Authors: Armistead Maupin
Tags: #General, #Gay, #Fiction, #Social Science, #Gay Studies
“Good,” she replied. “I hoped it would.”
The Kid Upstairs
M
ICHAEL WAS FEELING REMARKABLY CHIPPER
when he awoke at eight forty-five in Simon’s musty bedroom. A cement mixer gargled gratingly out in the street and someone was frying kippers across the garden, but nothing could shake his nagging suspicion that life was finally getting better.
He flipped on his bedside radio. A newscaster informed him that a schoolmaster had been found crucified on a moor in Scotland and that London bookmakers had opened bets on when the capital would have a consecutive forty-eight-hour period without rain. None of it bothered him a bit.
He was brewing a pot of tea when someone rapped on his door. To be almost certain who it was gave him the pleasant illusion of being at home. “Mornin’, mate.”
Michael smiled at the kid. “Mornin’.”
Wilfred was wearing a variation of last night’s ensemble—a bow tie (black) and sleeveless sweater (turquoise), with a white shirt and 501’s. He had a “look,” it seemed. Michael couldn’t help remembering the porkpie hat he had worn all over London when he was sixteen.
“Tea?” he asked.
“Super,” said Wilfred.
“Sit down. I’ll bring it in.”
He returned to the kitchen and came back with the tea things on a tray. “Why didn’t you tell me you lived here?”
Wilfred shrugged, now sprawled on the sofa, one leg draped over the arm. “I didn’t want to be the wog kid upstairs. I wanted to meet you …” He searched for the right words and couldn’t find them.
“With our tribe?” offered Michael.
“There you go.” Wilfred smiled.
“Did you follow me to the Coleherne?”
The kid’s face registered mild indignation. “You’re not the only bleedin’ poofter who goes to the Cloneherne, y’know.”
Michael took note of the pun. “The Cloneherne, huh?”
Wilfred twinkled at him. “That’s me own name for it.”
“Not bad.”
“So what are you doin’ in Lord Twitzy-twee’s flat?”
“We swapped apartments. I gave him my place in San Francisco for a month and … Simon’s a lord?”
“He acts like one, that’s for sure. He’s a poof, is he?”
Michael shook his head. “Nope.”
“Didn’t think so.” Wilfred surveyed the room imperially. “Not very tidy.”
On that point, at least, there seemed to be a consensus. “I don’t think it matters to him,” Michael said.
“Who’s the midge?” asked the kid.
“The who?”
“The midge. The runt lady who visits.”
“His nanny,” Michael replied. “And watch your mouth.”
“His
nanny.
My-my.”
“What do you take in your tea?”
A powerful voice thundered in the stairwell.
“Wilfred!”
“Jesus,” muttered Michael. “Who’s that?”
The kid was already heading for the door. “Look … meet me at the tube station in half an hour. I’ve got something special to show you.”
“Wilfred, who was that?”
“Aw … me dad, that’s all.”
“Your
father?”
“Tube station. Half an hour. Got it? You won’t be sorry.”
He dashed out the door, blowing a kiss as he left.
Michael listened to him clattering up the stairs, then sat down and poured himself a cup of tea. This was an entirely new wrinkle. If Wilfred lived with his parents, the last thing Michael needed was to come off as the foreign reprobate who had “recruited” their son. Daddy Dearest didn’t exactly sound like a man of reason.
Fuck that. His life had finally begun to take on a momentum of its own, and it felt too good to turn back now. Or, as Mrs. Madrigal had once explained it; “Only a fool refuses to follow, when Pan comes prancing through the forest.”
So he ate his toast and marmalade, made his bed, and strolled up Portobello Road toward the tube station. Wilfred was waiting for him by the ticket machines. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it,” Michael said.
“Why?” asked the kid.
“Well … your father sounded pissed.”
Wilfred shook his head. “He doesn’t start in drinking till noon.”
Michael smiled, recognizing a language problem. “I meant pissed angry, not pissed drunk.”
“Oh. Well, he’s always pissed angry.”
“About what?”
Wilfred thought for a moment. “Maggie Thatcher and me, mostly. Not necessarily in that order, mind you.” He mimicked his father’s booming basso. “ ‘O? needs a bleedin’ Thatcher, when ya ain’t got a bleedin’ roof over your head? Eh?
Eh?’
That’s his favorite joke.”
Michael chuckled. “You do it well.”
“I hear it enough,” said Wilfred.
Following the kid’s instructions, Michael bought a ticket to Wimbledon, the last stop on the District Line, south of the river. As they waited on the platform, he asked Wilfred: “Does this have something to do with tennis?”
“Just shut your trap, mate. You’ll see.”
“Yes,
sir.”
Wilfred gave him an elfin grin. For just a moment, he reminded Michael of Ned in Death Valley, teasing his friends with the undisclosed wonders that lay just beyond the next bluff.
As the train thundered through the sooty tunnel, Michael asked: “Does your father know you’re gay?”
Wilfred nodded.
“How did he find out?”
The kid shrugged. “I was busied for cottaging, mate. I think that gave him a clue.”
“Cottaging?”
“You know … doin’ it in a cottage.”
Michael’s confusion was obvious.
“A cottage,” Wilfred repeated. “A
public loo.”
A woman across from them grimaced fiercely.
“Oh,” said Michael, somewhat meekly.
“That’s how I got tossed out of school … not to mention sacked from my job. I used to work down here in Wimbledon.”
“We call that a tearoom,” Michael pointed out.
“What? Where I worked? It was a bleedin’ chippie!”
“No, a cottage. We call a cottage a tearoom.” It was beginning to sound like a gay variation on ‘Who’s on First?’ and the woman across the way was the last to be amused. “I think we’d better drop this, Wilfred.”
The kid shrugged. “Fine with me, mate.”
When they reached Wimbledon, Wilfred bought a Cadbury bar at the station, broke off a chunk and handed it to Michael. “We’ve got a bit of a walk now. Let’s hope ol’ Dingo’s still there.”
“You bet,” Michael replied, smirking a little. He had no intention of asking what that meant. It was amazing, really, how much Wilfred’s technique resembled Ned’s.
The kid made a beeline for a butcher shop, where he strode up to the counter and ordered half a pound of beef liver. When the order arrived, Wilfred handed the cardboard tub to Michael. “Take charge of this, will you? We’ll be needing it later.”
Michael gave him a dubious look. “Not breakfast?”
“Not ours,” grinned Wilfred, leading the way out of the shop.
They walked through Wimbledon for five or six blocks. Twentieth-century Tudor alternated with bleak redbrick high-rises against a carpet of lush lawns. Michael was reminded of Kansas City, oddly enough, or a 1920s suburb on the edge of any Midwestern town.
Wilfred slopped at a vacant lot covered with brick and concrete rubble—all that was left of a house that had apparently burned to the ground. “They’re building another one here next month. Dingo hasn’t much time left.” He stepped nimbly over the debris, approaching the end of the lot where the rubble was deepest. Then he snapped his fingers to get Michael’s attention.
“What?” asked Michael.
“The
liver,
mate.”
“Oh.” He handed him the cardboard tub. Wilfred dumped the contents on a flat rock that appeared to have already been used for that purpose. “You’re freaking me out,” whispered Michael.
“Shhh!” Wilfred’s forefinger shot to his lips. “Just hang on.”
They stood like statues amid the ruins.
“Here, Dingo,” crooned Wilfred. “C’mon, boy.”
Michael heard a scurrying sound beneath the rubble. Then a pair of flinty eyes appeared in an opening adjacent to the flat rock. After a few exploratory sniffs, the creature scuttled out into the light.
“God,” Michael murmured. “A fox, huh?”
“Very good.”
“What’s he doing here?”
Wilfred shrugged. “They’re all over London.”
“In the city limits, you mean?”
“Wherever they can make do. Right, Dingo?” Fifteen feet away, the fox looked up from his dinner for a moment, then continued to devour it noisily. “They’ll level this spot in another month, and Dingo will be in real trouble.”
“Why do you call him Dingo?”
Wilfred turned and looked al him. “It’s what they call the wild dogs in Australia.”
“Oh.”
“I found him when I was working down at the chippie. One day at lunch I tossed him a bit of me fish-and-chips and he was so grateful that I came back the next day. But they gave me the sack, so I come down here on the tube when I can. It’s been a while since the last time. You miss me, Dingo? Eh?”
They watched in silence while the fox ate. Then Michael said: “We have wild coyotes in California. I mean … they come into the city sometimes.”
“Yeah?”
Michael nodded. “They raid people’s garbage cans in L.A. People have seen them standing in the middle of Sunset Boulevard. They don’t belong in the wilds, and they don’t belong in the city either.”
Wilfred nodded. “They’re trapped in the mess we’ve made. They know it, too. Dingo knows it. All he can do is hide in that hole and wait for the end to come.”
“Couldn’t you … get him out of there?”
“And take him where, male? No one loves a fox.” He turned and looked at Michael with tears in his eyes. “I bought him something especially nice this time. I’m not coming back. Me nerves can’t take it.”
Michael himself was beginning to feel fragile. “He looks like he appreciates it.”
“Yeah. He does, doesn’t he?” He smiled faintly, wiping his eyes.
“How about you?” Michael asked. “Can I buy you breakfast?”
“Sure. Sure, mate.” He glanced in Dingo’s direction again; the fox was scampering away.
“Do you know a good place?” Michael asked. “Yeah,” the kid nodded.
It turned out to be a tiny Greek greasy spoon only two blocks from the fox’s lair. Wilfred ordered for both of them, insisting upon the specialty of the house: fried eggs and banger and a side order of stewed tomatoes. While they ate, the skies opened up again, varnishing the cast-iron blind child that was stationed outside the door.
Michael peered at the statuette through a rain-blurred window. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” he remarked. “Do you drop money in his head?”
Wilfred nodded. “They have them for dogs and cats, too.”
Michael gave him a sympathetic smile. “But not foxes.”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen a real dingo?’’
“No. Me granddad told me about them once.”
“He was … Australian?”
“Abo,” replied Wilfred. “You can say it, mate.”
“What?” He didn’t recognize the word.
“Aborigines. You’ve heard of ’em.”
“Oh.”
The kid smiled impishly. “The ones the niggers get to pick on.”
Michael felt instantly uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Well, I would.” He sawed off a chunk of banger and popped it into his mouth. “Me grandmum was Dutch. Her and me granddad left Darwin during World War II … when you Yanks were all over the place and everyone thought the Japs were coming. Me dad was born in London.”
“And your mother?”
“She ran off when I was eight.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Sick o’ me dad and his bleedin’ port. I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t fancy me.”
“I doubt that.”
“You
don’t fancy me.” He was looking at his plate as he said it.
“That’s not true.”
“You don’t want to go to bed with me.”
“Wilfred …”
“Just tell me why, then. I won’t ask again.”
Michael hesitated. “I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense … even to me.”