Faggots (27 page)

Yes, the place was dark, in the way pogroms were dark, though nobody seemed to be complaining, everyone seemed to be milling about without protest, what do they see in each other?, how can they see each other?, their faces come and go as the mirrored ball up there turns around; here is a handsome young fellow in denim, right now I should be in the denim business, with on his baseball shirt “University of Miami.”

“Miami? I’ve been there many times,” Abe tried to chat. “What did you study there, if I may ask?”

Miami, big and hunky and not meant for ordinary men, looked at Abe, then quickly looked away. Then, as if some vestigial rule of politeness, to such an older, fatherly type, unaccountably reasserted itself, he mumbled: “Political Science.”

‘That’s very important today. What sort of work do you do, if I may ask?”

Evidently I cannot ask because Miami has walked away. In political science he will go absolutely nowhere.

Have I seen enough? The dancings? The schvartza boy singing in a dress? The crowds rushing to see two fellows play with peepees? Now I have heard whispering of doings “Behind the Green Door.” Location scouting or not, I am not up to Behind Green Doors alone. Where is Fred? Who is meant to meet me here and take me there? And where are the nice nightspots where in the old days you just sat and drank some vodka and a pretty lady sat on top of a piano and sang her sad songs about love?

He’d looked for Ephra, not too much, just a little, that was like the old days, too. Why couldn’t he make up his mind what to do with that woman? After all these years. Was she like some old suitcase he just couldn’t throw away?

Once again he began thinking about, and wondered why he was thinking about, his Richie. His Richie who had so rarely given him anything to think about. He had said many times to Ephra: “I’m perfectly willing to pay attention to Richie if Richie would only do something worth paying attention to.” That Richie had somehow managed to get into Choate and Yale, Abe attributed more to his own name than his son’s abilities, and that he managed to get honor grades at both institutions Abe attributed to cheating. The last time Abe, if pressed to remember, had given the lad any true thought was when he
was
a lad, thirteen, and entering the son’s bathroom by mistake (he had been away for a marriage and not known Ephra had reassigned the toilets), and perceiving a revoltingly heavy odor, and looking questioningly at his younger, and allowing his gaze to trail down the boy’s naked body, he inquired why the genital area was overlaid with smelly mauve cream. The son, sheer terror rendering speech impossible, turned his face to the wall. Abe bent down to retrieve from the floor a depleted tube of depilatory and then smacked Richie as hard as he could, splat! with one hand, splat! with the other hand, until the tuchas of his younger son and heir, at that moment hairless, was truly very red.

“How will you become a man! Life does not come to the hairless! When will you learn to grow up! When will you learn to become a conniver like your Pop!” were all the words Abe could call upon to yell.

Yes, that was the last time, and why couldn’t Richie have been like Stephen the football player, Stevie the Class President, Steve the champion intercollegiate boxer, Steve-ala the successful lawyer with that nice wife and sonny in New Jersey and why am I thinking about my boys in such a place as this?
All
my boys!

It is difficult to be philosophical in such a place. That black shiny stuff is leather! So much leather. Such a goyish fabric, leather. Though certainly none of these zombies is Jewish, particularly with such a sign on the wall as:
WELCOME S.S. BERLIN
!, with drawings of men’s goggle-hooded eyes and motorcycles, such goyish transportation, motorcycles, and an arrow pointing to something called “Cherry Grove,” which sounds most American to me.

So the Nazi invasion returns! So Hitler lives! Nothing has happened in space and time. I hoped I would not live to see it again.

His son, our Richard, would not, at this current moment, be in agreement. He was beyond space and time. He was beyond three dimensions. He was beyond care and woe and fear. He was Certyned, Drayled, Festinated, Orange Fluffed, Magicked, Codinexed, Misdayted, and a few Othered. He felt wonderful. And he had made a new plan!

Everyone in this Toilet Bowl was his friend. “Hi, Tiger!” some bald pate yelled in greeting. “Hi, Tiger, yourself!” Boo Boo yelled in greeting back. Yes, tonight he even had enough courage to take a flyer up Park Avenue to growl at His Eminence himself, to leave with the doorman the note in his back tush Levi pocket, like some process server evicting, at last!, the one remaining holdout rent-controlled tenant who’d refused to move. Yes, he, Tiger, would do that. Yes, he would. Yes, he would.

Yes, tonight I’m growing stronger, Boo Boo is becoming a Man!

What a place this was! He left the slumming straights and was allowed by a black guard to pass Behind the Green Door. I’ll just take a little look. As a sort of prelude to my pits of sexuality. As a warm-up for Fire Island tomorrow. Rumor has it it’s all here. Somewhere. I’m only taking a peek. Being an explorer. Explore these inland waterways. I always wanted to travel. Jackie O they call this one, eh?

He counted fifty urinals standing up. Along with all those men in front of them. Seems innocuous enough. And he thought there were fifty, although he could be counting double. But in the adjoining sister suite, the Radziwell Annex, he was perplexed to count the fifty urinals lying down. He wasn’t lying down. The urinals were. Along with all those men in front of them.

“Hello, Uncle Richie. What are you doing here?”

Uncle Richie knew the voice and knew the form and knew his fifteen-year-old nephew, Wyatt, and plotzed.

“What am I doing here?! What are
you
doing here!”

“Hiding.”

“From what?”

“Er…I’ll tell you in a minute. Do you come to places like this often?”

“Places like what? How the fuck do you know so much?”

“Er…I’ll tell you in a minute. Uncle Richie, as long as you’re here, why don’t you show me your thing.”

“I think I’m having an anxiety attack.”

“What’s an anxiety attack?” Wyatt put his Uncle’s hand against his crotch. The Uncle did not take his hand away.

“Feeling your nephew’s cock is an anxiety attack.”

“So you have been to places like this before. I’m glad. Now we have something in common.”

Boo Boo gagged.

“What’s the matter, Uncle Richie?”

“Where did you get…
that?
”

“It is kind of big, huh?” Wyatt proudly took it out for closer admiration. “It’s ten inches. I’ve had it about a year now and I charge ten dollars for it and I have $2,579.63 in my Morristown Friends School savings account.”

The Uncle double-plotzed. “Jesus, Wyatt, how the hell do you ever expect to get into Yale doing things like that!”

There were a few groans from adjoining clumps of shadows doing things to each other. Richie protectively tried to shoo them away from his young relative. With his free hand.

“It’s OK, Uncle Richie. I’m quite experienced.”

“Wyatt…you’re a fucking freak!”

Wyatt didn’t want to, but he began to cry. It was beginning to close in on him that the Big Boys’ World might be a lot more to handle than he’d been accustomed to having handled. It had been much easier just charging for it in the dark. But now he’d fallen in love with an older man who seemed to be in constant rather nervous states (didn’t it get easier when you got older?), only to be dancing in his arms and look up to see my own grampa walking along the edge of the dance floor, causing me to burp, grab my crotch which suddenly hurt, then run and hide in this place, only to discover my very own Uncle who seems to be in worse shape than Anthony. Yes, Wyatt began to cry. “Don’t you like it, Uncle Richie?”

“What the fuck are you crying for!” Boo Boo was not sympathetic. Though the two of them had never been close, Wyatt had, indeed, always looked upon his uncle as something of a necessary evil, he never remembered Wyatt’s birthday, and Richie was jealous that his brother, Stephen, loved his own son more than he’d ever loved Richie, nevertheless they were still kin, so Boo Boo shook Wyatt by the shoulders and berated him once again: “What the fuck are you crying for! Are you crazy! You’ve got something that every man in America, the world, the Entire Universe Since Time Began, would give his left, right, nut, his tits, hell, his soul for! Stop it, you silly ninny, and get down on your knees and thank God!”

Wyatt started to get down on his knees and thank Richie, but Richie pulled him back up again.

“Stop that!”

“I just wanted to see yours!” “Why aren’t you using it on a girl?! You’ve got to use it on a girl!” “I showed it to one and she fainted! Have you shown yours to Marci Tisch!?”

Richie sighed. He understood. Poor little fella. Poor big fella. “Well, listen, Wyatt, I don’t know what to tell you. You know any older women?”

“Uncle Richie, I don’t think you’re very well-adjusted.”

“Listen, Wyatt…,” the Uncle was trying very hard not to get hard, not to get excited, not to lose his drugged-out state—which this evening he’d calculated had cost him twenty-seven dollars even, no sales tax on drugs, and would have cost him only twenty-two if he’d brought more Magic last night, but The Gnome had already upped the price after his new line’s successful launch—and tried not to look at that hose pipe still dangling out below, and not add the size of it to his owner and equal that both of them were his nephew and twice as big as his and…

“Uncle Richie, you have a hard-on.”

“You little pisser!”

“Where?…where?…” someone croaked from the darkness.

“You little son-of-a-bitch freak!”

So croaked Richie as Uncle and Nephew, now joining his elder in a state of suspended animation, rushed to join each other in family togetherness, Uncle bending low and putting into his mouth the wholesome largesse of Nephew, practically choking, forcing himself to continue, get this Bronstein jewel in, why the fuck, oh why oh why oh why the fuck couldn’t I have had one this size! Was this another item to lay on stingy Abe?

He sucked and sucked, look at me sucking, I’m usually the suckee, it really is a big kick sucking on your own blood, do I go blind or grow hair upon my teeth, oh Dr. Rivtov please don’t look at me now I’ve got a big enough load of guilt, and at this moment young Wyatt—overexcited and usually not such a premature ejaculator, but then it wasn’t every day one had one’s only Uncle, no I think I have a new baby Uncle, gee I wonder if he’ll like to do this too?, in one’s crotch—shot what tasted like a very small jet of watery semen into his older Uncle’s mouth, said Uncle, was this his entry into sexual pits?, his very first fountain from his very own Ponce de Leon?, yes said Uncle now wishing he was unrelated.

“That was very nice,” Wyatt politely said. “I hope we can do it again very soon.”

“Don’t be so fucking polite!”

“Why not? I liked it.”

“You’re supposed to be overcome with Jewish guilt!”

“What guilt?”

“For Christ’s sake, don’t they teach you anything in that school?”

“You’re still hard, Uncle Richard.” Wyatt was unbuttoning.

“Of course I’m still hard! I’m only human! Keep your hands to yourself!”

“It isn’t very big. But Mommy says best things come in small packages.”

“It’s big enough and anyway I’ve got to learn to live with it and I told you to keep your fucking hands to yourself!” His own Nephew telling him he had a small cock!, as if I didn’t know, oh as if I didn’t know and had to live with…now this…ten inches of my own blood…

“OK.” Wyatt removed his hand and stooped down to use his mouth instead.

“OooooohhhhhaaaaaahhhhhhiiiiiiiiI!”
emitted Richard, causing helpful vibrations in the dark room, the excitement of others always useful as a turn-on elsewhere, Uncle now knowing he was lost, his own Nephew sucking his cock, it was more than Ripley could print, Dr. Caligari put in his cabinet, hey Guinness Book of Records, is this a dingeroo!, oh daddy mommy brother God Rivtov forgive me all. Richard ejaculated into Wyatt’s mouth.

“I never did that before. It has a very interesting flavor.”

“I never did either and doesn’t it just.” Richie buttoned up his Levis. He then slumped down on the cold, damp floor. “Oh, Jesus H. Christ on a crutch, whatever have we done.” He wanted to cry.

Wyatt sat down next to him and tried to pet him into comfort.

“Don’t touch me! Clothe your nakedness! What shall we do?”

Wyatt zipped up his pants. “I really think you’re making a very big to-do over this, Uncle Richard. Did I do it wrong?”

“You did it perfectly! You did it as if to the cock sucker born! You little cock sucker! Don’t you know that what you’ve, correction, we’ve just done is considered by ninety-nine and ninety-nine one hundredths percent people as abnormal, immoral, illegal, dirty shameful, wretched, that’s it,
wretched,
oh, oh,
Oh…,”
and he now held his head with both his sinner’s hands, expecting, no, bringing upon himself the onslaught of doom.

“Stop it stop it
Stop It
!!!” Wyatt’s turn now came to croak, null and voiding the high-pitched excitement in the shadows that Richie’s earlier emissions had so recently encouraged, now himself terrified, joining his Uncle in shaking and quivering and wondering what to do next as anxiety, fears, tremblings, weakening of the kishkas, were all passed along from generation to generation. “Uncle Richie, if you’re so miserable, you really should get some help!”

Richard, at this moment, fortunately, well, let’s hope fortunately, but then his record has not been so good up to this crossroads, suddenly turned mature. Something dim and distant was stirring in his brain…a dangerous sign?…“It’s OK, Wyatt. It’s OK. I think I overreacted. My support system momentarily let me down. It’s going to be OK!”

The two of them held on to each other.