside The Fucketeria. He tried to give himself a good talking to. OK, buddy, you feel simply terrific. You’re having a dexedrine high. You have just performed an act of courage best executed in our era by Nurse Nellie Forbush when she extirpated that man right out of her hair “and sent him on his way!” OK, buddy, you go on your way now, too. You look terrific. Everyone says your new body is superfine. Now…now…now…go into this Fucketeria place and use it! Go in there and become an abandoned, passionate Thing!
“Uuchh!”
This sound escaped Fred’s lips.
Yes, he had entered The Fucketeria and yes, he had become accustomed to the gloom and the sounds of slurpings midst the presence of brothers. Fred saw on neighboring risers at least seventeen faces he recognized to talk to, not here of course, but knew well enough to puzzle how one had sex in a bathtub full of friends. Perhaps to combat this, The Gnome, busy as ever in moments of need, rushed and darted about with his cigarette-girl’s tray of goodies, seeing to it that a healthy round of Magic was available to all.
“Uuucchhh!”
Yes, he had dropped onto one of the lower bleachers and then wished for the seventeenth time this weekend to be Dead.
“Uuuuccchhhh!”
For there before him, there on center stage, in center arena, in media res, beautifully lit with pin-pricks as in the best Broadway shows, his hands and feet bound to rough wood, upon a cross, erected for this main event, his American debut, hung the lean and lovely body of his First Beloved, Feffer.
“UUUUUCCCCHHHHH!”
For Feffer is being whipped by the two whippers who are Lance Heather, in matching tones of brown Bavarian leathers, and Leather Louie, in matching same of black, with an armada of arcane implements culled from far and near, slash slash slash, the crowd is going wild!, this place is truly the winner!, this scene becomes a milestone!, this night goes down in history!, all further triumphs henceforth are measured!, slash slash slash, Feffer’s body evidently loving every whip and fanny and slither and driblet and shameful ignominy, and Fred, Whom-Am-I-Ever-To-Fall-In-Love-With!?!—Fred, still dry-eyed in martyrdom, slowly rises from his lower riser and like some Jewish acolyte who just might be approaching insight and knowledge, walks slowly up up up up to the First Love of his life, so vividly perched up there before him.
“Hi, Lemmy.” Feffer focuses his eyes, looks down, and smiles kindly. “I tried to call you but you weren’t home. I didn’t want to talk to your machine.”
“Is this what you wanted all along?”
“Not much difference in it either way. It really depends on what you feel like
on a particular night.”
“Oh, Feff.” What’s going on here? I know what’s going on here, but what’s going on here?
“Now, Lemmy, don’t go and get sentimental. This really doesn’t mean very much.”
“Your little long black leather belt has come a long way.”
“Well, it has been four years.”
“You want a lick?” Lance offers Fred a turn at bat.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Go fuck yourself yourself.”
“Gentlemen!” Leather Louie mediates.
“So long, Feff.” This time I’m leaving you. Though where I’m going I don’t know. Have I been to so many places like this that I’m going blind?
“’Bye, Lem.”
And Fred walks away. And out of The Fucketeria, where the scene and scenes continue. And into Anthony, his best friend, so kind of fate to proffer his best friend, in this moment so calling for extreme unction.
“This is Wyatt,” Anthony, avoiding Fred’s eyes, introduces a quivering young fellow.
“Unh, how do you do?” Fred, now glazed beyond any donut, automatically offers a hand.
“I’m in love with Anthony and I’m going to go and live with him!”
Anthony shrugs. “What am I going to do, Tante?”
“You didn’t tell me he was a teeny-bopper.” Fred continues his exit walk. Solo.
Meanwhile, in Dixie Disco Dancehall, there is suddenly much commotion.
Winnie Heinz has fallen to earth. He had paused, up there in heaven, reached out, thinking: I’m almost there, but here, still here. He had thought momentarily that he saw the truth, right over there, through to the end, and now I must reach out farther, truth is farther away, if I’m going to reach out, reach far, Winnie, reach far and you’ll be there, my angel’s dust will take me there…And out he’d reached and fell to earth below. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Oh, Winnie! Good-bye. Proud beauty! Duncan Heinz IV. Looking thirty, claiming forty, actually forty-five. Now joining the sands of history on this famous night. Winnie Heinz is dead.
Timmy cradles his Winnie in his arms and softly cries. He had seen it all. That fall of grace. He looks up and addresses the few spectators left in the empty Roseland. “He was the most beautiful and sophisticated thing I’d ever seen. He taught me everything. He taught me love.”
Frigger dashes in, pulls a decorative bunting from a column, and quickly wraps the beauty in crepe. He wonders does a body hex or help an opening night. He wishes everybody would go home. His mouth is hungry.
Milling bodies think passing thoughts. That one’s had too much. I must watch out. How much have I had tonight? I always told you smoking kills.
Hans Zoroaster rushes up to view the body of his late great model.
“What is your name, boy?” Hans cannot take his eyes from young Purvis.
“Winnie Purvis,” Timmy answers in memoriam.
“I shall make you a star!”
But Timmy hasn’t heard. Or he’s heard it all before. So what? He’s suddenly very lonely. He needs some arms to hold and warm him. He’s suddenly frightened that his bite of the Big Apple is more than he can chew. Here comes that Dildough. He really wasn’t so bad.
But Dildough has returned with fire, ice, and the suitor who is the handsome gymnast-architect with the silver bracelet, Robbie Swindon. His face had been vaguely familiar to Randy from somewhere. Had he ever done a scene with him? Yes, Dildough is back to his former self. A scene we’ll certainly do tonight! So good to get back into known roles. He looks down at young Timothy. “So long, Timothy.” And off he and Robbie start toward an elevator down.
“I am so happy to be seeing you again so soon!” Dordogna del Dongo, her flaming-red hair swaying and her gold bangles clanking and her deep dark eyes muskying, has finally found her man.
“Next week!…Save me an evening!…save me two evenings!…” What am I saying? And Randy grabs that Swindon and makes it through the elevator door before it closes.
“I’ll bet he’ll come to Fire Island,” says her friend, the ever-helpful Marine, our Adriana.
“Such a coincidence that you have invited me, too,” Dordogna says.
Hans says again to Timmy: “I shall make you a star!” Even his gold tit now radiates anticipation.
The Divine Bella, fresh from golden-showered triumphs in Jackie O and smelling a column item, hears these words from their most important model-maker. He immediately bends to kiss this newest beauty of our moment in time. “My precious, I am enraptured, such a world and life is now in store for you!”
“Phew,” someone says. “What do you use to get rid of the smell of piss?”
“You buy it at a pet shop and it’s called Fresh Pussy,” someone answers.
Lork and Carlty and Yo-Yo and Tom-Tom and Dawsie and Pusher all now rush up to reluctantly get a closer look at Timmy. Now he’s really competition. Hans beams that his children like each other so.
Dinky, without Dennis, whose passion for a scene had evaporated when he’d seen his Master decked, nods hello at that elevator door to Frigger.
“I wasn’t late,” Dinky says.
“You were four fucking hours late,” says Frigger, referring to that night seven years ago when Frigger had refused to wait any longer and had left Dinky, as he now again does.
Here comes Laverne, alone. He’d been unable to respond on the spot to Robbie’s proposal of marriage. He’d promised a decisive answer at the Island tomorrow, which of course now is today.
“Can I give you a lift?” Dinky asks his late lover.
Laverne sighs. He hates himself as he hears his answer: “OK.”
Fred’s gone home.
Such a night of nights.
Josie and Dom Dom, wearing matching hues of tired sagging grays, leave The Toilet Bowl holding tightly.
“Oh, Dom Dom, what’s happened to kiss and cuddle?”
“They’re coming back in the eighties.”
Yes, such a Night of Nights!
And Rory Neutra, a film director’s son and in charge of cleaning up with his staff of twelve, made the following census of trashy items after all had gone: one coffin, two sets of portable gallows, seven hoods, two executioner’s masks, one artificial arm, ten high heels, four net stockings, twenty gross of used poppers, eighty-three empty bottles of liquid same, fourteen rubbers, seven diaphragms, one damaged dildo, ten pairs of ladies’ underpants, ten sets of Chafeze, forty-seven jockstraps, twelve basketball player’s shorts, fourteen numbered jerseys, seven cock sacks, twenty-one falsies, five cock-and-balls harnesses, six ankle shackles, seven bras, two corsets, eighteen whips, one pair of Gloves of Silence, two force-feeders, one mace, forty clothespins, one cattle prod, three boweling balls, one surgical ass-spreader, several odd lengths of rope, several unmatched links of chain, one Ping Pong paddle, five empty containers of Joy Jell (one each of raspberry, orange, grape, licorice, and Persian Rose), two depleted tubes of Sta-Hard, seven dual inhalers, one universal harness, three Criscoed pool cues, one pair of thumb cuffs, one pulsating vagina, four vibrators with worn-out batteries, one copy of The Complete Enema Guide, a couple of dog collars, one meat tenderizer, five blindfolds, three unmatched spiked gauntlets, one pair of slave hobbles, 1,453 roach ends, 17,543 cigarette butts, seventy asshorted cans of Crisco, two hundred Vaseline empties, one hundred and twelve depleted Intensive Cares, ten knives, forty-two cock rings in various sizes, seven tit rings, one black leather jerkin, one empty pill case, twenty-seven kilos of dried semen scraped from simply everywhere, seventeen pounds of shit, one hand-lettered sign: DANNY’S PISS CLUB MEETS EVERY SUNDAY E & L—B.Y.O.P., one lavender letter: “I love you so fucking much I can hardly shit,” twenty pale faces popping out from the interior for air and light and wanting to go back for more, and an exhausted Blaze, fast asleep in Jackie O and dreaming of models, models, models.
Two other discos opened tonight. Mission Accomplished, owned by fellows in Las Vegas, kept five thousand overexcited and eager customers waiting
on the streets till three, but once inside, free strawberries, top-drawer sound, and the legendary Tino D. J., plus a balcony (the place had been a former opera house, which stretched up to heaven, from which one could look down on all the dancing fleas) made it a Possible, only time would tell, the efficient Alfestra bei Icker, press agent to the bisexually affluent, was being summoned and Alfestra had worked wonders in the past. Fury’s Place, named after a former body builder turned drag queen out of Atlantic City who thought he had a lot of friends but didn’t, closed on opening night.
Fred went home to void and purge his system. A douche, an enema, to love that wasn’t love. So long, Feffer, so long, Dinky, hello…what?
He wrote to Dinky on a sweet note card with a bowl of cherries on a background the color of sand:
Well, kid, I have seen the future and it shits. Georges and Dennises, Irvings and Lavernes, dog collars and cock cases, all, alas, are love gone wrong. Like when you squeeze the tube with the cap still on and the toothpaste squirts out the wrong end.
So your Fred must reluctantly tip his non-leather cap and bid you a fond, but sad, adieu.
Keep right on with your plantings, though! Engorge all those empty terraces! Watch everything grow! Now that the sun is shining, your many indentured customers will no doubt find their needs expanding and their Dinky will be there with annuals and perennials, heavy vines and nipped-in buds.
Me, I’m tired of being potted by your many promises, dripped down intravenously into one of New York’s 100 Most Neediest Cases, frugally, lest the weeping willow live.
As an old cake-eater, I can tell you you’re strictly hung up on crumbs.
When will you stop being: 1) A Loser. 2) Dumb. 3) Blind. 4) Frightened. 5) Afraid of Trying? With this communication I cease being 1–3.
I hope before your roots rot and your willow drips too low, you’ll harvest a soupçon of Romance and Moonlight, you’ll reap a scintilla of Responsibility and Love, and you’ll taste a few good licks of…Expectation.