Faggots (30 page)

Timmy still waited in the thinned-down Dixie Disco, his eyes still nervously on heaven. He’d tried to get up to those flies where the columns were presumably resting. But he couldn’t find the way. And no one had been able to help him.

People, now pretty much exclusively male, were still rushing back and forth, cascading from one playground to the next. He noticed the group of models from Garfield’s orgy last night looking at him critically. So he stood tall and cool and proud and stared right back. He somehow thought this was how Winnie would play it.

Then he saw Randy Dildough coming toward him, hand outstretched, a beaming and welcoming smile again upon that face.

“A very fine performance, Timothy! My congratulations. I certainly know how to pick them.”

Timmy looked him right in the eye and decided to play this one as Winnie would, too. “Go away, Crud Man!” he said, and walked away to further make his point. That should show him. Leave Tim Purvis hanging indeed!

Boo Boo finished writing. And then, pausing only to let his mind, or what is currently left of it, caress the loving thoughts: sexual proficiency, orgiastic participation, and money here I come! Soon they’ll all be saying: “There goes Richard Abraham Bronstein! You know who he is!,” he grabbed his new helpmate Wyatt by the hand and confided to him: “I think this should do it. Let’s go and burn our incense!”

Fred and Dinky, hand in hand as well, had exited Behind the Green Door and bumped right into Abe.

“Fred-chen, where have you been? This place is not for me. I want to go home. Tell me, how do you meet people when no one talks? Even a hooker on the street, I’d go up to her, say hello, what’s your name, where are you from, how much do you charge?”

Fred and Dinky both laughed, Fred, feeling so good, kissed Abe and introduced Dinky, and then Dinky said: “You don’t talk to people when you cruise. The secret is to just look mean.”

“What please is a cruise?”

Fred answered, waving his hands about in his best screenwriter’s descriptive way: “Think of this place as a great big store, with lots of merchandise on display. But you don’t really look at it too closely, because you don’t feel like shopping today. You look at it…obliquely. You give it a little look, pretending not to look, but being able to see, out of the corner of your eye only, if anyone else is pretending not to look back at you. If you see someone else pretending not to look, you look the other way. Only after a few moments do you look back, to see if he’s still looking. And if your eyes look, at the same moment, you’ll only let it happen for a second, and then you’ll look away again.”

“It’s very complicated. You want to write a movie about this? The pace will be very deadly.”

“…hi Gramps…”

Abe looked, and there was his grandson.

“Meine kleine Wyatt!”

“…Gramps, I got this note for you…”

And kleine Wyatt, pushed from out of nowhere into prominence by a helpful Uncle no longer there, plopped the piece of Hermes paper into his Grampa’s hand and then tore off like hell.

“Who was that, Abe?”

“But wait! My Wyatt!”

Dinky looked and saw Irving Slough coming toward him all in black.

Abe had read the note.

“Abe! What’s wrong!” Fred looked upon an Abe now all in white.

“I…I…I…speak to you later.” And Abe rushed off and into the crowd as well.

Fred turned to Dinky beside him. Dinky wasn’t beside him. Dinky was talking to a stranger.

And Irving Slough saw Dinky talking to a stranger.

“Gentlemen and Gentlemen! Men and Men!, our final attraction of this momentous evening, rush rush rush back to The Fucketeria, for our grand and climactic event!, you ain’t seen nothin’ till you’ve seen our grand and climactic event!…”

And the crowds began to rush rush rush!

“This is Dennis,” Dinky said, introducing both Fred and Irving, not only to each other, but to a tall and blond and not very special-looking young man dressed all in leather.

Fred asked himself: Who the fuck is Dennis? And: So that’s Irving Slough? Two weeks with
that?

“I forgot to tell you both about Dennis.”

And Fred watched and Irving watched as Dinky took a dog’s lead and collar studded with silver knobs from a hook on Dennis’s belt and put it around Dennis’s neck.

And Irving’s thoughts runneth over: Who the fuck is Dennis? And: So Dinky is in leather and boots already! So Dinky is in leather and boots already!! Is there no surprise left he hasn’t surprised me with? And: So that’s Fred Lemish. Yes, Fred Lemish is coddling his Pandora’s Box of Pain. He does not understand that Dinky is collaring this Dennis as a retreat from all our pressurings. And: This Dennis is his defense against feeling and involvement, his barricade thrown up against any commitment or anger, love or pain. And: How can I use all of this to my advantage? Particularly when this Dennis, and this Fred, are pains in my box, too. Dr. Irving Slough put his hand to his own belt and unhooked his own dog’s collar.

Dinky, his eyes on no one, said: “I forgot to tell you that I had this date tonight with Dennis. We’re going to do a leather scene.”

Irving found himself heaving his fifty-five-year-old body in creaking basic black leather not so broken-in as he thought, down to its knees, and offering up his own canine accoutrement in homage, and then further bending into grovel as he kissed Dinky’s chunky boots. “I thought we had a date. Do it with me, too,” he begged.

“Get up, Irving,” Dinky said. “You look very silly in leather. But we’ll experiment later. I’ll show you a few things later. Dennis doesn’t like threesomes. Do you, Dennis?”

Dennis obligingly shook his head No.

“I thought we were spending the night,” Fred said, his stomach’s ballast heaving from port to starboard with nary a port to rest.

“We will. We will. Tomorrow on the Island. We’ll spend the night tomorrow on the Island.”

“What are you going to do?” Irving asked jealously, pulling his own port back up.

“Oh, Dennis will crawl around naked on the floor with his cock in a nice little black leather case we’re fond of and I’ll order him about and he’ll obey me. It’s all kind of silly. It doesn’t mean a thing to me, fellows. Believe me. I might even have to leave him for a few minutes to go out of my room and laugh. You see, I can step in and out of it and look at it from up above and outside of it and think my goodness isn’t this silly and then step right back into it with him. I usually wind up fucking him. And letting him shoot all over my boots. He really likes my beautiful boots.” And he tugged on Dennis’s lead and Dennis obliged this time with a Yes.

OK, Lemish. Now you’ve heard it. Now you’ve seen it. Rome built and destroyed in a day. How do you feel about it? Still on your fence? How do you fence with this fence? Quick! This is a moment desirous of action. Quick! what’s the Proust line?—that we’re attracted to those people who have qualities we hate in ourselves? Is he attracted to me because he hates his perversions? Or am I attracted to him because I hate myself for wanting to be Dennis right this very minute? Marcel, come help me! Whose fantasy man is whose? And why is it that both of our fantasy men seem completely different from those we’re choosing! Sweet & Dreckness! what did they say? Quick! In their semenal
The Abandonment to Sex…?…
“Two lovers must feel free to explore their fantasies with each other to the utmost…” What two lovers? What love? Where’s love? Tomorrow! Always tomorrow! What’s going on here today? Why is he doing these things? To himself! To me! I’m a fucking towerful power of rage! I’m all wound up!

And wind up Fred did. Just like in his lesson at the Y. And slugged his Dinky in the puss. Take that! Dreck & Sweetness! And down went Dinky. Splat.

“Fred!” Gatsby rushed up. “I suggested a confrontation, not a main event!”

Fred fell into Gatsby’s arms, his Robert Redford to the rescue. “He’s fucking himself up!” Fred tried to tell his friend. “And he doesn’t know it!”

“If he’s smart enough, he would know it,” Gatsby sensibly answered. “And if he doesn’t know it, he’s not smart enough and you shouldn’t want him,” he just as sensibly continued.

But what had any of this to do with sense! Fred tried to find words to tell them all. “You…you…you don’t know what you’re involved with!”

“You’re crazy, Mister,” Dennis said, none too pleased his Master had been floored, but helping him up anyway.

“No, he’s not,” Irving said, nodding, looking at Fred. “He’s in love.” And he walked away. Angry. Very angry. I think our Dinky must now be punished. For the error of his ways. Tomorrow in The Meat Rack.

Bo Peep, who had seen it all, rushed up to help man the comfort station. “Oh, Fred,” the sweet face said, “it’s the oldest story in the world. You must say to him I’m not going to see you anymore as long as you treat me this way. I’m more special than you’re treating me.”

“Have you said that to Tarsh?” Gatsby’s sensibility once again intruded.

“Well, not exactly. But I will.”

But Fred had walked away, too. Events were now passing beyond the realm of even Cary Grant.

Fred paused outside The Fucketeria. He tried to give himself a good talking to. OK, buddy, you feel simply terrific. You’re having a dexedrine high. You have just performed an act of courage best executed in our era by Nurse Nellie Forbush when she extirpated that man right out of her hair “and sent him on his way!” OK, buddy, you go on your way now, too. You look terrific. Everyone says your new body is superfine. Now…now…now…go into this Fucketeria place and use it! Go in there and become an abandoned, passionate Thing!

“Uuchh!”

This sound escaped Fred’s lips.

Yes, he had entered The Fucketeria and yes, he had become accustomed to the gloom and the sounds of slurpings midst the presence of brothers. Fred saw on neighboring risers at least seventeen faces he recognized to talk to, not here of course, but knew well enough to puzzle how one had sex in a bathtub full of friends. Perhaps to combat this, The Gnome, busy as ever in moments of need, rushed and darted about with his cigarette-girl’s tray of goodies, seeing to it that a healthy round of Magic was available to all.

“Uuucchhh!”

Yes, he had dropped onto one of the lower bleachers and then wished for the seventeenth time this weekend to be Dead.

“Uuuuccchhhh!”

For there before him, there on center stage, in center arena, in media res, beautifully lit with pin-pricks as in the best Broadway shows, his hands and feet bound to rough wood, upon a cross, erected for this main event, his American debut, hung the lean and lovely body of his First Beloved, Feffer.

“UUUUUCCCCHHHHH!”

For Feffer is being whipped by the two whippers who are Lance Heather, in matching tones of brown Bavarian leathers, and Leather Louie, in matching same of black, with an armada of arcane implements culled from far and near, slash slash slash, the crowd is going wild!, this place is truly the winner!, this scene becomes a milestone!, this night goes down in history!, all further triumphs henceforth are measured!, slash slash slash, Feffer’s body evidently loving every whip and fanny and slither and driblet and shameful ignominy, and Fred, Whom-Am-I-Ever-To-Fall-In-Love-With!?!—Fred, still dry-eyed in martyrdom, slowly rises from his lower riser and like some Jewish acolyte who just might be approaching insight and knowledge, walks slowly up up up up to the First Love of his life, so vividly perched up there before him.

“Hi, Lemmy.” Feffer focuses his eyes, looks down, and smiles kindly. “I tried to call you but you weren’t home. I didn’t want to talk to your machine.”

“Is this what you wanted all along?”

“Not much difference in it either way. It really depends on what you feel like on a particular night.”

“Oh, Feff.” What’s going on here? I know what’s going on here, but what’s going on here?

“Now, Lemmy, don’t go and get sentimental. This really doesn’t mean very much.”

“Your little long black leather belt has come a long way.”

“Well, it has been four years.”

“You want a lick?” Lance offers Fred a turn at bat.

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Go fuck yourself yourself.”

“Gentlemen!” Leather Louie mediates.

“So long, Feff.” This time I’m leaving you. Though where I’m going I don’t know. Have I been to so many places like this that I’m going blind?

“’Bye, Lem.”

And Fred walks away. And out of The Fucketeria, where the scene and scenes continue. And into Anthony, his best friend, so kind of fate to proffer his best friend, in this moment so calling for extreme unction.

“This is Wyatt,” Anthony, avoiding Fred’s eyes, introduces a quivering young fellow.

“Unh, how do you do?” Fred, now glazed beyond any donut, automatically offers a hand.

“I’m in love with Anthony and I’m going to go and live with
him!”

Anthony shrugs. “What am I going to do, Tante?”

“You didn’t tell me he was a teeny-bopper.” Fred continues his exit walk. Solo.

Meanwhile, in Dixie Disco Dancehall, there is suddenly much commotion.

Winnie Heinz has fallen to earth. He had paused, up there in heaven, reached out, thinking: I’m almost there, but here, still here. He had thought momentarily that he saw the truth, right over there, through to the end, and now I must reach out farther, truth is farther away, if I’m going to reach out, reach far, Winnie, reach far and you’ll be there, my angel’s dust will take me there…And out he’d reached and fell to earth below. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Oh, Winnie! Good-bye. Proud beauty! Duncan Heinz IV. Looking thirty, claiming forty, actually forty-five. Now joining the sands of history on this famous night. Winnie Heinz is dead.

Timmy cradles his Winnie in his arms and softly cries. He had seen it all. That fall of grace. He looks up and addresses the few spectators left in the empty Roseland. “He was the most beautiful and sophisticated thing I’d ever seen. He taught me everything. He taught me love.”