Agnes Among the Gargoyles (23 page)

   The windows in Agnes's apartment are rattled by a stiff wind. Wayne pauses instinctively to judge its force.

   "But there was too much negative energy," he says. "Too much paperwork, too much worrying about my possessions and about preserving the outward forms of my life. I had to let it all go. I'm a lot stronger with nothing."

   Sarah hands out the date-nut bread. She sips almond tea and burns her lip.

   "If this film makes any money, I can pay some people back," says Wayne.

   "How many student documentaries make any money?" says Agnes.

   "How many have the Wegeman resources behind them?"

   Sarah changes the subject. "We're doing the odyssey of one gay man. We'll take him back to his old hangouts. He'll tell his old friends he's sick, and we'll film the reactions."

   "I haven't seen anybody in years," says Wayne. "I've been so busy. I'm studying to be a bodhisattva."

   "That's so great," says Sarah. "I know someone who studied in Tibet with Guru Rimpoche, the 12th Trugpa Tulku."

   "Oh, he's marvelous," says Wayne.

   Drudgily, Agnes begins the dishes.

Some people call Dennis Quarque the Australian Ronald Wegeman. He favors bowler hats and Cuban cigars and trick shop gags on a rich man's scale: rubber Chateaubriand, whoopie cushions loaded with mustard gas, joy buzzers that could stop an infant's heart. He made his fortune in newspaper publishing by running lots of dirty pictures.

   Quarque took a bath on his last venture, the
Sydney Reporter.
The
Reporter
was a tabloid modeled on New York's old
Daily News.
Unfortunately, Sydney was too civilized a place for a grubby tabloid. There wasn't enough mayhem.

   So Dennis Quarque came to America.

   He ran into a bit of luck. He had acquired some factories in Red Hook for possible conversion to condominiums. In one of the warehouses he discovered the printing set-up of the long-defunct
Sun:
linotypes, rotary presses, rotogravure equipment. Much of it was usable. Here was an omen: Quarque would start the
Reporter
all over again, this time in New York, where he could do it properly. The paper would be a true rag, violent and dirty and scary and titillating, like a walk through an slum. It would be real. And he would do it all on the cheap, pinching pennies until they screamed—non-union help, child labor if he had to—so that he would never have to dilute his product to please his advertisers.

   As his secretaries in New York said, in their charming fashion, "Fuck 'em."

   The paper was now called the
Graphic.
Its strategy was simple. Stories that appeared in the Metro Briefs section of other newspapers, torture slayings of prostitutes, rank-and-file mob hits, decapitations of drug dealers, were examined by the
Graphic
in minute detail. Morgue photos were often included. The
Graphic
's approach was strangely democratic: now, murder victims need not be wealthy and white to achieve extensive coverage.

   Tollivetti descends the slippery concrete steps leading to the composing room of the
Graphic.
The compositors, mostly from Hong Kong, peck out the copy on Linotype machines. Quarque has bypassed the unions. He has set up his own distribution network and hired two Chinese gangs, the Winged Monkeys and the Dragon Kiln, to keep his offices and production facilities and drivers secure. The compositors and printers, delighted to be employed, work at a pace that hasn't been seen in a union shop in a century. Completed slugs drop into galleys like rain falling on the grass, and these boys are deadly accurate, too. "Twenty-six letters, fifty-two characters—that's not an alphabet, that's a cinch," says the Linotype foreman, Victor Shan.

   Tollivetti hesitates at the tea urn. In his pocket is the second letter from the Minotaur of the Labyrinth. It came to his house. Tollivetti's loyalties are divided. Action News is harassing him about his salary, so they're not getting it. He gave the first letter to the
News,
but they gave it to the police and never printed it. What kind of journalism is that?

   Quarque himself appears in the composing room. He puts his arm around Tollivetti and steers him to a corner. "What have you got?"

   "What would you do with a letter from the Minotaur?"

   In his fingers, Quarque spins an unlit Havana. "I'd run it on page one. I'd box it. I'd put out an extra edition. I'd use red ink. Stop me when you've heard enough."

   The smell of ink always makes Tollivetti lightheaded. He hears a violent grinding of metal, and a warning buzzer, and a stream of Chinese curses. Mr. Shan loses his paper hat when he runs over to deal with the problem.

   The letter is in a plastic bag. Tollivetti hands it to Quarque, along with a pair of rubber gloves.

Dear Surs,

   I am the Minotaur of the Labyrinth. I have kilt woman, and I plan to do so more.

   I am a little peeved, frankly, at not seeing my first letter in print. I didn't actually ask you to print it, but I just assumed that was what was automatically done. Forgive me. I'm new at this.

   I am going to kilt again. You better tell the wimmin of NY to nail the shutters shut. No one nose how I chuse my viktims. I have a little plan, I have. I maled this to Tollyvetti because I think he can get the job done.

   Is there anything about the first job—by nife, by gun, by gum— that wasn't leaked to the papers? Yes. How about Mrs. Bloch's panty hose? She was wearing too sets, each with the opposite legs scissored off. I guess she cut off the legs with runs in them and wore two sets together to make one. It's an old Home Ec trick.

   Here is a piece of the kidne from the young one. T'other one I fryd and ate it was very nice.

   Sorry. I always wanted to say that.

   MOL

   "I'll do it myself," cries Quarque. Cheers ring out in the composing room. He fastens the letter to a Linotype easel and prepares to set the text in type. He rolls up his sleeves, parks his cigar. It would be a stirring moment if Quarque had ever worked a Linotype before. He stumbles, falters, searches the keyboard, curses, and sets but a few letters before losing patience with the whole enterprise. He runs his fingers down the keys and grins like a simpleton. The machine responds to his slapping and banging: etaoin shrdlu, etaoin shrdlu, etaoin shrdlu....

   "Shantih, shantih, shantih," says Mr. Shan.

Filming of Sarah's movie had begun on the Lower East Side. Sarah's crew consists of other film students from NYU. Bob Syker is also helping out. He and Sarah go way back. She has always been his favorite Wegeman.

   While Sarah sets up a shot with her cinematographer, Wu Heung, Wayne tells Syker and Agnes about his time studying in Thailand, and of his pursuit of the traits which distinguish the highly evolved bodhisattvas, the Ten Perfections: liberality, morality, wisdom, renunciation, energy, forbearance, truthfulness, resolution, good will and equanimity. The greatest barrier to his attainment of the Ten Perfections has always been his pursuit of corn-fed young men from the Midwest. "I have a Topeka fetish," he explains. But that phase of his life is over. He has conquered
tanha,
the ego's craving for temporal satisfactions. He will study and meditate, perhaps consult with a local guru, and eventually awaken fully and become a Buddha. He will move to another plane of existence.

   Syker can't believe his ears. "A Buddha, huh? That's a new one on me."

   Wayne fastens Syker with a penetrating gaze. "You're sick, aren't you?"

   "I've had a stomach virus for a couple of weeks sure," says Syker. "How'd you know? I guess a couple of weeks is a long time to have a virus."

   "Do you know what Bodhidharma, the first patriarch, said?"

   "Uh, no."

   "He said that a firm stool is more precious than a pound of sapphires."

   "I think I have an ulcer," says Syker.

   "I can help you," says Wayne. He gives Syker one of his books. "These are some basic Yoga exercises. Nothing complex. No show-offy astral projection. Just exercises and meditation keys. Try it."

   Syker flips through the book. "I haven't felt good in a long time," he says sadly.

   Wayne chuckles. "Let me tell you a story about the young Siddhartha Guatana. He was walking down a road when he encountered a robber, and the robber gave him a choice: his money or his life. Siddhartha Guatana said and did nothing for a long time, and finally the robber demanded an answer. 'I'm thinking,' said Siddhartha. The robber could not proceed without an answer, and so he went away.

   "Money and life are in opposition," Wayne continues. "Siddhartha learned that. He wound up giving everything away in the Great Renunciation. Remember Christ's dictum about serving two masters—where do you think he heard it?"

   "Thanks for the book," says Syker.

   Wayne issues a warning. "Take these matters seriously. Meditation is powerful. It can change everything—even your physical appearance. I don't look at all how I did ten years ago."

   He shows Syker and Agnes the small portrait he uses as a bookmark. The picture is of a man wearing an oxford shirt over a turtleneck. He has mutton-chop sideburns and a broad, flat, squashed face.

   "That was taken twelve years ago," says Wayne. "I wanted to break into radio."

   Syker snorts. "This isn't you."

   "Of course it is."

   "Wayne, that picture came with your wallet," says Agnes gently.

   Wayne confronts the unbelievers. "My body is lengthening. I'm becoming an ectomorph. I'm starting to look like the human incarnations of all the deities— Christ, Buddha, Vishnu, the Nagas, all of them. All holy men look alike."

   They stand outside a bar with no windows called Pato Sucio. The owner, Pat Summers, is an old friend of Wayne's. They haven't seen each other in years. Wayne worked for Pat as a waiter in the 1970s, when Pato Sucio was one of the great gay bars. It attracted interesting people of substance, says Wayne, but fortunately not too much substance.

   Lights ablaze, camera whirring, Wayne Torrence and company march into Pato Sucio. Pat Summers vaults over the bar. He puts his hand up in that instinctive gesture used both by those being filmed against their will and those about to be shot in the face.

   "It's me," says Wayne.

   The two old friends fall into each other's arms. Wu Heung circles them with the Steadicam, going for that vertiginous background against which old movies loved to play the clinch.

   Pat Summers is tall and stooped, all arms and legs. His parabolic moustache is gray at the tips. Once he recovers from the dual shock of the cameras and Wayne Torrence, his manner is thoughtful, practically ministerial.

   "Patrick, I'm sick," says Wayne.

   "I know," says Pat somberly. "I've never seen you so thin."

   "Or tall," says Agnes.

   Pat is outraged to hear that Wayne is living on the street.

   "You're coming home with me," says Pat.

   Wayne refuses. "I didn't show up here looking for a care partner."

   They exchange names of the dead and dying.

   "Todd Strictland?" says Wayne.

   "Co-op care," says Pat.

   "What a painter."

   Pat takes out a recent photo of Todd. In the photo, Todd holds onto his IV pole for support. He smiles weakly. He weighs about 90 pounds, and wears a Panama hat.

   Pat has to do something for Wayne. He has some friends at the Persons With AIDS Coalition. He wants Wayne to come up with him to the PWAC offices. When Pat goes into the back room for something, Wayne buttonholes Agnes. He is almost in a panic. She must come with them to PWAC. He and Pat haven't fallen into bed together often, but when they have it has tended to me on momentous occasions. Wayne doesn't want it to happen. He doesn't want to jeopardize the progress he has made toward awakening his
kundalini.

   Agnes agrees to chaperone. She marvels at Wayne's verve. How many men, dying and homeless, would still feel themselves sexual creatures?

   Probably every last one of them. They are an indefatigable sex.

   Agnes and Wayne and Pat walk to Union Square. The camera crew follows them, Sarah barking orders, Syker in a headset, looking puzzled, working the sound. For reasons of confidentiality, there are no cameras allowed inside the PWAC offices, so only Wayne and Pat go inside. While Wu Heung eats a sandwich, Agnes absently picks up the camera and hoists it up onto her shoulder. It is heavy. She peers through the lens at Union Square; pans to the shuttered hulk of Syker's Department Store. Here is a section of the city that has come full circle. Agnes sees food stands and snack wagons, pushcarts, a jumble of small enterprises—surely it looks much the same as it did in the Twenties and Thirties.

   Through the lens she witnesses a scene of sickening violence. A fat kid hurtles down the street on a bicycle that is too small for him and crashes smack into a fruitstand, sending bananas and melons and apples everywhere. Agnes runs over to help. No wonder such a thing could happen, she thinks in a flash. The urban radar hasn't gotten used to fruitstands again. Here is the history of New York: fruitstands, fruitstands, more fruitstands, hundreds and thousands of fruitstands, then, pow, 1950, no more fruitstands, we can't have fruitstands, eliminate the fruitstands, those fucking fruitstands will never dirty our city again! And now— where are the fruitstands? Gotta have more fruitstands! What's a city without fruitstands?

   Agnes helps the victim to his feet.