City of Night (36 page)

           For no apparent reason suspecting strongly that the fairy just now had been right—that this man was indeed a detective—I put my shirt on, got up, started to move away without looking back. But soon Im aware that hes taken a few steps toward me. I faced him. He opened his mouth to say something, and then, in real or pretended embarrassment, he merely smiled again. Reacting to him as if he is a cop, I look at him coolly.

           “Im leaving the beach,” he blurted. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

           Now, Im not at all sure hes a cop—not because of what he said (Southern California is notorious for entrapment—theyll even offer you money and bust you later)—but because of the diffident tone of his voice; he appeared embarrassed the moment he had spoken. It is usually relatively easy, once youve made the scene in the bars and the beaches, to peg someone quickly at those places. But not this man. I keep shifting my suspicions.

           “Which way are you going?” I asked him.

           He shrugged. “Oh, anywhere. I havent got anything to do. I’ll drive you wherever youre going.”

           I want very much—because of a strong curiosity—to find out about this man. On the other hand, if I leave the beach now—and he merely drives me back downtown—I will have left for nothing, and it’s still early: the golden-tanning sun still holds the sky.

           He sees me hesitating—saw me looking at him trying to pin him—and he said completely unexpectedly: “Dont worry, Im not on the vice squad.”

           “What makes you think I’d care?” I said, annoyed.

           “Honestly,” he said. “Look.” He drew open his coat, so I could see there is no badge—although of course it proved nothing. It only irritated me further.

           “What makes you think I’d care if you are?” I challenged him again. The implication that he
knows
I have something to fear in that direction bothers me. It indicates, too, that, whatever he is, hes familiar with that world. But then, merely his repeated presence on this beach revealed that.

           “Oh,” he said uncomfortably, “well, I mean, it has nothing to do with you, really. I mean—well—this beach—and I
have
seen you several times—you leave with different people—and they—well—...” He went on apologetically, making it worse. “Lets go get some coffee somewhere,” he said hurriedly.

           We got into his car, a new stationwagon. There is a suitcase on one seat.

           “Im on vacation,” he explained. “I dont live here. Usually I come down on weekends. I didnt have any plans for my vacation—so I thought I’d just drive around. Ive only got four more days left.”

           At the restaurant on Wilshire—as we stood waiting to be served (surrounded by tanned faces rejuvenated by the Sun), he doesnt look at me like the other people who would usually pick you up, doesnt talk like them.... Of course, there are many men in that world who, outside of pickup places, wear a mask convincingly, but in the atmosphere of the beaches, the bars—or when theyve made a contact—the mask usually slides off—if only slightly: They remain masculine, yes, but there is usually at least the subtlest hint of the façaded sex-hunger. About the man Im with there hasnt been that slightest hint.

           “Have you eaten yet?” he asked me.

           “No.”

           “Why dont you then?” Even this is said merely graciously, not buyingly.

           Too, there is always the threat of meeting someone who looks perfectly “normal” and who turns out to be psycho—like the man in the raincoat in New York who had pulled a knife on me. In a life that thrives on the arbitrary stamp of “differentness” imposed on it by the world that creates it and then rejects it, the more “regular” the person (the more he defies the usually easy classification of masculine homosexual, queen, score, hustler, fairy), the more suspect he becomes.

           He talked very little while we ate; and because of my complete inability to make him out, I had eased the hustling stance. That pose can blot out all but sexual communication. Yet, those usual times, you know—youve learned!—that it’s necessary.... This man, though, is different.

           Outside again, we stood on the sidewalk. The sun is fading behind the strip of park, beyond the sand, into the ocean. Toward the horizon, the fog lifts itself gracefully like a veil welcoming the night.

           “You want to stay with me for a while?” I heard him ask me. His look, unshifting on me for moments—asking—softens into one of the familiar expressions. It reveals him at last.

           “Sure,” I said.

           We walked across the street, along that green park—the flowers bright and alive—past the many afternoon people sitting on benches. We stand looking out toward the beach. The crowds on the sand are thinning. Across the bridge from the beach to the streets, they come with their towels bundled, fleeing from the lifting nightfog. They seem to gather on the beach for some kind of huddled protection, and when groups begin to leave, when that sense of mutual protection begins to diminish—as if this were a summons, the others leave too. A few will linger on, as the breeze from the ocean rises. The sun is frozen-white, spreading its light desperately before expiring into the ocean. Now the roaring waves will try to claim the sand throughout the night...

           “Why did you begin to walk away from me on the beach?” he asked me.

           I was about to say: “You didnt look like a score.”... Instead, I said: “You dont look like you belong on that beach.”

           He was silent, looking into his hands, studying them. “Let me explain something,” he says. “I guess—” he went on uneasily “—I guess maybe youve noticed me on the beach. I mean, I must stand out because I come there so often—and leave, come back. It’s just that—Well, in a way, it’s all—it’s all new to me.” Still studying his hands, he said quickly: “Im married, I have a kid—a little boy.”

           This is a familiar story. Many tell you this for whatever purpose. Hustling, it emphasizes your masculinity for a score. For the others—even, sometimes, the very effeminate—this may be a symbolic subterfuge to emphasize the quandary of being in that world.... With this man, though, Im convinced beyond any doubt that what hes just told me is true.... I notice an untanned circle about his finger from which he has probably just removed a ring.

           “Ive only been with two men in my life—that way—” he went on slowly. “And those two times, nothing really happened. I just—... And, once—...” He broke off abruptly. “What I mean is that Ive never really
done
anything,” he said. “Oh, sure, Ive
known
for a long time. I guess—I guess thats largely the reason I got married, but I didnt
really
know, then.... Now Ive got a kid nine years old.... But things—from the beginning—they didnt go right. Thats mainly why she wanted a kid.... And then I started driving to the beaches, I guess to make sure there was a whole world ready to welcome me when I finally decided to join it—if I ever decided to. I always came there with the intention of meeting someone. But then I would see a screaming fairy—and suddenly I’d be ashamed. It’s very strange—but I couldnt bear to look into his eyes, afraid, I guess, that he’d look back at me with recognition. And I didnt want a fairy, I knew that I didnt even want them to look at me in that strange, piercing way. So I would drive away—but then I’d come back.... I’d seen you before. One time I almost talked to you. You see, I’d see you there alone—then youd go off with someone youd just met. So—well—I knew—well, that if I talked to you, youd at least talk back to me. I mean—those people I’d see you with, many of them were—well—obvious, and so—”

           Turning to look at him—a man still not middle-aged, with still the hint of the attractive youngman he had been—I understood something of his struggle. That thought disturbs me, and I say quickly: “It’s getting cool, isnt it?”

           “Very cool,” he said.

           A long silence.

           “Will you stay with me tonight?” he asked me.

           The breeze is rising rapidly. The sun is now a blaze of white fusing with the glaring ocean.

           I cant help asking: “Are you sure you want me to?”

           “Yes,” he said—but uncertainly. “I think Im sure. Yes, Im sure.” Quickly, as if once having said that, he was resisting the instant compulsion to reverse himself, he said: “Im on vacation—I told you that already, didnt I? My wife—she—... Ive begun to wonder if theres any use even staying with her,” he said.

           “Does she know?” It was a square question—the kind of question I would not ordinarily have asked; but, having eased the street pose, Im reacting completely differently to him, responding to that evident struggle within him—the eminent Aloneness....

           “Theres nothing to know,” he said almost sharply resentfully. He sighed, relenting. “Well. I guess I dont really know myself if she knows or not. She knows something is wrong. She couldnt help knowing that. The kid—hes the one that worries me. I mean—he—well, what would it feel like to find out your father is a—...”

           “Lets get off the street,” I said, stopping him.

           “Ive still got to rent a place to stay tonight,” he said. “Ive been staying at different motels. It’s been about a week since I left—home—and, until today, I havent spoken to anyone.... But, God! how Ive wanted to.... I guess—” he smiled. “—I guess I look too suspicious for anyone to speak to me. I heard someone on the beach say I looked like a plainclothesman.”

           I wonder why I will stay with him—and I knew I would. At the same time that I feel he needs me—someone—that he is desperately alone—something else in me insists that I leave.

           “We’ll get a motel here, all right?” he asked.

           “Sure,” I said.

           “And we can go to the beach tomorrow.... Will you stay with me the rest of my vacation?” he asked hurriedly. And as if understanding something, as if defensively beating me to it, canceling out the possibility that I would bring it up—which I would not have—he said: “Ive got enough money for both of us. I mean, after all—friends should—...”

           Friends! I had just met him, such a short time earlier. I wanted to say something that would be very right—to do something: even, I thought cornily, to shake hands with him. But I could find nothing to say, nothing to do.

           At a motel across from the beach, the man at the desk asked: “Two beds?”

           “Yes,” the man Im with answers embarrassed.

           Through the wide window inside the room, I can see the ocean extending to the end of the sky.

           The man turns the television on. For minutes we remain wordless. Several times I still want to leave.

           He said as if reading my mind: “Do
you
want to stay with me?”

           At any other time I might have interpreted this as a kind of rejection, implied. With him, I was convinced he wants me to stay.

           “Yes,” I answered.

           I sat back on one bed, he sat back on the other. For several hours, making occasional forced comments about the programs, we watched television.

           Outside, the night has shrouded the sky. I can hear the rumble of the ocean—the sound of the wind... speaking its personal language to each person who listens.... The insistent sound... that wind carrying us along....

           “This must be very boring for you,” he said.

           “It’s fine,” I told him.

           “Are you tired yet?” he asked.

           “Yes. I like to sleep listening to the ocean.”

           “I know what you mean,” he said, pulling the blinds, shutting out the night. “It’s the same with the wind, isnt it?—when youre inside and just listening to it.... It used to scare me when I was a kid. You cant stop it”

           “It scared me too,” I told him. “I even—crazy—used to wish there was something you could draw across the sky to block it.”

           He laughed. “Nothing can stop it, though,” he said.

           I took my clothes off, not facing him, facing away. Quickly I got under the covers. He went into the bathroom, he came out wearing pajamas.

           He turned the light out.

           I close my eyes.... I felt him sit on my bed. Somewhere beyond the window, someone was laughing.... A car honked.... Over it all I can hear the private murmuring of the ocean... the lowpitched whistling of the wind.

           I feel his hand on my leg over the cover. Suddenly I wish I hadnt come here.... And yet will there always be the perversity?—because I keep thinking with crazy excitement:
This is the first time hes done this!

           Hurriedly, he draws the cover from my body, bends over me—
as if driving himself!
I think—and the thought blots all the perverse excitement of his newness.

           “Dont you want me to?” he asks me.

           “Do you want to?” I asked him.

           “Yes,” he said.

        
2

           It was Sunday.

           I woke up, and the glare of the sun on the ocean was flooding the room through the slanted blinds. The man was sitting propped on one elbow on his bed looking at me.

           Several times during the night I had wakened, wondering apprehensively what his reaction would be in the morning. Immediately after—last night—he had sat smoking in the dark, and I had pretended to fall asleep. Throughout the night, he would sit up, light a cigarette.... Now I see him smiling at me. “You want to sleep some more?—it’s still very early,” he said. “Or you want to drive somewhere and have breakfast?... How about Arrowhead?”

           I had been there not too long ago with Dave—whom I pushed more and more from the immediate presence of my mind, but, even now, when I saw someone who might be him, I would panic. But it was never him. He seemed to avoid the places where we had gone.