Tales of the City

by Armistead Maupin

  “Michael, I …”

  “Look … let’s plan a big night next week. We can go out to someplace impossibly straight … like the Starlight Roof or something. You haven’t lived until you’ve done business with the Tolliver Gigolo Service.”

  She managed a grin. “That might be nice.”

  “Try to control your ecstasy, will you?”

  “I might not be here, Michael.”

  “Huh?”

  “I think I’m going home to Cleveland.”

  Michael whistled. “That’s not close to death. That is death.”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense right now.”

  “You mean”—he threw his napkin down—”I just wasted a whole chicken making friends with a transient?” He stood up from the table, walked to the sofa, sat down and folded his arms. “Come over here. It’s time for a little girl talk!”

  Michael’s Pep Talk

  MARY ANN STOOD UP UNCERTAINLY, ILL AT EASE with Michael’s new role as mentor. She was sorry she had ever mentioned going home to Cleveland.

  “Can I get you some crème de menthe?”

  “Why are you leaving, Mary Ann?”

  She sat down next to him. “Lots of reasons … I don’t know … San Francisco in general.”

  “Just because some turkey dumped on you …”

  “It isn’t that…. Michael, there’s no stability here. Everything’s too easy. Nobody sticks with anybody or anything, because there’s always something just a little bit better waiting around the corner.”

  “What did he do anyway?”

  “I can’t handle all this, Michael. I want to live somewhere where you don’t have to apologize for serving instant coffee. Do you know what I like about Cleveland? People in Cleveland aren’t into’ anything!”

  “Boring, in other words.”

  “I don’t care what you call it. I need it. I need it badly.”

  “Why go home? We have boring people here. Haven’t you ever been to Paoli’s at lunchtime?”

  “There’s no point …”

  The phone rang. Michael jumped up and grabbed it. “The boring residence of Mary Ann Singleton.”

  “Michael!” Mary Ann jerked the phone away from him. “Hello.”

  “Mary Ann?”

  “Mom?”

  “We’ve been worried sick.”

  “What else is new?”

  “Don’t talk to me like that. We haven’t heard from you in weeks.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s been hectic, Mom.”

  “Who was that man?”

  “What man? Oh … Michael. Just a friend.”

  “Michael what?”

  Mary Ann covered the receiver. “What’s your last name, Michael?”

  “De Sade.”

  “Michael!”

  “Tolliver.”

  “Michael Tolliver, Mom. He’s a real nice guy. He lives downstairs.”

  “Your daddy and I have been talking, Mary Ann … so hear me out on this. We both agree that you deserved a chance to … try your wings in San Francisco … but the time has come now … well, we can’t just sit by and watch you throw your life away.”

  “It’s my life to throw away, Mom.”

  “Not when you apparently don’t have the maturity

  to …”

  “How would you know?”

  “Mary Ann … a strange man answered your phone.”

  “He’s not a strange man, Mom.”

  “Who says?” grinned Michael.

  “You don’t even know his last name.”

  “We’re more informal out here.”

  “Apparently … if you have no more judgment than to invite some perfectly …”

  “Mom, Michael is a homosexual.”

  Silence.

  “He likes boys, got it? I know you’ve heard of it. They’ve got it on TV now.”

  “I think you’ve completely lost your …”

  “Not completely. Gimme another week or two.”

  “I can’t believe I’m …”

  “Mom, I’ll call you in a few days, O.K.? Everything is fine. Night-night.”

  She hung up.

  Michael beamed at her from the sofa.

  Mona was the second assault wave.

  “Christ, Mary Ann! No wonder you’re miserable. You sit around on your butt all day expecting life to be one great big Hallmark card. Well, I’ve got news for you. There’s not a single goddamn soul out there who cares enough to send the very best.”

  “So what point is there in …?”

  “You’ve got to make things work for you, Mary Ann. When you’re down to the seeds and stems, get out there and grab life by the … Get a pencil. Take down this address….”

  War and Peace

  A PLATOON OF SANDPIPERS PATROLLED THE BEACH at Point Bonita, pecking at the poptops in the shiny black sand. The water was sometimes blue, sometimes gray.

  Edgar slipped his arm around Anna’s waist. “I’ll take her back, you know.”

  “Who?”

  “Mona … If you tell me to, Anna, I will.”

  Anna shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that. Furthermore, she wouldn’t come back, even if you did change your mind.”

  “I’m a horse’s ass, then?”

  “No. Your son-in-law.”

  “She told you that?”

  Anna nodded. “Is she right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I thought she might be.”

  “Have you told her, Anna?”

  “About you?”

  “Yes.”

  Anna shook her head. “This is us, Edgar. Just us.”

  “I know, but …”

  “What?”

  “She’s like a daughter to you, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t it hard not to tell her?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to tell the whole goddamn world.”

  Anna smiled. “Not so much as a memo to your secretary.”

  “She’ll figure it out before Mona does.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Why? I have more to lose than you do.”

  Anna gazed at him for a moment. “C’mon. Let’s get the blanket out of the car. It’s colder than a witch’s titty out here.”

  Edgar chuckled. “I didn’t know nice girls knew that expression.”

  “They don’t.”

  “We used to say that in France. During the war.”

  “That’s when I learned it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I was in the Fort Ord campaign.”

  “You were a WAC?”

  “I typed munitions requests for a colonel who was drunk most of the time. Hey, are we gonna get that blanket or not?”

  They huddled together behind a sand dune, out of the wind. “What was it like growing up in a whorehouse?” Edgar asked.

  Anna pursed her lips. “What was it like growing up in Hillsborough?”

  “I didn’t grow up in Hillsborough. I grew up in Pacific Heights.”

  “Oh, my! You have been a gypsy, haven’t you?”

  “C’mon. I asked you first.”

  “Well …” She scooped up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers. “For one thing, I was fourteen years old before I realized that American currency does not bear the inscription ‘Good for all night.’”

  Edgar laughed.

  “Also, I developed a number of quaint superstitions that hound me to this very day.”

  “For instance?”

  “For instance … I can’t abide cut flowers, so don’t send me a dozen long-stems, if you want to maintain our strange and wonderful relationship.”

  “What’s wrong with cut flowers?”

  “Ladies of the evening consider them to be a sign of impending death. Beauty cut down in its prime and all that.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not pleasant.”

  “No.”

  Anna looked down at the sand, tracing a
line there with her finger.

  And it seemed to Edgar that she not only sensed, but shared, his pain.

  Once More into the Breach

  THE BAY AREA CRISIS SWITCHBOARD WAS LOCATED IN A renovated Victorian house in Noe Valley. Its exterior was painted persimmon, mole, avocado, fuchsia and chocolate. A sign in the window informed visitors that the building’s occupants did not drink Gallo wine.

  Mary Ann felt weird already.

  She rang the buzzer. A man in a Renaissance shirt came to the door. Mary Ann’s gaze climbed from the shirt past a scraggly red beard to the place where his left ear should have been.

  “I … called earlier.”

  “Far out. The new volunteer. I’m Vincent.”

  He led her into a sparsely furnished room dominated by a gargantuan macramé hanging that incorporated bits of shell and feather and driftwood. She had no choice but to comment on it.

  “That’s … really wonderful.”

  “Yeah,” he beamed. “My Old Lady made it.”

  She assumed he didn’t mean his mother.

  To her great relief, he turned out to be a very nice guy. He worked the Tuesday to Thursday shift at the switchboard. He was an artist. He fixed her a cup of Maxim, without apologizing.

  “We’ll probably … like … work together,” he explained. “We get enough calls between eight and eleven to keep us both pretty busy.”

  “Are they all … trying to kill themselves?”

  “No. You’ll learn to psyche out the regulars.”

  “The regulars?”

  “Loonies. Lonelies. The ones who call just to talk. That’s cool too. That’s what we’re here for. And some of ‘em just need referral to the proper social agency.”

  “For instance?”

  “Battered wives, gay teen-agers, senior citizens with questions about social security, child abusers, rape victims, minorities with housing problems …” He rattled off the list like a Howard Johnson’s employee reciting the twenty-eight flavors.

  “Then what about the suicides?”

  “Oh … we get maybe two or three a night.”

  “You know, I haven’t had any special training in …”

  “It’s cool. I’ll handle the hairy ones. Most of the time they’re just trying to get your attention.”

  Mary Ann sipped her coffee, drawing strength from Vincent’s casual confidence. “It’s pretty rewarding, isn’t it?”

  Vincent shrugged. “Sometimes. And sometimes it’s a real drag. It depends.”

  “Has it been … hairy lately?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been off for a couple of weeks.”

  “Vacation?”

  He shook his head, holding up his right hand. Mary Ann had already noticed that his little finger was bandaged … but not the fact that it appeared to have been severed at midpoint.

  “You poor thing! How did that happen?”

  “Aww …”

  The ear … the finger … She was suddenly embarrassed.

  Vincent saw her redden. “I get on downers.”

  “Pills?”

  He smiled. “No … just downers. Depressed. Bummed out.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t …”

  “No big deal. I’m gettin’ it together. Hey, hey! Almost eight o’clock. All set?”

  “Yeah. I guess so.” She sank into the chair in front of the telephone. “I guess I’ll just … play it by ear.”

  She could have bitten her tongue off.

  Fantasia for Two

  AFTER WATCHING YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN AT THE Ghirardelli Cinema, Michael and Jon walked onto the pier at Aquatic Park.

  The pier was dark. Clusters of Chinese fishermen broke the silence with laughter and the tinny blare of transistor radios. A helicopter made a whup-whup noise in the sky over Fort Mason.

  The couple sat at the end of the pier on a mammoth concrete bench.

  “It’s a question mark,” said Michael.

  “What?”

  “The pier. It’s a giant question mark.”

  Jon looked across the black lagoon defined by the curve of the pier. “No it’s not. It bends the other way. It’s a backwards question mark.”

  “Doctors are so literal.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I never told you about my chimp, did I?”

  “As in monkey?”

  “Uh huh. Do you wanna hear it?”

  “By all means.”

  “Well … ever since I was a kid I’ve always wanted a chimp. I used to fantasize about training a chimp to burst into my fifth-grade classroom and throw water balloons at my teacher, Miss Watson.” He laughed. “She was probably a dyke, come to think of it. I should’ve been nicer to her…. Anyway, I never outgrew it … the desire to own one … and last year I happened to mention this to my ex-lover…. I mean, he’s my ex-lover now…. He was my lover at the time.”

  “Stick to the chimp.”

  “O.K…. The big coincidence was that Christopher had had this exact same fantasy ever since he was a kid. Sooo … we talked about it for a while and decided we were two responsible adults and there was no reason in the world why we shouldn’t have one. Anyway, Christopher contacted this friend of his at Marine World who knew how to handle all the red tape and everything and eventually … we ended up the proud parents of a teenaged chimp named Andrew.”

  Jon smiled. “Andrew, Michael and Christopher. Very nice.”

  “We thought so. And it worked out beautifully, after we got past the toilet-training part and all. We took him everywhere … Golden Gate Park, the Renaissance Faire … and the zoo. Christ, he adored the zoo! Then one day our friend at Marine World asked if we would … like … mate him with a lady chimp that belonged to a friend of his. Naturally, we were pretty excited about this, since it would make us grandparents, in effect.”

  “In effect.”

  “So the big day came … but Andrew didn’t.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Hell, he wouldn’t even go in the same room with her.”

  “O.K., let me guess.”

  Michael nodded soberly. “Queer as a goddamn three-dollar bill!”

  “Now wait a minute!”

  “I could handle it O.K., because I really loved Andrew, but Christopher took it personally. He was convinced that if he had played more ball with Andrew …”

  Jon began to laugh. “You’re too much!”

  “It was awful, I tell you! Christopher accused me of mollycoddling Andrew and taking him to too many Busby Berkeley movies and … letting him see the men’s underwear section of the Sears catalogue!”

  “Stop it!”

  Michael grinned finally, forsaking the game altogether. “You like that one, do you?”

  “Do you always make things up?”

  “Always.”

  “Why?”

  Michael shrugged. “ ‘I want to deceive him just enough to make him want me.’”

  “What’s that from?”

  “Blanche DuBois. In Streetcar.”

  Jon threw an arm around Michael’s neck. “Come over here, Blanche.” They kissed for a long time, pressed against the cold concrete.

  When they separated, Michael said, “Would it sound better if the lover was named Andrew and the chimp Christopher?”

  “You made up the lover too?”

  “Oh … especially the lover.”

  The Mysterious Caller

  THE WIND WAS RISING ON THE BEACH, SO ANNA READjusted the blanket that sheltered them. “Here, Edgar … cover up. Somebody might see your Brooks Brothers ensemble.”

  “Watch it.”

  “Say … those socks are adorable … pardon the expression. I understand everybody in St. Moritz is wearing charcoal over-the-calves these days!”

  “That tickles, Anna. Cut it out.”

  “Ticklish? Edgar Halcyon? Is nothing sacred?”

  “Anna, I’m warning you …”

  “Tough talk for a city boy!” She jumped up suddenly, giving his loosened tie a yank, and p
ranced down the beach. Edgar chased her back into the dunes, then tackled her with a Samurai yelp.

  They lay there together, laughing and gasping.

  “C’mon,” said Anna, taking his hands. “Let’s go find some flotsam and/or jetsam.”

  “Wait a minute, Anna.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I …”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “I keep forgetting you’re an old buzzard.”

  “I’m two years older than you.”

  “Right. An old buzzard.”

  The sky cleared at four o’clock. They walked barefoot up the beach.

  “This reminds me of something,” Edgar said.

  “A bourbon commercial?”

  He smiled and squeezed her hand. “When I was nineteen, my parents sent me to England for the summer. I stayed with some cousins in a village called Cley-next-the-Sea. I used to walk on the beach looking for carnelians.”

  “Stones?”

  “Beautiful red ones. Orangish-red. One day I met an old lady on the beach. At least, I thought she was old at the time. Her daughter was with her. She was eighteen and beautiful. They asked me to walk with them. They were looking for carnelians too.”

  “Did you do it?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think Edgar was too busy … or too embarrassed.”

  Edgar stopped and turned to face her. He looked like a lion with a thorn in his paw. “It’s too late, isn’t it, Anna?”

  She dropped her shoes in the sand and wrapped her arms around his neck. “It’s too late for the girl, Edgar. The old lady’s a pushover.”

  They were under the blanket again.

  “We should get back, Anna.”

  “I know.”

  “I told Frannie I would …”

  “Fine.”

  “Are we making a big mistake?”

  “Oh, I hope so!”

  “You don’t know much about me.”

  “No.”

  “I’m dying, Anna.”

  “Oh … I thought you might be.”

  “You’ve known about …?”

  Anna shrugged. “Why else would Edgar Halcyon do this?”

  “Jesus.”

  She toyed with the white curls on the back of his neck. “How much time have we got?”