Faggots (26 page)

“Rolla, we’ve started!” Yootha had said just minutes earlier, while they waited for their entr’acte backstage, where he unfortunately had to share his dressing room with the fucking and crucifixion acts. The make-up table was confused with Crisco and Muguet de Scandale, and Yootha vowed it wouldn’t be long before he’d not have to be so mortified again. “We’re on our way!”

“Yes, Yootha, we are. And Rolla is proud of you. You are now setting a fine example for all my boys. Rolla is additionally most honored that you have requested him to be your Maid of Honor on this, your first night of many nights of tribute. It is reassuring that some people do not forget the earlier kindnesses of strangers.”

“I couldn’t have done it, Rolla, without your support and belief in me and my talent.”

“Now, dear, wasn’t it a man in a Doubleday’s men’s room that got you started on your rise to fame?”

“Oh, Rolla, I long to see him again! I dream of him and hope that one fine day I shall see him across a crowded room and we shall rush into each other’s arms and live most happily ever after.”

“Just write another song about it, dear. Out of your pain.”

Now, with the crowds going wild, bobbing and swaying and sniffing to Yootha’s intricate mouthing of the words, as the song boomed out over the huge sound system, Rolla’s own flat-brimmed granny hat also nodding its poppy to and fro, both singer and Maid of Honor shivered for their success. Yootha thought of Billie Holiday, and the Supremes, and Diana, and Donna, and thought, too, of this floorful of faggots and foreigners, none of whom two days ago would have given him the time of night, but now were whistling and clapping and cheering one of their own. So, throwing out his long white-gloved arms in upstretched love and thanks, bending his frail body in artistic gratitude, then standing upright again to acknowledge the acclaim with thrown-back chin of pride, then up with the arms again, mustn’t be quite so energetic, the net is flimsy and the seams are frail, but let them know it, let them know!, the new star cried out to his legion of new worshippers: “I forgive you!”

The Toilet Bowl was launched! In Dixie Disco Fred danced and danced with Tarsh and Gatsby and Mikie and Josie and Dom Dom and Fallow and Bo Peep and Bilbo, all of whom he’d be with tomorrow in the house they shared in Fire Island Pines.

The music was in high gear, society slummers really cutting rugs, these boys can certainly dance and show us a good time!, building to Up and Upper and Uppest with an overlay by that clever Pepino of “Now Is The Hour For Us,” on top of “Old Acquaintance,” with, from the seventeen left-handed speakers the additional rhythm of “Jingle Bells,” and just barely audible but a clever bit of bouquet garni nevertheless, from speakers twenty to twenty-five, on the right, a low feed-in of his prized recording of the theme from “Cobra Woman,” played on the lute by the composer himself, all of this beneath the overriding blanket of “Honey, Where Has Our Love Gone To,” the tensions of many thousand bodies so minutely matched to the music’s every whim, matching their evening’s drugs, coordinated with Pepino’s own, so that clashing cymbals jerked them Up like the electric shocks of Disp, then Down with marimbas and cascading xylophones to the low of Flayl, all of this codified, amplified, innuendoed, transmogrified beyond any body’s pure cognition, the smashing of the brain!, all it felt was GOOD!, these boys can really show us how to play!, Fred dancing in all of this, among his friends but waiting for Dinky, “Forgiveness, Patience, Tolerance, Tenderness, are my new keystones, Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he even thinking that in this melange of sound, such a nice gesture from Pepino, he’d heard the theme music tossed in from his own
Lest We Sleep Alone.

In the Lusitania Lounge, all fitted out most smartly with the gleanings from a sunken Cunard liner, Irving Slough was holding forth. He leaned against the portholed-backed crush bar, surrounded by his friends and associates, were they not the same?, and felt proud. Here was his dear Hans Zoroaster, surrounded by seven of his beauties, including Winnie, ah yes Winnie, well…, and here was his old friend and beard, Adriana la Chaise, and here, too, was his fine vice-president, Anthony Montano. And do we not all represent a veritable rainbow of the panoply of today!

For Hans was all in brown leather, his freshly pierced tit gleaming with a ring of Van Cleef gold, and Winnie was in a modest half-naked Indian costume, his body lightly burnished with Germaine de Laszlo’s Get Ready for Summer Tone # 4, and the models—Lork, Carlty, Yo-Yo, Dawsy, Tom-Tom, Pusher—were all dressed alike in St. Laurent suits, and Adriana was dressed like a Marine, and carrying an enormous mailbag, “Working-class haberdashery is now so chic,” and Anthony wore his conservative suit and tie, and Irving…

“To us and our noble profession, to which we owe so much!” Irving toasted after tipping the cute waiter in the bikini and pinching his bunny’s tail.

His group toasted him back with averted eyes. For Irving had finally done it. He was appearing at last in public in full leather drag. From head to toe he was all in basic black.

Winnie was having difficulty following everyone’s words. He was dusted, marvelously so, The Gnome’s stuff was the best, no doubt about it, but Winnie knew when no one was looking at him and this always bothered him, dusted or not. He sensed underlying currents neath the dust, particularly since Irving, a kisser, had not kissed him as he usually did, and Anthony kept fidgeting with his fingers as he directed his look-out to exterior shores.

Irving continued his toast: “We have been taken in! Where others have not! We have risen to the top, to be in control, always providing we not be too obvious, not rub their noses. How many places allow us to be so creative? Where else could we be so much the unseen power!” He was suddenly overcome with such gratitude that he grabbed an armful of models, three or four of them, not Winnie, and cooed and cuddled them, and ruffled their finery, and then continued toasting with full hug: “Yes! We have commercialized the human body! Yes! To Advertising!”

And everyone mumbled: “Amen.”

“So tell me honestly, Anthony, do you really like it?” Irving struck a peacock pose. He put one hand on the crush bar and stuck one up as if he were gazing out to sea and he smiled at the portholes as if even they were winking back their full approval.

“Stunning, Irving. You really bring it off,” Anthony’s eyes were still looking for young Wyatt, also out at sea, who had been dancing in his arms in the mellowness of a closed-eye moment of butterscotch, only not to be there an open-eye later.

Hans said: “Tonight, Irving becomes a man!”

Anthony shrugged, then put a sad and protective arm around Winnie, as he thought: My boss a leather queen. Oi, Irving, we are the half-people in the half-art run by the half-talented, the stunted, it ain’t as good as the real thing, where is my real thing?, Fred and Ginger didn’t dance in Toilet Bowls! Wyatt, wherever you are, come back! But he said: “Yes, Irving, you’re a vision.”

And Irving looked around him now, too. Where was his Dinky?, to see me on my blackhood night and be most approvingly surprised!

“Ladies and Gentlemen! On our Junior Stage, past Dixie Disco, to the left of Lusitania, adjoining Rancho Notorious, and outside our Fucketeria, rush rush rush and give your attention to our next scene of the evening—The Mister Thick Dick, Mister Long Dong Contest!”

That did it to Ephra Bronstein’s kishkas. Dicks and Dongs! She knew what they were!

First Peetra and that newborn pisher in Paris. Then the Mizrachi mess (it simply did not pay to be so charitable). And now this place. Which made her sweat. She did not like to sweat. She did not like to sweat and she did not like to see so many fine fellows dancing with fine fellows. Why had she insisted that Abe bring her here? Particularly an Abe she was finding most difficult to communicate with in her golden years or any others. Ach, it took so much energy to be a part of toute society! Perhaps she should just retire to her Candlewood Lake and take some final vow of withdrawal like the nuns. Dicks and Dongs and Abes and Pishers and Sweat! She had rushed to powder her nose and have a quiet drink of water.

Now this.

Not that this Ladies Lounge of some place…she could not bring herself to say it…the Johnnie Bowl…, which was inexpensively decorated in pink paint only and concrete floor since after tonight it would probably receive little use, overwhelmed her…

But something which called itself a Nancellen Richtofen did.

This very tall drink of water sat opposite her, staring and smiling and staring some more, always talking, chatting inexhaustibly, then even a hand, ever so gently, on the knee…She was handsome, in the way that that nice Claudette Colbert had been handsome, if not so tall, and she was piercing Ephra with deep-blue eyes of intelligence and unwavering interest, all of which, or rather none of which, her current B’nai B’rith course on “Fully Utilizing the Energies of Your Golden Years,” had cared to deal with.

At first, Ephra hadn’t noticed her. Then she noticed her a teeny bit. Then she noticed her a great big bit. Then she thought she was appalled. Then she decided she was not appalled. Then she decided that, Mama, wherever you are with your tennis racquets and sporting goods (had not Poppa parlayed a few baseball bats into the Number Three sporting-goods company in the country?, unable to become Number Two or One because golf and tennis were still then gentile games and “they” preferred to buy from their own kind, Wilson and Spaulding, so goyish), Mama, please to forgive me, but I am an old lady, also number Three, no, Number Four, no, Not Even in the Counting, yes, I am an old lady who wants some Number One Good Times before I die. And was God not giving her a last clue on what she’d been missing all these years?

For the intense interest on the part of this younger woman was giving the older one hot pants.

“You are not Jewish?” Ephra found herself meekly inquiring. Did our Ephra have an unknown thing for shiksas?

“No. A German name. An American girl.” Nancellen’s voice was calm and evenly pitched and direct and honest. She knew how to cruise. She also had a penchant for older women, her own mother, now boarded up under her own stage out there in California, having been a cunt. Now here was Mrs. Ephra Bronstein, a mother-type certainly, and not without resemblances to her own—handsome, trim, chic, with only a superfluity of bosom in excess, a desirable excess, yes a most classy exterior, the riches of the world on the outside of her, is what I want on the inside of her?—yes, Nancellen, as her many conquests could tell you, was not one to beat around the bush, or rather, was one to do just that. She also was, at thirty, feeling the pressures of advancing age. Most of her Lesbian friends were now settled down, as opposed to most of her faggot friends, who never seemed to roost, and she was tired of being the single woman at all those dinner parties. Her career as a Bendel’s model had led her to a job at Catholic Charities, which had led her into feeling much warmer toward herself. So perhaps she was ready for a relationship.

So she continued her plunge. “I am going to call you my Q.M. My Queen Mother.”

“I am begging your pardon?” Ephra was not well-versed in chat. Yes, everything this evening was totally incomprehensible to her. Why, only a moment ago three little minties had rushed right into this very Ladies Room and felt her dress and its fabric’s texture and begged her to tell them where she’d bought it. Boys interested in dresses! But then had come Nancellen to the rescue. With a “Knock it off, you fairies!” So effective. Nancellen. Such an American name. Had she been there waiting all along?

“Tell me, my Q.M., have you ever been to bed with a woman before?”

Ephra looked up as several further male intruders, this time naked sprites, their ding-dongs bouncing up and down, rushed in and then rushed out with happy cries of silly glee. So these are Fairies, this is Fairyland. Did just being here require a different tongue and language?

“Please,” she finally said, “please don’t talk such things, you are giving me excitement and now all I feel is confusion and I want my husband, Abraham, who is never with me when I need him.” And up she stood.

Nancellen, sensing that such seeds planted must be harvested, or at least watered, as soon as possible, immediamente, pronto, schnell, otherwise the drought sets in, winter comes, love dies, stood up with Ephra.

“Mrs. Bronstein, my Q.M., I think we might be meant for each other. It may not be tonight, for I sense this not the best of moments to show you the tender love you are obviously missing. But I shall find you. And you will have had time to think. And yearn. And to fantasize your Nancellen. And to be ready for her when she calls. And should you by any wild stretch of your journeyings be in the vicinity tomorrow of Fire Island Pines, I live on the Ocean at Sunburst.”

Then Nancellen bent down to kiss the soft top of the Seligman and Latzed coiffure, and to touch the Dorothy Grayed soft cheeks, and to run her own long unpainted fingers o’er that ample B.H. Wragged bosom which had known much life. Ephra shivered. And it was not a shiver from cold.

Then the tall one left the short one, standing alone. Again alone. She went out to seek her Abraham. She could not find him. So, what else is old? So she went home. Yes, home again. Alone.

Though he was trying to feel and look chipper in his old and most favorite De Pinna seersucker, Abe was not succeeding. He felt far less jaunty than his suit. I am a new Poppa. How do I feel about that? How do I feel about a new son? She can’t have him! She’s a no-good! She will give him a bad name! She only blackmails me into larger alimonies! But what do I do with him? Ephra does not want him. Ephra will not even discuss. What do I do with such a mess?

He had wandered off the beaten track and into the murky, shadowy, smoke-filled darkness that was the intimate meeting room known as Rancho Notorious. Looking around him, as best his gaze could penetrate, he began to feel even less jaunty, less chipper, more seared sucker. Men dressed like cowboys or in shiny black outfits were lined up, standing immobile like cigar-store Indians, stares fixed into space, not looking at each other, not smiling, not saying Hi and Hello, What’s New, How’s the Family…Yes, they are looking like things or pieces of meat on a rack. And none of these companions appeared to appreciate the sartorial splendor of seersucker. Abe had received many a withering eye.