Buddies (25 page)

“Now this amazing effect,” said Little Kiwi, taking a bag out of his pocket. The bag disgorged a few mushrooms, which Little Kiwi set up on the walkway. Bauhaus ate one as Little Kiwi hid behind the rotating umbrella and I reached the end of the song. Dennis Savage and I clapped.

“I’ve got plenty more of those.”

“What a treat for later,” I replied. “Much later.”

Once things quieted down, it was again—for me, at least—The Pines as it has always been: our boy, his notebook, and a few intimate subjects. Your first years in The Pines you can’t get enough of the beach parade, tea, the meat racks. After a while, the parade loses its glitter, tea is a chore, and—by 1982—the meat racks were pretty poison. The main purpose of The Pines, by then, is to provide a sanctuary from the outer world, a gay place. You no longer worry whether you’re going out enough, dancing enough, getting enough. Just being there is being gay.

I prefer to lie around talking and writing. Dennis Savage, who as a schoolteacher has nothing to do in the summer, sat on the deck with me to watch Little Kiwi walking Bauhaus along the water’s edge. Every now and then Bauhaus would break away and chase someone, and Little Kiwi would run off in the other direction. He says if he stays there, people yell at him.

“You know,” I said, “this looks like a Paul Terry cartoon directed by Robert Wilson.”

“I hate my work,” Dennis Savage said.

I looked at him.

“Well, I do!” he said.

“I didn’t make the world.”

“You sleep as long as you want to, and I have to get up at five forty-five! And what’s the point of pushing on those dumbbells to get them motivated? You speak to the cultured, and I speak to idiots.”

“But you have free health insurance. And holidays. Seems to me every time somebody turns around in one of the boroughs, the schools declare a national holiday. I work day and night seven days a week, fifty-two—”

“Come on, you’re always out playing!”

Someone was waving at us on the beach: someone in a crowd.

“Who’s the kid?” asked Dennis Savage.

“My current ex-errand boy. Barry.”

He was wearing a bathing suit so slight he would have been arrested at Cannes; but his friends were dressed—two of them, incredibly, in tropical suits.

“Look at the bizarre,” said Dennis Savage. “Well, I’m going to see about dinner. Some of us run our own errands.” He went inside.

“Who was that waving?” asked Little Kiwi, coming up from the sand with the dog.

“That’s you without Dennis Savage,” I said.

He looked after Barry’s gang, remotely trudging, I would guess, to some furiously dreary cocktail shop. I was watching Little Kiwi, trying to see him in a bathing suit like Barry’s—made of the material supermarkets bag onions in—and attending those parties at which moneyed jitterbugs cop a feel while making small talk. I couldn’t see it.

“What do you mean,” Little Kiwi asked, “that he’s me?”

“He’s not you. That why he’s in trouble.”

Little Kiwi stared after Barry’s group. He turned back to me. “He looked happy.”

“He is, today. But he’ll get messed up and that’ll be that.”

“Why would he get messed up?”

“Because no one cares about him. He’s alone.”

“No, all those people with him … won’t they—”

“They’re his leeches. They’ll milk him for fun and toss him away.”

Little Kiwi looked at me. In the dying light, I could see him watching me carefully, knowing that I’m the one who says the hard things to him. Our other friends treat him like a kid. I treat him like a clone.

“Why are they going to milk him?” he asked me. “He was nice.”

“Yes, he’s nice. He’s helpless. Trusting. Likable. That’s the type they love to milk. If this were Paraguay, leftover Nazis would have him brought to a party to be whipped for the fun of it.”

Dennis Savage came out. “It’ll be barbecued chicken, some pasta, shiitake mushrooms for everyone’s good health, and maybe something green how about?”

“I don’t want to get messed up!” Little Kiwi cried, running to him. “The whippers are coming!”

“What have you been doing to him again?” Dennis Savage roared, holding him.

And Bauhaus barked at me.

“We just saw a chicken on the way to his barbecue,” I noted.

“Is Carlo coming back?” Little Kiwi asked, his voice muffled in Dennis Savage’s chest.

Dennis Savage looked at me. “Is he? He’s your friend, mostly.”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, he was.”

Three Letters from South Dakota

I have corrected the mispellings, puncuation, and most severe infelicities, but here they are as he wrote them.

July 24

Dear Bud:

I told you I would be writing. You didn’t believe me, I know. But this could be like those times when you and me would sit around and bullshit about the world. Only I’m not right next to you now. I always used to think you would get too heavy and I admit that once or twice when you were not around I thought about the things you said and I wanted to knock your block off. I even like argued with you, because I knew what you’d say, and I finally thought of the right answers. I’m glad you weren’t there then, when I thought of the answers. I would really have pounded you.

My mom just came in and said, “Oh, are you writing to the Lord?” They do that here. They write letters to God. They don’t mail them, of course. It’s just to concentrate the prayer. (How they say it.) When I came back, they gave me a party, and it was like this. First, they all got here, aunts and cousins and things that I haven’t seen in twenty years. So they all mass up, staring like I’m the figure of Jack the Ripper in the wax museum. Then comes the time when some of them go into one room to pray and the others stand around joking. It reminded me of some New York parties, where some guys went into the bedroom to fuck while some others stayed in the living room discussing opera. Because after that everyone had supper as if nothing had happened. And you know how there’s always, always somebody who can’t take their eyes off you but is afraid to say anything, but you can feel how hungry they are right across the room? Well, here it is my third kin Irene (which is pronounced Areenee around here). You can bet her folks and mine will be trying to set us up soon enough.

It sure was a crossword-puzzle thing, scooting around the old places. Everything’s still there, I guess, but what about the people? And everybody calling me Rip, or old Ripper, or even Ripley (like my folks), mostly, because they don’t go for New York nicknames around here. And my mom calling to me in the morning, and there’s the Cream of Wheat just like before, which I liked to eat year round, even in the summer. And my dad grinning at me like I just broke the record at the Olympics for the four-minute mile or something. I guess they really are glad I’m back. They cry a lot, because they love me so much. This is the thing about parents that I will never get used to. They are a little different to each other, too, than I remember. Like they will pass each other on the way to different rooms and just stop and hug each other. It sure is a sight. I had to ask them not to treat me like that, and they said okay. I know what they were thinking—prayer is more certain, anyway. They are just trying to make me break down and cry. They call out crying for the Lord. You just have no idea what it’s like.

I guess I cried plenty that morning you were at Big Steve’s, and I wonder what you’re going to do about that. Forgive me? (I hope.) You should have seen Big Steve later on, how sorry he was. But he started right in again. He made me tell him the names of all the people I love on earth, so he could count them. You know how I hate that stuff. I know I looked terrible that day, too, because I was drunk and it was not even afternoon. Did you think I was going crazy? But I never took drugs all those years, just toke. No poppers or anything. At least I have that. You might as well tell me what you thought of all what I said at Big Steve’s. I hope you would tell me. Some of it was about Jim Fetters, who still lives around here. But I am putting it off, meeting him again.

You know what’s funny? The truck stop that some of us would go to for like a glory hole is now a Jesus Center. There are people with signs there—“Why Don’t You Love Him? Because He Loves
You!
” and “If You Died Tomorrow, Could You Meet Him Fair?” It’s like they were holding up cue cards for a big hymn sing. The one I like is “What Will You Do When He Comes?” I was staring at the sign and maybe smiling, and the woman who held it looked me right in the face and said, “You best think about it, because He’ll be coming soon, all over the universe.” And so many replies came to me. You know, like joking in the bars. Our kind of thing. But I just told her okay. They give you a booklet which tells you how to behave from now on.

The main reason I am writing is, I want to tell you what Big Steve said to me. But first I have to tell you something about him that you didn’t know. I know how you get about a guy’s profession, and how people are supposed to live in certain areas of town (like not Brooklyn, right?), and clothes and all. Like a tie. I did everything wrong, probably, except I don’t think I ever lived in Brooklyn, even for the weekend. Anyway, way back there when you were still friendly with your brother, he mentioned something of great use, I think. To know about. It was about parents, that you can hate them, or call them every tough name there is, or hide from them, or not visit the house, or even like get married or something without telling them. And they’ll always forgive you, he said. But where they draw the line is if you just lose interest in them. If you get neutral. That’s where they draw that line. They can do love and they can do war but they can’t do test patterns. And what I want to tell you about Big Steve is that he is like a parent. Like he’s as good when an affair is falling apart and everyone’s getting mad as he is when it’s new and you’re both so hot for each other all the time you don’t get any chances to fight. But he can’t deal with it when an old lover walks past him on the street as if he wasn’t there. There’s always got to be something. Anyway, what he told me was, he would give his life for me. Just like that. And I said, “Who wants you to?”

So he just went on about giving his life. And how many people were there that he would do that for. And how many would I?

Hell, have you ever thought about that? How many of those
you
have?

Well, I don’t know what got into me, because I know he wanted me to say I would give my life for him. Because that was how he always was, that you shared what you were all the way. So like even on one of those nights when I topped him for a considerable full time, just as deep and slow as it goes, and we would doze off together just holding on, and what more could you ask? Except no, sometime later he’d be waking me up to say now it’s his turn, because we have to pleasure each other. And I’d say I already am pleasured. He’d just be rolling me over. You know how he gets when he’s after you.

Anyway, I said I wouldn’t give my life for anyone, including him. And what I’m asking you is, Was that the fair thing to say to him?

So okay. Tell me what’s doing with everyone, and say hello to the kid himself especially. Don’t tell him this, but I truly believe I will have to remember the way he started to cry when I came over to say goodbye. I will have to. Because I kind of went for him to push him around for a joke, but he backed away from me, shaking his head. So now I started to make a list of all the nice things I did for you and the others all along, but then I thought that’s too dumb. And you would know them anyway.

Remember to answer my question about what I should have said to Big Steve.

This is your old pal Carlo.

August 6

Dear Bud:

Well, you can see there’s plenty of time for writing out here. Jim Fetters came over during dinner, which you will find shocking, but that’s how we do things, at like six or seven o’clock. Because otherwise you can’t find anyone home. Before, they’re at work. After, they’re in bed. That’s our hours. I always love your rules about when to call, when to visit, and those things, like. You know what a New York attitude that is. But we have this midwestern language, where if we like a visitor we slap another plate down and if we don’t we hold the whole thing at the door.

But Jim is an old friend. So my folks fussed over him, and said how’s Marge and tell about the kids, and he did.

Now, you know, it has been about twenty years all the way, and Jim has hardly aged at all. It was my mom who opened the door, and when she said, “Why, Jim!” I felt guilty for not having gone around to him myself, us being best friends for so long all before. But the next thing I felt was just curious, and I got up and when I was at the door old Jim jumped me like a long-lost puppy dog, crying, “Hey, you big old Rip!” and stuff. Boy, he looked good. He truly did. He couldn’t get over how I had grown. Of course they don’t have gyms and all that here, not much. In Dakota we have a saying, “You don’t make yourself into a clone, boy, you just better be born one.” (That’s a joke. We don’t have such a saying here.)

So there was my old Jim. And my dad has already made a place at the table and we all sit around to hear Jim tell about his family, my folks just beaming away at us as if we were sixteen and talking out how the track season was shaping up. Then Jim asked what I had been up to all those years in the big New York City and my folks kept on smiling but their eyes sort of turned, you know. I almost imagined my dad saying then, “He was doing gay things in New York, which is a gay city, and now I’m going to switch him for it!”

You know what you do out here when someone comes back? You go visit all your old friends. It’s sort of like if a New Yorker went around the Village looking up his old lovers. Imagine what you’d see. Some of them would be shacked up with new lovers and would they want you around? Some of them would be all alone and the sight of you would not cheer them up, would it? And some would be straight angry at you.

That’s kind of how it was here that night when Jim and me went visiting, riding up the driveways to all these depressing houses. I guess the old gang didn’t get to prove themselves. Everyone was married or living with someone, and even the guys I used to like didn’t seem glad to see me. Jim was in rare form, like showing me off. He called me “Our New York boy from Dakota.” Or maybe Our Dakota boy from New York is more like it.