Buddies (27 page)

It was late one night in the winter after Carlo left us, one of those bad, bitterly cold nights New York can throw on without warning. I was trudging along Third Avenue watching for a cab when I saw a tall, broad, and familiar-looking man heading my way. He seemed to recognize me, and came toward me—where had we met? My mind jumped to pluck a name, a place, from cabinets marked College Chums, Pines Housemates, People I Enraged at Parties (a dense file), and People I Charmed at Parties (surprisingly thin). As he neared, I started to smile, but he came too close, backed me against a car, and said, “I’m hungry. Give me money or I’ll hurt you.”

Shoot, this
would
happen just when I’m starting to get famous. Because, damn it!, I am not giving these creeps my wallet on demand. Anyway, it’s too tempting to bluff them down. I disconnected one footpad in the Village by grinning and nodding and speaking Russian; and when a kid fell into step with me on Fifty-seventh Street and said this was a holdup and he was armed, I told him nothing doing unless I saw the gun, and he ran away.

“Hand it over,” my present assailant growled, bending my arm behind me, “or I swear to God I’ll break it off.”

He glared, to persuade me with bitter fire; but then recognition struck me, and I looked down at his left forearm to find the tattoo of a shield inscribed, “No. 1.”

“Clark Ellis,” I said, and he relaxed his hold on my arm in surprise. I had remembered where we had met before.

*   *   *

We had met, actually, twice, the first time in one of those “backdate” magazine stores where
Popular Mechanics
and
Boy’s Life
had their sections,
Demi-Gods, Tomorrow’s Man,
and
Rustic
theirs.
Rustic
bemused me as the name for a physique magazine. Here was not just the suggestion of the fact of beauty, but the sighting of it in a rural setting—putting real men into imaginary gardens. I was alarmed, alerted. Demi-gods did not exist; but hot farmers might.

One
Rustic
model in particular caught my eye. He was utterly unlike the dowdy hunks that prevailed in those days. They seemed to aim at an impersonalized ideal of flexing, a mere prowess. This one model, on the contrary, threw himself into his photo, aimed to reveal his personability, an expertise. At a time when a 1950s cover still hung over the emerging gay opulence, his parts suggested a sexy cartoon, each feature bigger than you could remember seeing on real flesh. The smile, above all, held me. It was more than dazzling: penetrating. It said, Forget the come-on—we’re already there. The culture is here and I am among you. I had seen bedroom eyes before; this guy had room-at-the-baths eyes.

“Clem represents the new breed of poser,” his caption ran, “with his conqueror’s physique and sensual mentality that knows there is more to life than pitching hay and spreading the seed. We were glad to schedule his second photo session, but for some reason he never called.” The oafs, I thought. Teasing me with availability and unavailability at once. Wise oafs: for it worked. That day, my teenage eyes wavering before the cashier’s in fact dully tolerant gaze, I bought my first porn rag. I thought of these magazines as my textbooks in gay, though they taught me as much of fantasy as of truth: about what to hope for as well as what to expect. Over the years, some extraordinarily popular mechanics thus changed my suburban boy’s life, but Clem’s image stayed with me. Sometimes I wondered what his real name might be, as if a key turned into truth might make the fantasy all the more real.

I learned his name at Kern Loften’s end-of-summer bash at The Pines the weekend before Labor Day in 1974. Kern’s good qualities included a genuine palazzo, the hope of making his parties the greatest ever, and the ability to fill his rooms with his friends, their friends, and no one else. Private parties, without the bar-tension that the big public dos observe. The imposing bodies tended to belong to the bourgeoisie of the gyms, capable of love—not to the pornothespians who drifted in and out of the scene and were capable of anything. But Kern was rich, and some of his friends were rich; and the rich tend to hire help. Maids. Waiters. Lovers. You could always tell the hired lovers by the way they grinned: they already had what they wanted.

Entrance Kern’s parties and he treasured you for life; to that end, an amazing soprano and I had put together a cabaret of show tunes, wacko Victor Herbert side by each with Harold Arlen art torch, the truth of sound musicianship fetching art back from mere diversion. We went on well after two
A.M.
, made a hit, and spent the rest of the night basking in prominence. Sometime before dawn I started awake from a doze in one of the bedrooms facing the ocean. The house was dimly buzzing; someone had covered me with a blanket. A large figure stood gazing out at the sea. He turned as I stirred and said, from the shadows, “Nothing works, right?”

I wasted a smile in the darkness and said, “That depends on what you believe in.”

He came toward me. “What do you believe in?”

“Will,” I said. “Intelligence. Charm.”

“What if you can have only one?” He sat on the edge of the bed. “Which would you take?”

It was Clem. I was so startled I blurted out something I had stuck into a story a few days before, one of those gnomic utterances that keep your mouth moving when you daren’t speak your mind. “The wise,” I said, “are troubled, for they trust only themselves and wisdom. The talented are twice troubled, for they trust only themselves. But the beautiful are most troubled, for they trust no one.”

He thought it over, looking at the ocean. “You got that right.”

His left arm rested close enough for me to spot the marking, “No. 1.” He caught me, and said, “Got that in Denver. This incredible guy. The
most.
I think I thought he was straight. We ended up in this fleabag joint drinking, and he just went after me and did things like … like he’d invented sex that night. Hours and hours of it. We finished off the bottle as the sun was coming up, and I suddenly felt drowsy, and he said, ‘I slid some stuff in your glass.’ Strokes my arm and says, ‘Right here, okay?’ I didn’t know what the hell … and when I woke up, he was gone and I—”

“Clark.” Another stupendous man stood in the doorway.

“Coming.” He rose and joined his partner, two carved idols breathing life into each other. Then he turned back to me. “Will,” he said. “If you get your choice.
Will.
”

“That’s swift, because I’ve got plenty of will.”

“What was that again about the wise are troubled?”

I repeated it, and he listened as if memorizing. His friend, chuckling, said, “The beautiful trust
no one?
”

“Neat piano playing, by the way,” Clark Ellis told me, clapping his friend around the shoulders as they left.

“Thanks,” I said to the empty room. The sun had nosed up; it was day, and the gang poured in.

“Clark Ellis!”

“What did he
say?
”

“I kiss this room!”

I told them, “He said the most important thing in life is will.”

“Will who?”

“No, the most important thing is—”

“Politeness!”

“Sensible hats!”

“It’s Sunday, it’s The Pines, it’s Kern Loften’s,” I announced. “I’m delirious. Everybody shut up and get out.”

“What did he say?” Dennis Savage insisted.

“He told me how he got his tattoo.”

“Number One!” they all echoed.

“The hottest man in The Pines!”

“The hottest man
alive!
”

“He’ll never grow old.”

“His ass will never fall!”

“Such hair—”

“That jaw—”

“He’ll always—”

*   *   *

“I don’t remember you,” he said.

“How about not mugging me and I’ll take you to dinner?”

Sarge’s, the all-night deli, was a block away. He wouldn’t look at the menu, kept searching me with his eyes, and said nothing to the waitress. From absolute aggression to complete passivitiy; strange. I ordered him a hot turkey sandwich, mashed potatoes, salad, apple pie, and coffee. I ordered myself a cheeseburger deluxe and coffee. So it worked out well, for if I’d gone home unmolested I’d have been stuck with cottage cheese and a hard pear.

“Cheer up,” I told him. He had not aged badly, and, being naturally big, he had not lost his heft. But his expression was that of a man who never smiled, not even tentatively and certainly not dazzlingly. That did not jibe with the Clark Ellis I knew of.

“I don’t remember you,” he said again.

“How does a man as gala as you are end up mugging people? You were the King of Gay. You could have had anyone you wanted, and I know there’s money in that. Why aren’t you a millionaire model? Why didn’t you let rich slobbos ply you with watches and yachts?”

He just looked at me.

“Spectacular men don’t end up poor,” I went on. “They
don’t.
”

The food came quickly, everything at once, and he fiercely dug in. He must really have been hungry. He had cleaned up when I was halfway through.

“I want more,” he said.

I called the waitress over. “The same again,” he told her.

“How about a different pie this time? We got cherry.”

“The same, the exact same,” he said, grabbing a fistful of my french fries. “Turkey, apple, gravy, coffee, everything the same.”

“One exact same coming up,” she echoed, walking off.

He polished off my hamburger.

“Clark Ellis,” I said. “Clark Ellis.”

“Hot shit,” he replied. “Tell all your friends another beauty wasted out. They’re bored and lonely but their rent’s paid, right? They’re ahead of me.”

“I think they’d be sad.”

“Everybody’s sad. Nothing works.”

“How did you end up mugging people?”

“I broke a rich guy’s crystal ball.”

“That’ll do it every time.”

“I fell in love with Bill Post so I didn’t buy the briquettes and I smashed the crystal ball into a thousand million pieces. And I wrecked the house and robbed them. So they threw me out of the whole world.”

“Where do you live?”

“I don’t.”

Silence.

“Who’s Bill Post?” I finally asked.

“What are you, a reporter?”

“Not unlike.”

“You remember the pink boy with reddish-brown hair and hazel eyes who played Frisbee all over the beach in navy blue speedos? Your summer of 1980.”

Who didn’t remember him? I had seen this kid and his Frisbee, as had all others that odd summer, when, for once, the night weather lost its clever bite and took on the seamy intrusiveness of summer nights anywhere. Men I had known as professional smirkers would pace the boardwalk morose and sullen.

Like this man, now.

“I always thought of you riding high,” I said.

“I didn’t … I couldn’t control it.”

“The way you smiled…”

“I had those jobs, those messenger gigs. You know? The East Side co-op run. They’re always sending these packages to each other, you can guess of what.”

“… as if you owned the world.”

“They all expected me to fuck them. Like no job’s legit. Everyone’s a hustler or a buyer. So who needs a whore who won’t screw?”

“This is one exact same,” said the waitress, bringing the food.

He paused, holding his fork, stared at me, and nodded. “Appreciate it,” he said, and ate.

“Clark Ellis fell in love with Bill Post,” I murmured, trying out a first line. “It was late one night in the winter after Carlo left us…”

“Sure thing and so what?”

“Nice pairing. Man and boy. Dark and fair. Knowledgeable and pure.”

“He
was
pure. The sweetest chicken there ever was. I am telling you this. But he didn’t know shit. He was like me: wake up, listen to the time pass, take a spin in the gym, answer the phone, and go party. Letting it happen.”

“Didn’t you ever try to … well, do something?”

“Make the contacts? Talk them up? Every day. Planning. Everyone was so helpful, too. You know why?”

Silence.

“You
know
why. So finally one day you really are a whore. Not even an errand boy. Just a piece of ass.”

“So,” I recommended, some years late, “you pull yourself away.”

He nodded.

“And?”

He shook his head. “Not so easy. I had Bill to watch over. He was taking what they gave, always said yes. Turn my back for an hour, he’d be doing some new drug, or picking up street cock. Always yes. But I was the man he loved. Know how I know? Because he wept when I flipped him. Only love makes them cry. The others smile. Hustlers. So many are hustlers, and that’s why nothing works. Good sex is easy. Man, it’s easy. You know what’s hard? Love is hard.”

“Smile for me.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Smile for me,” he repeated. He had heard. Be a symbol, Clark Ellis. Dazzle us, remember? The culture is here and you are among us. Or no, that was years ago, and the culture has since expanded, broken into factions—political, professional, sexual, intellectual, racial. It is no longer a question, sheerly, of identity, as it was when I was young: of learning that you were among us, that we had an
us
to be among. As he ate, I ran through my file of Hottest Men Alive. Did they all end up alone on the streets? Odd: many didn’t appear to end up at all. Yes, there was the black-haired sex model with the unbelievable jaw who was made heir to a millionaire’s estate and became a hit-and-run realtor, leaving slivers from the Brooklyn Bridge to Yorkville; or the Australian dancer who collected gasping crowds on the beach at the skater’s house and who went on to a not unprominent TV series. Yes but. It seemed as if almost everyone else came to a dubious end, could come but not
dwell
among us. One rather expects it of fast boys, born to burn out; but a sizable man somehow suggests aggressive survival.
Will.
What is will but a sense of self-importance; and is this not what size demands, looks like, is about? Is this not why Bill Post wept when Clark Ellis flipped him?

“What does ‘flipping’ mean?” I asked.

He held his coffee, recalling something, and, I hope, very nearly smiled.