Men on Men 2

by George Stambolian (ed)

  And here he was, dying.

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” he said, “we’re in for it, now.”

  We were at the Cathedral. There were many people there, carrying signs, raising rosaries. Mounted police waited in front of the Cathedral itself. As we passed the center doors, catcalls and furious insults rang out. I saw many Catholics with pictures of Pat Buchanan in one hand, and holy medals held aloft in the other, as though they were weapons. Was Pat their idea of Jesus, I wondered? If so, could we hope for an imminent crucifixion?

  My friend was shaken by this demonstration. At one point he stumbled. I took one arm, his friend took the other, and we held him up. He weighed next to nothing. Suddenly, a furious man with a huge potbelly and a purplish face was right beside me. He began screaming, pointing at my friend.

  “Look at the perverts,” he screamed, “look at them, parading this carcass through our streets.” This man pushed closer to my friend, and spat on him. “He’s like a rat. It’s like they’re carrying a rat through the streets during the bubonic plague!”

  La Golgotha ran at him and kicked him heavily with his big black shoes. Then he ran back to me. “Let’s run for it,” he panted. We raced away, carrying my friend to the front of the line where we were surrounded by other AIDS victims and their friends.

  I looked back over my shoulder and saw the potbelly rolling on the ground, in agony, grabbing at his shins and yelling. Police were swarming around him. They weren’t paying any attention to us Despite his bulk, La Golgotha had moved very quickly indeed.

  “Thanks,” said my friend to La Golgotha, who blushed. “It’s nothing,” he said, “but I was raised in Queens where they’re all like that. I’ve always wanted to kick one. I hope I crippled him.”

  Suddenly the Marshal of the AIDS section was beside us. He was staring at La Golgotha as we marched. “Are you crazy?” he cried. “You could have created an incident. We’re better off as martyrs! Are you too dumb to understand that?” He looked us over coldly. “You two don’t have AIDS. This section is just for AIDS victims and one friend each. Move out, go on, move out!” He pressured us out of the line, barely giving me time to nod good-bye to my friend.

  “Martyrs?” La Golgotha huffed. “What did he mean, martyrs?” I pointed to a man with a long beard and yarmulke who seemed to be having convulsions of condemnation, egged on by similarly attired but younger fans. “Didn’t they learn anything from the Holocaust?” La Golgotha said, and he ostentatiously made the sign of the cross in the direction of the furious rebbe. His entire group cried out as one and averted their eyes. La Golgotha beamed, proud of himself.

  We marched on downtown. The heat began to bother me— that, and the many Diet Pepsi’s I had drunk.

  “God, I’m uncomfortable. La Golgotha, is there a place to pee?”

  “Corinne and Joe’s,” he answered, “they’re right up there, I bet.”

  He pointed to our right. We started scanning the many people who had come out onto fire escapes, roofs, or who were hanging out of the big windows of loft buildings. Golgotha and I saw Corinne at the same instant and waved. She waved back and screamed at us, waving a glass of something in a beckoning manner.

  “She’s asking us up,” said La Golgotha.

  “I’ve always hated her,” I said.

  “She may be hateful, but she’s got a bathroom and something to drink,” said La Golgotha, the survivor.

  We entered a newly remodeled and very handsome loft building. The “in” buzzer was already ringing. We got on the former freight elevator, which, after a noisy climb, opened on a vast airy space, one of Joe and Corinne’s three apartments, the one they lived in. The others were vacant; they were warehousing them.

  Corinne greeted La Golgotha effusively, throwing her long arms around his neck and elaborately putting her cheek to his; first, right side, then, left side, then, front. Since she was tall and thin, with a long sharp face, she looked like a long-legged bird fishing in Golgotha’s face.

  Joe, her husband of record, smiled at me. He gave the brown maid some orders, then approached. He was a weak-looking man, too thin, too tall, pigeon-toed, and with facial hair insufficiently thick to justify the mustache he continually fussed with. He shook my hand. Corinne contented herself with a curt nod in my direction. Joe gave both La Golgotha and me glasses of wine. I used the gothic bathroom. On my walk back to the party, I took my time looking at the amazing number of toys Corinne and Joe had assembled from their world tours. I eventually found them in their living chamber, more or less large enough for an orchestra. I slipped on the wood floor, spilling some wine. Corinne and her guests were hanging out the huge windows, looking at the parade, so they didn’t see me. She had her arms around La Golgotha and was playing with his hair, as though he were an enormous creature purloined from some strange foreign wood, and smuggled into this country. They were drinking Roederer Cristal poured from transparent bottles and eating strawberries.

  “I can’t imagine marching,” one of the friends said. “What if one were seen?”

  “Especially by a client,” drawled someone else.

  “Oh, heaven forfend!” a third gurgled, slurping up her wine.

  “Sex is all well and good,” a fashionable young man ventured, “but to turn oneself into a freak? I don’t understand it. Give me a guilty secret over a political statement any time.”

  “It’s a big parade, today,” Corinne said pensively. “I hope it doesn’t depress the market. We’ve been slaving to attract the best types to Manhattan, and while this is a hoot in its way, part of the local color, so to speak, I wouldn’t want anyone watching this on TV to get the wrong idea.”

  “What idea?” I asked her.

  “Oh, any idiot can see that,” she snapped. “The idea that Manhattan is full of diseased and irresponsible children, sure to be drags on the city services, unable to pay rent, unwilling to vacate when they get sick. Would you locate your business here if you thought that? Would you warehouse an apartment building if those might be your tenants? Would you buy one of our apartments if those were your neighbors?”

  “Oh God, Corinne, you’re scaring me,” whined one of her lady friends. “I was enjoying the parade.”

  Joe, who had been dangling dangerously from the window, gleefully shrilled: “Oh, look … !” He pointed to a group of men dressed as nuns, cavorting outrageously. La Golgotha squealed in delight. Corinne petted him. “I hope that doesn’t turn off too many Catholics,” she sighed.

  From the safety of the big windows, the group cheered the flamboyant “nuns” below. When their next-door neighbors booed, those in Corinne’s window rebuked them with much hilarity.

  Why did I feel a sudden anger at this well-heeled and harmless group? They meant no offense; some were even kind. They were all barely in their thirties and had the easy manners and docility of that generation. They were probably all reasonably tolerant of eccentricity. But they were consumers, totally and solely consumers. They loved to dine on the tasty lives of others, happy to see anything exciting: wonderful or nightmarish. They adored it when others suffered, took risks, cried out in agony, died, or lived, succumbed to or escaped from the worst luck, so long as they could shut it all off as they did their TVs.

  “I think we should go,” I said to La Golgotha.

  “I’d rather stay,” he whined.

  “All right,” I said, “see you later.”

  “You seem more than usually off-putting,” Corinne said to me. “Did you look in the mirror this morning?”

  “Sandy’s upset because one of his friends from his career is in the AIDS group,” said La Golgotha, a trace complacently.

  “A pity,” responded Corinne. “What upset you?”

  “What do you mean, what upset me?”

  “Well, I’ve never known you to be overly concerned about anybody else, unless it was a concert pianist getting better reviews than you. It can’t be concern for your friend, it must be concern for yourself. He opened his asshole to the world
; you’ve done the same thing, haven’t you? So it follows you’re afraid you’ll get it.”

  I wanted to call her the most vicious names, but stopped myself. I guess I was afraid of looking foolish, or getting too upset, which would have meant she had won. And perhaps there was some truth in what she had said. Maybe some of my concern about my friend was guilt over my own past. Scratch an ex-Catholic …

  “Well,” Corinne continued, smacking her lips after a deep draft of bubbly, “grow up. Life is a bag. One bag closes, another opens. The gay thing, the open thing, that was the seventies bag. It was like a big veal dinner at Lutece. It’s great while you’re there. But the next day it’s just shit running down the wall. And it’s terrible to learn while you’re squatting there, you couldn’t really afford it. If you’re still alive, it’s time to move on, change, invest, build. Now, I’ve been nice enough to explain myself, so get out of my loft.”

  “Uuuuhh!” squealed La Golgotha, delight having regressed him to kindergarten.

  It was late afternoon when I emerged from the building. The parade had passed. I decided to amble downtown and hear the speeches. As usual, I tried to calm myself by reviewing opera records in my head.

  The Village was packed with every kind of gay person. There were teenaged boys, queeny or tough; squadrons of lesbians, some boyish, some voluptuous. I saw a herd of nuns; either that or the girls dressed that way had found very authentic looking costumes. I saw many old men, some in what had to be uncomfortably tight and hot leather. There was a mood of celebration. There were thousands of balloons around. Dope sellers of all kinds hawked their wares. Giddy drunks made spectacles of themselves. And I saw many middle-aged, stout couples, taking pictures.

  I stopped at Washington Square Park and sat down on a bench. I had often cruised there in my early days in New York. It was shady, even dark. I sneezed a lot, a sure sign evening was near. I saw a bunch of cops mounted on big horses. I heard my name, not Sandy, but my real name and saw Earl, a boy I knew.

  He was probably fifteen—a hustler around the Village bars. I’d talked to him a few times, and we’d flirted about getting together, but I was nervous about his age. He was handsome, very all-American looking. He seemed bright, despite what was probably heavy use of any drug he could find. I guessed he was a suburban gay kid, unable or unwilling to hide, or chased away by his parents.

  “Hey, man! Let’s take a walk. All these pigs on horses freak me.”

  I smiled, and we walked out of the park. He looked unwell and seemed nervous. “What’s the matter? You look hungry.”

  He laughed. “Nothing, man. Look, see you …” I didn’t know whether to leave or not.

  I was about to walk away when he sat down on the ground.

  “Earl?” I asked. “What’s going on? Are you stoned or what?” I saw he was crying. He shook his head. I wanted to run. The cars, backed up around the park, were honking their horns. Several joggers, one wearing handcuffs and ankle chains, ran by, looking at us curiously. Earl coughed. I bent down, creating quite an obstacle on the sidewalk.

  “I’m scared,” he whimpered, so softly I barely heard.

  “Why?” I asked. But I knew why. As I squatted close to him, I saw a large, jagged, violet mark on his throat. Instinctively, I recognized it. I realized what his thinness meant, and I saw there was something dreadful in his eyes.

  “I don’t …’’ He was whispering, and I had to lean closer to hear. “I don’t know what to do, man …” He bent over and threw up. I saw there were small sores around his mouth, and there was blood in his vomit. I was afraid to touch him.

  A mounted cop rode up on the sidewalk. “What is it? An overdose?”

  I ignored him. I’ve got to touch him, I thought to myself. I can’t run away. I forced my hand to Earl’s back. He was heaving so much my arm shook. I felt nauseous, terrified.

  “You want to answer my question? And you better have a good one, because that punk is underage.”

  His horse pissed, a powerful flood of water, noisy and wild, that steamed inches away from Earl. I took Earl’s hand and saw another mark on his forearm, bigger, darker than the one on his throat.

  “Look, you fat asshole, I ain’t gonna ask you again!”

  “What do you mean, you aren’t going to ask again?” I was roaring, loud enough to stop the implacable joggers who had been moving around the cop on the horse, Earl, and me. “I’m a taxpayer in this city and what does that get me? Pissed on by some turkey, mounted on his mother?!”

  “You faggot!” He reared back on his horse and pulled his stick out.

  A figure emerged from the small crowd, grabbed my arm forcefully, and spoke to me with the utmost urgency: “Senator, what are you doing here? Oh dear, what if somebody recognized you? Oh, officer, thank God, you’re helping the Senator. He wanted to observe this demonstration for the Agency, and … who is this? Who is this boy, Senator? It’s not your son, Teddy? Oh my God, Teddy! Wasn’t he supposed to be at Groton, still? This can’t get into the press! Can we trust you, officer?”

  Leatherette had appeared from nowhere and simply taken over. The cop was just as shocked as I. Leatherette talked so fast and with such authority that both the cop and I pricked up our ears as dogs do when their masters speak.

  “Wha … ? I mean, Wha … ?” was all the cop could manage.

  Leatherette plunged on fervently: “This would be a disaster for the Catholics in this country, if it got out …”

  “The Catholics?”

  “You’re Irish, of course?” asked Leatherette sweetly.

  “Of course, but—”

  “I knew it; we’re probably cousins. Here, buy some candles for Senator D’Amato here.” Leatherette, with stagey discretion, pointed at me. “He’s half Irish …” Leatherette was reaching a twenty-dollar bill up over the saddle. The cop looked at him, at it, at me, at Earl, back at the bill. There was an endless instant. I saw Leatherette getting arrested for trying to bribe one of New York’s Finest. I saw myself getting arrested for cradling a fifteen year old on the street, and thanks to Leatherette, for impersonating a Republican Senator. But there was something frying in the officer’s brain pan. I saw from the way his pimples were twitching, he was young enough not to be absolutely certain about what Leatherette was trying to do.

  Suddenly his walkie-talkie squawked to life. “All right,” he said, “get that asshole and his chicken off the street!” He backed up his horse. “Get the hell out of here,” he screamed at the joggers, who all started running again. He turned his horse very rapidly, then suddenly swept the twenty out of Leatherette’s hands.

  “Thank you, officer, thank you!” cried Leatherette. “And if anybody asks you about all this, just say the twenty’s Pat Buchanan’s contribution to the Force!”

  This really impressed the cop. “Is that you, Pat?”

  “Oh shit. I gave myself away!”

  “I’m with you all the way, Pat, even to the White House!” His walkie-talkie sputtered again. He was clearly unwilling just to ride off. “Gee, Pat, you don’t look like your pictures.”

  “Thank God! I mean I wouldn’t want these fruits to recognize me, they might lynch me!”

  “You just give a holler, if there’s a problem, Pat, we’re here!” The cop patted his revolver. For the first time, Leatherette looked nervous. He turned to me. “Senator, we’ve got to get you off the street! And then we’ll write our report about all these sick fags!”

  “Right on, Pat!” cried the baby cop, who got his horse to rear up as though he were the Lone Ranger and galloped down the street.

  Leatherette collapsed beside me. “Thank the Sucking Cherubim they have to fail tests to get on the Force!” he cried. “And thank the Creator of All Anal Warts that you Italian girls all look the same. Sandy, what in the name of Mary, Mother of Drag Queens, are you doing on the sidewalk with a child?”

  “He’s sick, Leatherette.”

  “Well, at least let’s get him in the park and behind some bushes.”<
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  A gigantic figure entirely in leather, with golden spurs, strode over to us. It was our friend, Doctor Ignacio Micheluzzi.

  Leatherette saw him, and called out: “Oh, Rose Hips Medicatrix, thank God! This child is sick, and Sandy’s playing the Lady with the Lamp, not one of her best roles.”

  “Let’s get him onto a park bench,” said Rose Hips. “Is that his vomit?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Let me look at him before we move him.” He bent over Earl. The sidewalk was now impassable. Pedestrians saw a leather-clad giant, a fat man, and a small man with a huge leather bag, bending over a prostrate teenager.

  Rose Hips had changed from being frighteningly flamboyant to acting utterly professional. I knew him vaguely from standing room at the opera. Although we all loved operatic sopranos, especially fat ones, Rose Hips was the maddest Caballé Queen I have ever met. He had attained heaven alive by becoming part of the team treating her during one of her innumerable health crises some years before. Since he was the only one of her doctors who loved opera, and spoke Spanish, she had discovered his home phone number, called him, gotten his answering machine, and sung all of “Vissi d’arte” as a way of saying thank you. Rose Hips walked on air for years afterward.

  He and Leatherette had met while temporarily sharing a sling at The Mineshaft. They had amused each other so much, they had committed the gravest faux pas in that dark dungeon of tough anonymous sex—giggling uncontrollably at their would-be “masters.” They had been thrown out and had avenged themselves by shrieking opera arias outside the place for hours until the police came and embarrassed the tough and punitive leather queens inside.

  “What’s your name?” Rose Hips asked Earl.

  “Earl.” His voice was high and slight. Rose Hips took a deep breath.

  “Well, I’m Doctor Micheluzzi, but my real name is Rose Hips Medicatrix. Do you know what all that means?” Rose bent over Earl, looking at him intently. I saw his eyes go immediately to the mark on his throat, then, to that on his forearm.