As Far as You Can Go (16 page)

“That’s the West for you,” said Diane. “We’re famous for our hospitality.”

She waved as he drove off. He felt rather better about things, with a date with Diane in prospect, and it wasn’t until he was back at the hotel in Beverly Hills that he realized he had got precisely nowhere with Mrs Washburn. Sitting alone in the bar he found himself thinking of ways to steal the miniature. But that wouldn’t do. No, not that. Yet he felt an unusual determination not to allow the old woman to brush him aside so easily. She might think it clever and funny to have made him travel three thousand miles on a wild-goose chase, but this would be one time he wouldn’t just coast along. He thought of Dangerfield and how much he valued the Hilliard. Yes, he would get it, even if it meant sitting around for months, wearing the old woman down. Besides, if Diane was anyone to judge by, sitting around in California might be no waste of time at all.

I’ll get that damned miniature, he said to himself as he finished his drink. By God, I’ll stretch myself so hard even Dangerfield will have to be impressed. The idea excited him. He ordered another drink and began to fantasticate methods of undermining Mrs Washburn’s intractability. The secret must, surely, be to get Diane on his side, to play on the antagonism which he had sensed between them. Duty and pleasure could most happily be combined that way.

Although his hotel was remarkably luxury-loving, Harold grew bored with it that evening, and decided to walk a bit. One of the nice things about Los Angeles was that it was always cool in the evenings, however hot it had been during the day. He asked the clerk at the desk which would be the best way to walk to see some night-life.

The clerk looked at him as though he was mad and
explained
as politely as he could that no one ever walked in
Los Angeles under any circumstances. And anyone who went around Bel Air or Beverly Hills on foot was liable to be arrested. It was a highly suspicious thing to do, to walk.

Unimpressed with this information, Harold decided to walk. His new sense of determination emboldened him. He walked west along Santa Monica Boulevard towards the sea, several miles off. He passed the Los Angeles Country Club and the Twentieth Century Fox lots, and began to develop a thirst. It was cool and pleasant walking, but it would be just as pleasant to have a beer. He didn’t, on the whole, care for American bars, and he passed two or three before he decided on one. One of the things wrong with American bars was that the beer was always absolutely disgusting, weak and fizzy and revolting in every way, and served ice-cold to
disguise
the taste or lack of it. Another thing was that they were always in half or three-quarters darkness, making it extremely hard to see whether there were any girls worth looking at, and generally making life difficult. Yet another thing wrong with them was that girls were hardly ever to be found in them at all.

As he entered a bar called the Eyeglass he saw it was the usual thing: a long counter, a juke-box, the light coming mostly from revolving beer advertisements, wooden floor, a couple of pin-machines, rows of men’s backs. In favour of American bars was that they stayed open in most places at least until midnight, and they were reasonably quiet: people didn’t start singing “Abide with me” or anything like that. The perfect bar, Harold thought, would have English beer served cold on a properly lit American counter patronized by beautiful women and staying open all day and night. Then one might reasonably look forward to going out for a drink.

There was a stool free, and he sat on it, ordered a beer in a muffled voice to disguise his accent, and began to sip it. Gradually he became aware that people were staring at him. Not all at once, but one at a time, it seemed that everyone
in the bar was sizing or had sized him up. He sat self-consciously straight on the stool, and choosing a small and weak-looking man stared right back. The weak-looking man smiled in an obscenely friendly way, and Harold realized with panic that he was in a queer bar, and that he’d better get out of it before any costly mistakes were made. He finished his drink and headed for the door, terrified in case the weak-looking man was following him. How did you
explain
to someone that you hadn’t meant to look at him like that, and that it was all a mistake, and you were sorry, but NO, you didn’t like that kind of thing, you didn’t like it at all, you didn’t mind it in others, you weren’t illiberal about it, it just didn’t appeal to you, that was all, in fact sometimes you used to worry because so many smart, fashionable and admirable people these days were taking that route to heaven or hell, and—and will you please take your hand off my knee?

He was pushing through the door, longing for the cool safety of the streets where at least there’d only be a policeman who might be open to reason, or at least bribery, when he bumped into someone coming in, who said, “Hi, Harold, how are you?”

Horrified to be recognized in such a place, Harold stood stock still and peered at the newcomer. It was Eddie Jackson, last seen with Dennis Moreland in the Macaroon, which wasn’t this type of bar at all.

“Why,” said Harold, gulping, astonished. “What a most extraordinary thing.” He seized Eddie by the arm and
hurried
him out into the street.

“Hey, what’s going on?” said Eddie.

“It’s not a very nice bar, that one,” said Harold. “How astonishing to run into you, Eddie.”

“It’s a swell bar,” said Eddie, “and what have you got against it?”

“It’s full of—well, people who look at you in a way that—that—— Look, let’s go somewhere else, that’s all.”

“What’s the matter with you?” said Eddie. “Frightened of a few faggots? Gee, Harold, you scare easy. C’mon, let’s go have a beer.”

“I don’t mind individuals,” said Harold, still holding firmly to Eddie’s arm, “but a whole gaggle of them is a bit much for me, I’m afraid. I feel rather left out.”

“No need to feel that,” said Eddie. “They’re all friends of mine. I’ll introduce you.”

He was in blue jeans and a black leather jacket, and his dark glasses were impenetrable in the dim street-light. Gently he took Harold’s hand off his arm, put his own hand on Harold’s arm, and led him into the bar again.

“You see,” he said, leaning on the bar, “they’re all friends of mine. Hi, Chet. Hi, Mike.”

There was a surge of people round him, all saying “Hi”. Feeling a little safer, though only a little, Harold looked cautiously round. Most of Eddie’s friends wore jeans and a sweat-shirt, or a brightly coloured ordinary shirt. And yet you couldn’t have told, he thought, not unless you got one of those obscene looks. They weren’t looking at him obscenely any more, which was a relief. They were looking with a
certain
respect, as though slightly awed at his familiarity with Eddie Jackson. The way he was the centre of things made it clear that Eddie was some kind of a leader.

“Well, kids,” said Eddie. “This is my friend Harold. He’s kind of English. Two beers, Joe.”

The barman scurried to obey the order.

Harold lowered his eyes modestly, for everyone was looking at him again, though he hadn’t cared for the description of himself as “kind of English”. But then, wasn’t it known as
le
vice
anglais
?

“How’s things, Eddie?” said a fair-haired man of Harold’s age.

“Far out,” said Eddie. “Invisible. Harold, I want you to meet Chet.”

“How do you do?” said Harold.

“Hi.”

“Jesus,” said Eddie, “where’s that beer, Joe?”

“Coming right up,” said the barman. He put two bottles of beer on the counter, and Eddie picked one of them up and put it straight to his lips. Harold felt obliged to do the same, but the beer tasted even nastier and fizzier that way. He choked, and Chet patted him on the back, which made him choke still more.

“Well, Harold, what are you doing in L.A.?”

“I’m trying to buy a picture. A miniature, actually.”

“Never went much for that art crap,” said Eddie. “I like statues, though. You know someone wrote a poem about goosing statues? He was right. It’s great. You give yourself a real thrill, because you have some kind of guilt about it, right? I mean, you wouldn’t dare do it in broad daylight, right? So you go out at night and you creep up to the statue and you goose it, and it’s like rape.”

“Christ, Eddie,” said Chet, “you must be queer.”

“You should know,” said Eddie coolly. “What’s new around here tonight?”

“No one. Your friend here was along earlier.”

“Yeah. He says he didn’t like it much. What’s the matter with you all? Are you raping the customers as they come through the door or something? I don’t like that. I think you should make people feel at home first, then rape them.”

Harold found this banter a little hard to keep up with. If it was really as outrageous as it sounded, then it was a good thing he didn’t understand. Where was he, anyway, in a male brothel? He wished Eddie would finish seeing whoever it was he wanted to see, then go somewhere else. After all, when he’d met him in London Eddie was after some girl. Arabella. No, Annabel. And then he had left with that girl Heather. Surely people didn’t just switch from one to
the other? Perhaps they did, though. It was really very muddling.
If only people would state their desires and stick to them, a good deal of trouble could be avoided all round. And there needn’t be any of this business about Select Committees and special places of assignation, everyone could look around for what he or she wanted, since everyone would be clearly labelled, and then he could decide on someone, make an agreement about it, have a short trial period, then get married or whatever, and love could be forgotten and abolished, and everyone would be perfectly happy, masochists would find sadists, queers queers, Lesbians Lesbians and Harold a
succession
of dazzlingly beautiful girls. Except that wasn’t really allowed: that was the trouble with perfect systems, they were always for other people, never for oneself.

He looked round the bar again. Eddie did seem to be holding court. There were six or seven young men around him, as well as Chet, and they all had their heads bent
towards
him to hear what he was saying over the blare of the juke-box. There were several older men in the bar, but they had all moved away from the area dominated by Eddie, and stood at the far end of the counter watching in silence. Harold felt sorry for them. There was a bald one who obviously stood little chance, and a grey-haired one with a suspect suntan. They seemed to be watching the younger ones with a mixture of envy, grief and longing, and though they looked as though they were prosperous, they never looked happy. It was as though they had lived all their lives on a special diet of youth and sunlight, and now that it had been withdrawn from them, they were like drug addicts forcibly deprived of their drugs. They were pathetic, Harold thought. He looked away, saddened that for the queers there were no happy endings, that they could hold the pretence of vigour and youth only for a certain time before the effort came to harry their faces, marking them with particular lines about the eyes, making them seem hollow.

The light, of course, didn’t help the older ones. There was
only one young man among them, bright and laughing in the midst of their silence. They seemed to be sheltering in his vitality.

Eddie looked over towards them once or twice, and when he looked, they looked away. There was a dismissal in his look which wasn’t contemptuous, particularly, but wholly damning. It seemed to say, I have no use for you, though I know you long for me; but I will never forgive you for being old. Watching them, watching Eddie, Harold was very glad indeed that he wasn’t queer.

He began to listen to Eddie.

“I’ve told you,” he was saying, “don’t you listen to what I say? You have to ignore them. They’ll do everything,
anything
, to get you down. They always have power, they always have had it, and they always will. But that doesn’t mean you have to go along with them. The old can’t beat you at some things. There was a general once, some old guy, I don’t know who. He said you always have to fight on your own ground. And that’s what they do, the old, they choose the ground. Of course you can’t beat them. And you, because you’re young, because you’re impatient, you can’t wait, you get mad, and you think, I’ll show them, I can smash their faces, I’m younger and stronger than them. Right, so you are younger and stronger. But that’s not the way they fight. They know you can smash their faces. So they don’t let it come to a fight. They have all the power, right? So they hold it back, way back, out of your reach. And the power’s what you want, right? You gotta have power to get rich, and you gotta be rich to have a ball. But the only way they’ll surrender their power is if you give in, if you say, the hell with it, I’ll do anything to get it. And then they’ve beaten you, because they won’t give you all the power at once, you know that. They’ll give you a taste, just a taste of power. Then they’ll let you have a little bit more. But there are too many of them, they’re too strong, you can’t get it by smashing their faces, you can’t
get it by working. You can only get it by giving in. And by the time you’ve gotten it, you’re old, too. That’s how they play it. That’s why they always win.”

“Yeah, Eddie,” said Chet, “but what are you going to do about it?”

“There are two things you can do. First and best, you say crap to the whole lot of them. You don’t give in because you don’t want their power. That’s best. Because what do you want with power? What’s the good of it? Does it make you happier? Does it make you more attractive to boys or girls? Sure it does—but what do you have to give up? You have to give up wanting boys and girls, you have to surrender. That’s where they get you every time. By the time you’ve gotten what they let you have, you’ve forgotten what you wanted it for. Right? So you don’t want it, O.K.?”

“You gotta live,” said Chet.

“Sure you gotta live. But that doesn’t mean you gotta have power. Power’s like a ball and chain on your leg. You wanna be free, right? So you can’t have power and be free. You can get your money some other way. You can get some rich old queen, if you want money, and you can say, Sure I’ll sleep with you, honey. And then you say, That’ll be a hundred thousand bucks. That’s easy, if you want money. There are plenty of old queens around, right? Plenty of rich old queens? So, there’s blackmail. That’s not the way they like it. It’s not in their rules. So you’ve got them, you’ve changed the game. You gotta change the game. But play it cool. You don’t get anything by killing a guy. So its dumb to kill. You rough him up a bit, O.K. But play it cool. And there’s a thousand ways beside blackmail.”