Templeton switched on the ignition as I climbed back into the Porsche with Mei-Ling.
“I guess they didn’t want the dog.”
She watched Delgado unlock the passenger door of the Mercedes and hold it open while his wife folded her skirt beneath her and slipped inside.
“I’ve seen Regina looking better.”
“You know Mrs. Delgado?”
“Regina? When I was a little girl, I wanted to be Regina. For about six months, anyway.”
“I don’t get it.”
“She was a supermodel, Justice. Don’t you notice any women?”
“I’m noticing you. Keep talking.”
“Twenty years ago, Regina was a runway superstar, known for her long legs and haughty manner. Of course, in those days, she was a brunette, famous for her long, dark hair. When she reached the end of the runway, she’d reach up and flip her hair back. Kind of a professional gimmick. The cameras loved it.”
“So it’s a bleach job now.”
“That’s not peroxide, Justice, it’s a wig. Can’t you tell?”
I watched Delgado back the Mercedes out and find a place in line. The hearse from Farthing Mortuary pulled away and up the hill with the other vehicles following like a toy train.
“I guess that’s something only a woman or a hairdresser would notice.”
Templeton found her own spot in line and crept slowly forward, while Mei-Ling pressed her nose to the glass, whimpering.
*
Rod Preston had been entombed in one of two marble sarcophagi inside a private, walled garden in a section of the park called Eternal Heaven, where several dozen flower arrangements had just been placed. The other sarcophagus had been reserved more than three decades ago for Charlotte, when the more exclusive plots on this side of Forest Lawn were still available for purchase. Inside the garden’s low walls, bordering a small square of lawn, a marble bench had been placed where a friend or relative might sit and visit with the deceased. Charlotte’s casket-shaped sarcophagus had been decorated at its crest with a simple cherubic angel, a choice her father had made when she was five years old and the apple of his eye. The similarly shaped sarcophagus next to it featured a horse that was also carved in marble and, atop the horse, the naked figure of a youthful male rider.
Eternal Heaven was located near the Great Mausoleum, a monumental structure that housed the remains of numerous Hollywood luminaries, including Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, W. C. Fields, and Irving Thalberg, the legendary mogul who served as the inspiration for the title character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
The Last Tycoon.
Rod Preston could have chosen a higher location near the Freedom Mausoleum, where Clara Bow, Alan Ladd, and Nat King Cole were interred, or the hilltop Garden of Memory, which contained the remains of Mary Pickford and Humphrey Bogart. At one time or another, Rod Preston had met most of these famous people, and had worked with some of them. He had chosen Eternal Heaven, however, because of its view of the Valley, and some of the old studio lots where many of his pictures were shot.
I learned all this during the interment service, while Templeton stayed with Mei-Ling in the Porsche. The pastor spoke in a warm and casual manner to the gathered mourners. He thanked everyone for coming and even expressed his gratitude to Farthing Mortuary for handling Charlotte with the same dignity it had invested in the farewell to Rod Preston several months earlier. When the minister had concluded his remarks, and the crowd had begun to break up, I followed Charlotte’s mother at a discreet distance as she made her way along a walkway toward the road and her waiting car. At her approach, the uniformed chauffeur came quickly around from the driver’s side, opened a rear door, and stood facing the interior.
“Mrs. Preston?”
She stopped at the sound of her name but didn’t immediately turn, as if it hadn’t quite connected. When she did finally face me, she at first said nothing.
“I was acquainted with Charlotte.”
“How nice of you to pay your respects.”
She started to turn away.
“Mrs. Preston, I have something that I believe belongs to you.”
Again, she faced me, keeping silent.
“Charlotte’s dog—I’m sure Charlotte would want you to have Mei-Ling.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. I’m allergic to dogs.”
“Someone has to take the dog, Mrs. Preston.”
“I prefer Miss Grant.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Grant.”
“You and Charlotte were friends?”
“I didn’t know her long.”
“You liked her, though?”
“She seemed like a sweet person.”
“Too sweet, perhaps. Awfully naive, my poor Charlotte.”
“I got that impression myself.”
“But you did care about her.”
“Yes, I suppose I did.”
“You keep the dog, then. Something to help you remember Charlotte.”
She moved on to the car, where the chauffeur placed a comforting hand on her back and another under her arm, assisting her inside.
“Miss Grant?”
She looked up from the backseat, raising her veil, offering another glimpse of her lovely, aging face.
“Perhaps I could come down to see you in La Jolla, where we could speak when you have more time.”
“You know where I live?”
“Charlotte left me some notes.”
“I’d prefer that you didn’t do that. I cherish my privacy, and I’m grieving the loss of my only child. I’m sure you understand.”
The car door was firmly shut without another word being spoken. When the chauffeur swung around, glancing briefly in my direction, it was to warn me with steely eyes not to bother Vivian Grant again.
The moment also provided me with my first clear look at the face of Miss Grant’s trim and short-haired driver—the first time I realized that her affectionate chauffeur was a woman.
I sat on the redwood deck of Oree Joffrien’s Baldwin Hills house, watching the downtown skyscrapers across the city to the east.
As I stared at the distant pinnacles of light, I found myself wishing I had a drink, something strong enough to fuel my desire for the single most appealing man I’d spent real time with since Jacques died.
I wanted to feel it again, that rush of warm desire; I wanted it to happen more than anything—to be with Oree in the fullest, most complete sense. Part of me did, anyway, a part that seemed closed off to me now, that I couldn’t get to anymore. Since sero-converting and receiving my final test results, the instinct to be close to any man had vanished from my interior world like an extinct species, with hardly a trace. I’d heard that some men react just the other way when they get the chilling news, running out into the night looking for sexual contact, desperate for affirmation that they’re still alive, pretending that everything can go on just the same, unchanged, maybe even looking for revenge, a human receptacle for their anger and irrationality. It didn’t happen that way for me. Oree was the last man I’d touched with genuine affection and sexual warmth—a tight hug, a kiss good night, a straying hand to the face just short of an invitation to stay the night. But that had been a year ago, and the notion of repeating it now mysteriously repelled me.
He was inside, cooking. I’d offered to help, but Oree was the king of his kitchen. He was a soft-spoken and benevolent monarch, to be sure, offering samples along the way that he’d personally pop into my mouth, grinning happily when I was surprised and pleased by the taste. But he was the ruler of his domain nonetheless, and there had been nothing for me to do as he chopped chilies and stirred the sauce. He was making New Orleans-style gumbo, his father’s recipe, with fresh crayfish he’d picked up at a market down on Crenshaw Boulevard, harvested that morning in the Colorado River and flown into the city for discriminating afternoon shoppers. He’d asked me beforehand if spicy food was OK, and I told him yes, that my stomach was fine, which was a lie, another little lie that was part of the greater lie of my life. All that had been left for me to do in the kitchen was to talk, and the silence that had grown between us finally drove me out.
“I think I’ll take in the view.”
“Sure, it’s a nice night.”
I’d escaped into the cool spring air to sit in an Adirondack chair just beyond the open dining room doors and look at the city lights. Baldwin Hills was an unincorporated community ten miles west of downtown, with a population of more than thirty thousand, many of them affluent African Americans like Oree. He wasn’t a rich man but he was comfortable, a professor of anthropology at UCLA with advanced degrees from good Eastern universities, who made extra money writing articles and books and sitting on panels with other distinguished academics, talking about important things. He lived alone—his lover, Taylor, had passed five years earlier—but Oree seemed to have a good life, down on the pretty UCLA campus or up here on the hillside in his three-bedroom house, cooking his favorite recipes and listening to fine jazz. Still, he was thinking of selling the house and moving to a neighborhood where the memories of his dead partner didn’t haunt him quite so sharply. He wanted a fresh start, he’d told me, not more years trapped in the past. He’d said it just that way, looking me right in the eye.
Inside the house, Coltrane’s
Ballads
was playing, a collection of unhurried, melodic tunes in which Coltrane’s alto sax seemed at peace for once, tender and comforting. As I closed my eyes, the sound filled my head with the color blue, and the desire for a strong drink seemed not so powerful, not so necessary. A minute or two later, I was startled by a hand laid gently on my shoulder.
“Sorry, Ben. Didn’t mean to scare you. Dinner’s ready.”
We ate in the dining room by candlelight, side by side so we could both look out at the city lights, tearing off soft, ragged hunks of freshly baked sourdough French to eat with our steaming bowls of gumbo. Oree asked about Charlotte Preston’s funeral, which led me to tell him what I’d uncovered in the previous days about Randall Capri and Rod Preston. I mentioned my visit to Horace Hyatt that morning, and Hyatt’s obsession with youthful males. Oree talked about the natural and powerful connection between sensuality and the visual, whether it was the male or female form, a magnificent mountain, a gorgeous sunset, a lovely tree.
“You can’t make love to a tree, Oree.”
He glanced at me with his bright, warm eyes.
“You can with your mind.”
He offered me more gumbo. I shook my head, and he took some for himself.
“Hyatt claims his relationship with the boys is strictly that of artist with model, purely platonic.”
“Maybe it’s true, Ben.”
“Maybe.”
“He sounds like a visionary. Someone for whom the young male form is exalted—on a spiritual level that transcends fleshly desire.”
Oree mentioned certain artists—Picasso, Gauguin, the poet Walt Whitman, the author Henry Miller—for whom sensuality and sexual pleasure were akin to a religious experience.
“I guess I have a problem with the age thing. Fondling altar boys never seemed like it should be part of the ceremony.”
“Spoken like a true Catholic.”
“Fully lapsed, in case you’ve forgotten.”
He smiled a little, shrugged his wide shoulders.
“Maybe your feelings about sexual limits are as much cultural as anything else.”
“We’re talking about sex with children here, Oree.”
“First, you’d have to define the age when childhood ends.”
“I’d say the other side of puberty is a pretty good place to start—fifteen, sixteen, somewhere in there. I understand how alluring youthful beauty can be, but even then I still have some problems with it.”
“Puritanical guilt?”
“I think children should be allowed to be children, without adults manhandling them into maturity.”
“There’s plenty of evidence that grown men have coupled with boys throughout history, for all kinds of reasons.”
“That justifies molestation?”
“I think time and place, cultural tradition, have their place in the discussion.”
“Spoken like a true anthropologist.”
He mopped the bottom of his bowl with some sourdough and ate in silence, a thinking man deep in thought. Then he pushed away the empty bowl, turning to look at me more directly.
“In ancient Greece, the cradle of modern civilization, lovemaking between men and boys was almost commonplace. It was an act of service and respect to the older male that many boys eagerly awaited, and performed without apparent or lasting emotional damage. During times of war, boys have often served soldiers in place of women, consensually, without anyone’s sense of masculinity being damaged. Alexander the Great, one of the most respected military leaders in history, was comforted throughout his adult life by younger male lovers. In some modern South Pacific cultures today, many boys embrace their feminine side in the most natural way, sleeping with mature males or boys their own age without guilt or shame. Even in tribal Africa, you see some of that, adult men taking boy-wives.”
“In our culture, though, boys are usually bought—by older men who have something younger boys need.”
Oree pursed his lips, nodded his shaved head.
“Unfortunately, you’re right.”
“It’s rarely a question of love. More often it’s coercion, an exhibition of power over the weak. Men with money or drugs or a safe place to stay exploiting needy boys sexually, or girls, if that be the case.”
Oree rose, picking up our empty bowls.
“I don’t disagree with you, Ben. The more materialistic the culture, the wider the income gap between rich and poor, the more likely money is to corrupt.”
I followed him to the kitchen, carrying the unused utensils. When we’d placed the items on the sink and our hands were empty, he faced me.
“So, you see, we may not be so far apart on the issue after all.”
“I was just venting, that’s all. You know how I am.”
He smiled.
“I like how you are, most of the time.”
“When I’m sober and not fucking up my life or someone else’s.”
“It’s good to see you getting back on track, Ben. Maybe it’s time to stop beating yourself up over things from the past you can’t change.”
He slipped his big hands around my waist, resting them on my hips. I looked up into his eyes, which were calm and reassuring, encouraging my trust. A smile parted his dark, sensual lips.
“It’s been a while since we’ve been together like this, Ben.”
“Yes, it has.”
One of his hands left my hip, found its way to my face. He stroked my cheek gently with the backs of his fingers, slowly, up and down, several times. Just before I met him a year earlier, I’d grown a full, thick beard, but I’d recently shaved it off, and this was the first time he’d actually touched my face.
“You haven’t told me yet if you liked my gumbo.”
“I liked it very much.”
“I’ve got dessert, key lime pie.”
“Sounds tasty.”
I put a hand tentatively on one of the hard plates of his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath his shirt, sensing his heartbeat. It was meant as an affectionate gesture, a small step toward getting more comfortable with him, but as he leaned down and brushed the slope of my neck with his lips, I found myself using the hand to push him away.
“I can’t do this, Oree. I’m sorry.”
I turned so that my back was to him.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Oree. I don’t know what to do.”
“Maybe you should start by admitting out loud that you’re HIV positive, just like me, just like millions of others in this world.”
The Coltrane ended and the house was silent for a moment before Oree cut into it.
“You’ve never spoken those words to me, Ben. Those three words:
I am HIV-positive.
You’ve never spoken them to Alexandra, either.”
“You two are comparing notes on me now?”
“I’ll bet you’ve never said them aloud to anyone, not even to yourself.”
He was right, of course. Even when talking to Dr. Watanabe at the Miller clinic, I’d managed to find language that was indirect, less concrete.
“It takes courage, Ben, I know. But if you don’t face it, accept it, you’ll never be able to deal with it or get past it.”
“Nobody gets past it. You know that.”
“Maybe not. We’ll see.”
“I shouldn’t have come here tonight. I’m sorry, Oree.”
I felt his hand on my shoulder, let it stay a moment, trying to get used to it, trying not to think about the virus that resided permanently in both our bodies, connecting us even while it kept us apart.
“We can move slowly, Ben. As slowly as you need to.”
I drew my shoulder away, sensed his hand drop.
“You can’t rescue everybody in the world, Ben. Not your little sister, who’s been gone sixteen years. Not Jacques, after ten. Not all the troubled boys out there right now, with the predators circling around them. Maybe you have to rescue yourself before you can rescue anyone else. Maybe that takes the most courage of all.”
The other side of the Coltrane collection started up, “Nancy with the Laughing Face.” I should have taken Oree’s hand, asked him to sit with me out on the deck under the stars while we listened to the music. The opportunity was there, and it would have been so simple.
“I’m going, Oree.”
“Say the words, Ben. Say them out loud, right now:
I am HIV-positive. I am infected.
Speak the words.”
I turned to face him, to show him some respect. I figured he deserved that much, anyway. Looking at his handsome face, into his wise and thoughtful eyes, I felt like two different people inside, two split halves: one who wanted to reach out to him, to pull him to me and never let go; the other afraid of everything he represented, the good and the bad, the darkness and the light, the promise and the doom.
“Thanks for dinner, Oree. I’ll see you around.”
*
It was still early as I drove down out of the hills, not even nine o’clock, and I felt anxious and unanchored. I turned off La Cienega Boulevard onto Fairfax Avenue for no particular reason except that it was too early to go back to Norma Place and an apartment that had nothing in it but a needy little dog I couldn’t seem to get rid of. Minutes later, I was passing through the business district known as Little Ethiopia, past the restaurant where Templeton had introduced me to Oree a year ago, when it seemed like so much of the crap in my life was behind me, and I’d started making plans again. How does that saying go? “It was a good plan until life got in the way.”
Nobody was better than me at feeling sorry for himself, which made me the ideal alcoholic, and as I made a couple of turns and cruised toward the grittier streets of Hollywood, I admitted to myself that I was probably looking for a drink, and, after the first one, a few more, and after that, if I was still conscious, some reasonably decent-looking guy on a street corner who’d come home with me for an hour or two if the price was right. I drove past all the bars I knew from the old days, the days that had turned into months, then years, after Jacques died and I wrote the series that won the Pulitzer and made a mess of my career and Harry’s. It seemed like every one of the old joints was still there and always would be, dingy-looking places with pale, sputtering neon signs in the blocks just off Hollywood Boulevard. They were all the same in that neighborhood: places where you could smell the urine before you even got through the heavy black curtains across the door and all the hustlers along the bar looked up with druggy eyes when you came in, hating you while they smiled and got their first line ready to lay on you, looking you over and seeing cash, another fix.