A Horse Named Sorrow (11 page)

It made me cry because I was a homo and it wasn't gonna be nice for me either. Not with Cavanaugh, not with Ricky, not with anybody ever. And what's more, it was a song my mom wouldn't allow in the house. Even though I'd hunt down these golden oldies just to sing with her, I'd sometimes get it wrong. There were certain songs that were okay: “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” “Quinn the Eskimo,” “Bobby McGee”— songs about someone who was still out there somewhere. “Eleanor Rigby,” for instance, had been another mistake. Because my mom kind of was Eleanor Rigby: a more modern, prettier Eleanor to be sure, but a Rigby all the same. She didn't keep her face in a jar by the door, but she kept her past there. Actually, she had a box for it, under her vanity in the bathroom.

I found it one afternoon, during the latchkey period of my matriculation when I was about ten. I'd been snooping about, looking for my father. I found him in the oddest places: pictures secreted away in spice jars in the kitchen; a shaving kit behind books on a shelf; a pair of his aviator sunglasses in the glove compartment of the Vega. Mom's box was under her dressing table, and it was a major jackpot. Not only was there a Jimi Hendrix sticker on the top of it, but it was chock full of cool ‘60s stuff she never used anymore. There was white nail polish and blue eyeliner, pictures of her and my dad from those little photo booths—man, he had a smile! And his hair was curly like mine but cut so short you could barely tell. There was one of his old worn-out wallets, with a California ID inside—so Wally Cleaver in his checkered short-sleeve shirt: James Owen Blake. There was a shiny stainless steel cigarette lighter too, and gaudy, colorful beads, and big gold hoop earrings.

I couldn't resist.

She walked in on me dancing in a polka-dot sundress I'd unearthed from the far back of the closet, my eyelids blazing turquoise and my nails all painted white—both feet and hands; her big hoop earrings dangled from my earlobes, catching the waning sunlight from the window, and her multicolored beads jangled on my flat little chest like a tambourine, while I sang along to the Archies:

Sugar … oh, honey, honey
…

She dropped her groceries and her jaw. Her eyes blazed vengeance. I stopped and looked at her. I think I smiled contritely, but I may have frowned, as I recall thinking how drab she looked. How drab she'd always looked. It was hard to imagine she'd once worn colorful flowery or polka-dot dresses, and this wild jewelry. As I knew her, she usually wore things like camel skirts and ivory blouses. Her earrings were always little studs, her hair groomed professionally for her office job.

She was turning red. “Seamus, how dare you!” She gave chase, while the song went on at top volume:

… Put a little sugar on it baby!

I didn't quite understand at the time whether it was me dressing like a girl, or the particular choice of my drag—or maybe it was even the song. I only knew she was miffed.

The needle skidded across the record; she spanked and dragged me by the bicep. I never did put up much resistance after my initial flights. She pulled the dress off me, yanked off the earrings—which hurt; almost strangled me pulling the necklaces over my head. She pulled me by the forearm into the bathroom and went to work, scrubbing my eyelids and painting all my nails with remover. She did it quickly and ruthlessly, ending with a “Never, ever do that again.”

I looked her in the eye with fear and conviction and nodded my head.

The box vanished and she never mentioned it again.

And Ricky found me. Probably came looking for his stolen money and pot. I was staggering around. I had a sense that there were gophers everywhere under me and they were all about to come out like Viet Cong from their tunnels. I heard helicopters scouring the hills. And then here comes Ricky, and I swear to God he looked like a clown. He often used some white makeup with his goth getup, so maybe I just hallucinated the rest. But I distinctly recall a big red nose and a frown painted in green around his mouth.

I probably tried to run, but wasn't able to, and apparently when I tried, I tripped and collapsed into unconsciousness.

The temptation must have been there for Ricky to pour lye on me and make use of the jackpot of bones I could provide for his rituals, but in a pinch Ricky came through as a good middle-class kid. He carried me home and called 911. He was no stranger to robo-tripping. Maybe he was only saving his own skin, figuring he'd be implicated as he was the one who first turned me onto it three months before—and had unintentionally financed this trip besides.

Maybe he just loved me.

Fat chance. And not how I wanted.

But enough of Ricky. It was the look on my mother's face later at the hospital that changed everything. It was I who had done something wrong. How could I? She called Cavanaugh a weak soul and me a little devil. Thanks to my sorry little suicide attempt, I'd found a way to corner the market on guilt in the whole mess, while Cavanaugh was in clover in Mission Viejo I think it was, down among the lotus-eaters of Orange County. I'd saved him.

My mother loved me but she'd be damned if I took the church or myself from her. As for them taking me from her, she didn't see it that way now that I'd just tried to take my life. The only danger to me was myself.

“Think of your father,” she'd admonished.

“I do. I think about him all the time.”

And she burst into tears and hurried out of the room.

If I hadn't been such a wackjob and she hadn't been such a victim, I could have at least demanded a chunk of change out of the church and made Cavanaugh sweat some. I didn't begrudge him the sex—I liked it. But in time, as he never came back or wrote or anything, I grew angry and felt he'd abandoned me, run off—and for that I hated the coward.

Men and abandonment.

Oh well. After all, I'd gotten my little bag of silver; I really had.

Though it ended up in a piggy bank. Compounding interest. My cock in trust until I went off to college and it got loose again. Like a credit card.

Maybe I'd found my father after all. Hanging between my legs.

And I'd gotten the message from my mother, in no uncertain terms, that my little briefs were the frame on the TV where he needed to stay.

Well then, every church is my father's gravestone, I suppose. He's up there on the cross. And now it's Jimmy's too, but he was no Jesus. He wasn't really St. Sebastian like all the other homos either. Maybe he and I were the two thieves. Butt pirates after all.

So how long do I have to hang here alone?

Jimmy gave me a fighting chance, that's what he did. Jimmy liked keeping things in line. He'd had a string of disobedient pets as a child, and he'd learned he had a gift for an odd kind of discipline: pull, Seamus; sit, roll over.

The dog biscuit of his love.

Because Jimmy was someone you just wanted to please after a while. Or I did anyway. Maybe it's that Jimmy had a whole lot of trouble, but didn't complain. Not much anyway. Or maybe it was just that he was the cutest guy I'd ever set eyes on, with his big brown eyes under the pronounced and serious brows, those cheekbones and that perfect mouth, the Adam's apple, the chest—and all the way down to his cute long bony feet. A marvel. But beauty was never enough—I'd had the billion one-night stands to know that much. It was his kindness that got my tail wagging. Not big stuff either. It was that he helped people in small, seemingly insignificant ways. And it was always the most troubled people he helped: a homeless woman who needed toilet paper; a disoriented old man on the bus who suddenly panicked when he forgot where he lived. Jimmy asked him for his license, and together we walked Stan home and ate Fig Newtons with him. Jimmy made him coffee and called his niece.

Jimmy also volunteered with the needle exchange program and handed out hypodermics to junkies on 15th Street at the Armory. That's how he got to know Tanya. And pretty soon they were friends. “I see why you pined, Shame. He's a keeper,” Tanya told me.

I admired Jimmy, that's what kept me hooked. He was strange, and a bit moody, but in a good way. Different. I'd go about my day, quaffing coffee at Muddy Waters, having panic attacks, arguing spelling with young tykes at the Y, handing out quarters to the legions of the wacked that patrolled the streets of the Mission District, all the while wondering what Jimmy was up to, slinging blood and doing small favors, being more effective than I could ever be.
How'd he do it?

“How do you do it, Jimmy?”

“There's no trick, Seamus. Seeing what needs to be done and doing it.”

All I ever needed to know. All that falls with the rain and rises each morning with the sun.

But I was someone who needed tricks to get out of bed, to eat, to work, to go to a movie. I needed tricks for everything. Without tricks, I'd likely never get out of bed at all. Bargains and promises and obsessive worries:
The world might end today—you don't want to be in bed for that
. Or,
someone might set this building on fire, so you better get up and go somewhere else
. How about:
If you go to tutoring today, a parent might see how well you treat their child and hand you a check for ten grand so you'll never have to get out of bed again—at least not for a good long while
. These tricks weren't even believable (like, I only worked with low-income single-parent kids). They were my soup-for-brain's way of expressing superstition, I suppose. And what the hell is superstition anyway but the desperate rationality of the panicked, who've come face to face with the fact that it's all chaos, and goddamn they need a story—and fast!

Tricks.

Wishes.

Seeing's what it was. No tricks with Jimmy. You could trust Jimmy, marvel at his sanity. Jimmy and Jimmy's ideas were strange to me because they looked like the God's honest truth. He was different and he was certainly different than me. And so he remained a sort of holy intimate stranger. I'm not so sure what I was to him. I don't think he thought me particularly unique or admirable. But Jimmy didn't seem to want anything in particular from me.

“What is it, Jimmy—what do you see in me?”

“You got a good heart, Shame. That's enough.” And he'd smile and turn out the light.

On another occasion when I asked, he said: “Who says I see anything in you? You're like a window, Shame. I see right through you.” And he'd chuckled.

“How's the view, Jimmy?”

“I like it, Shame. I've always liked ruins.” Winking Jimmy.

“Yeah, well maybe I oughta charge admission. I'll put a turnstile right on my back belt loop. One dollar a ride, just like the MUNI bus, Jimmy. Pay or get out.”

“I'd jump the turnstile.”

“You'd be arrested and fined.”

“Gladly. I'd charm the judge and jury. Exhibit A: your cock. B: your sweet little ass. C: your beautiful face. Crime of passion.” And he'd grin like a winner. Charming son-of-a-bitch, Jimmy was.

“Jimmy, you make me frisky. All I did was ask a question.”

“That'll learn ya,” he liked to say as he took to wrestling with me.

And it's those little phrases lifted from Nina Simone records and who knows where else that catch in my throat. And then he'd be pulling at my clothes. “I like the view, Shame; let me see the view.” And through the turnstile we'd go.

And black is the color of my true love's hair
—even if he always dyed it blond.

I know why I loved him. He lacked the profit motive. And of all the supermarkets in all the broken-down strip malls of the world, he walked into mine. Across the linoleum he trundled his shopping cart all tied with strings, peering up at the little signs over each aisle: coffee, canned fruit, beverages, boys. Would they hang us like at the butcher's? Or just stand us up like cans or cereal boxes? And there I was, having fallen off the shelf, a sort of dented box of love, but still with a good bit of shelf-life.

Each morning out on the road I'd rise not long after the sun, moving about quickly in the cold, climbing into my sweat-dried, stiffening shorts and salt-stained Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt. Then I'd get Jimmy up and tie him on the handlebars, quickly pack the sleeping bag, mount my humble vehicle, and move out from whatever campground I'd found in search of a diner, where I always ordered the same thing: pancakes. They always came in stacks of three, just like wishes in a church. Everything a trinity. I clung to the magic I knew. Which pancake's the father? Which the son? And which the holy ghost? The kingdom of carbohydrates; their power; and the glory of how far they could take me each day—one hundred miles.

All of which led to me to saying grace and a prayer for the souls of Jimmy Keane, James Owen Blake, and my wounded mother. Take this cup of coffee, I'd mutter, hoisting it to my chapped lips. And then I'd douse the offering in syrup—three supersized eucharists, amen. I crossed myself, and bolted them down.

Jimmy grew impatient with illness and suggested we start going to ACT UP weekly.

“What about
fight no more forever
, Jimmy?”

“It won't be forever, trust me.”

It was somewhere to vent, but also: seeing what needs to be done and doing it.

Jimmy joined the media committee and wrote press releases and called news outlets.

It became our social life. ACT UP gave me a sort of team feeling, a kind of power I'd never been familiar with, loner that I was. Although it often felt hopeless too, reminding me of what a vale of tears life was. Of course, it helped that ACT UP was loaded with cute guys. And angry cute guys at that, which gave them sex appeal—and made me feel guilty.

Mostly I took pictures, so I made it art and history too, which was something—and I needed something. Because Jimmy was going to die and then I'd have nothing.

So, in the end, as always, the guys and girls at ACT UP, like the kids at the Y, gave me more than I ever gave them. I showed up, did my little part, and I appreciated that they never asked any more from anyone than what they wanted to give. They were mostly young guys in their twenties, many of whom, like Jimmy, had
it
, disabusing me once and for all that
it
was a '70s-guy disease. These were young punky guys in leather jackets and Mohawks, babydykes with nails through their noses, radicalized middle-aged men who'd lost their safe place in the gay bourgeoisie. And Tanya of course, and even Lawrence sometimes too.