Early Warning (41 page)

Mom often said, “I have given up on you, Charlie,” but she always said it with a smile, and then, “You are bound and determined to go your own way. It's a good thing you're such a handsome and charming boy.” Once in a while, Dad sat down with him and had a serious conversation, in which they discussed consequences. Mom and Dad lived in fear of consequences, mostly because Dad's brother, Uncle Urban, whom Charlie had never met, had died when he was sixteen as the consequence of getting drunk and driving his car into a lamppost on a bridge over the Des Peres River. The lamppost had been infested with termites and had fallen over the edge, and the car, which was going a hundred miles an hour (Charlie thought), went right with it. Urban, or “Urbie,” had never understood consequences. When Mom and Dad had adopted Charlie from the hospital, they had vowed to our Lord Jesus Christ that Charlie would be properly taught, and so they went to Mass every Sunday at Holy Redeemer. Mom wanted him to be an altar boy, but Charlie could see that the altar boys had to stand very still—their legs never jiggled, and they made no noise that they weren't supposed to make. Also, they had to say things the right way. “And with your spirit” could never be said, “With Dan in Roy's stirrups,” for example, which was a phrase Charlie often contemplated during Mass, and if he contemplated it, it was sure to pop out. Now that he was taking diving off the high board (the three-meter board, it was called), Mom was going to Mass every day, but she dropped him off with a smile and a “Have fun!” and so he did. He knew she was praying for him—she prayed for everybody, including Jimmy Carter.

Coach Lutz made them stretch every single morning. “Point your toes, touch your nose, hold your pose, stretching shows” was the rhyme for that way of bending so that your nose touched your knees, and “Stand up tall, show it all, stand up tall, see it all” was the rhyme
for making sure that their bodies were straight, from their flat hands to their elbows against their ears to their shoulders, hips, knees, and pointed toes. Once they were allowed on the one-meter board, they spent a long time going straight down the board and into the water, no matter what. Charlie tried to be like Moira, who knew what she was doing every step, and always rode the board perfectly.

Then they had to learn to tuck. Off the low board, a tuck was just a fancy cannonball. If they got to the water without a good, tight tuck (pretty hard off the low board, but not impossible), they lost ten dollars of the hundred the coach said they started the day with. Supposedly, someday he was going to pay them real money, but Charlie knew this was a joke. Every day, as often as he could, Charlie asked Mom and Dad for a trampoline in the backyard. Mom said he must stop pestering her, and Dad said they couldn't afford it, but apparently Mom had lit some candles at the church, and now they were thinking about it. In Charlie's experience, pestering worked fine.

Off the high board, they had to tuck and then lay out and go in feet first with their toes pointed. They got ten more dollars for no splash. Charlie was getting better: if he untucked smoothly rather than jerkily, his splash was good, though not worth money. Today they were going to tuck and lay out in a dive, flat hands first. Charlie had been thinking about it all weekend and all morning, so intently that he'd dropped his book in the pool and had to slip in and get it, then spread it out on the concrete deck and hope that it would dry.

Now was the time. Moira had gone, Emma had gone. Emma's head popped up, and she waved. Charlie climbed the ladder, pulling himself with his hands and pushing himself with his feet, consciously lifting the weight of his body in order to get stronger and bigger. At the top, he took a deep breath and looked around. The blue pool and the green park spread away from him, and he lifted his arms, thinking that this was surely how a bird felt. He took another deep breath—right foot first, three big steps, bend your knees and hips, jump, bounce, tuck, roll, open up, lay out, and wait for the water, with his hands gripping each other and his elbows flat to his ears.

Maybe, Charlie thought later, this was what passing out felt like, because, after he looked at his right foot stepping, he really didn't know what happened. All he knew was that he had never felt anything
like it—the world turning upside down and right side up and upside down again, his body unwinding like a string, his hands entering the water as if piercing a hole in a piece of paper. He awakened when he touched the bottom of the pool, shook his head, and swam to the side. Up. Deep breath. Coach Lutz was standing right there. He shouted, “What was that all about, Charlie?”

Charlie said that he didn't know.

“What was that dive?”

Charlie shook his head.

Coach Lutz stared at him, then said, “Don't you realize you did a front one and a half?”

“No, sir.” Charlie knew to say “sir” and “ma'am” if he was in trouble.

There was a long pause. Coach Lutz said, “Most kids, I wouldn't believe them, Charlie, but you I believe.”

Then he said, “It was a good one, too. But don't do it again.”

Only then did he smile.

After that, going to diving class was like putting himself in a box and closing the lid. He did exactly as he was told and just the way he was told to do it. But the day would come, like Christmas, when he would be allowed to open the box, and the rolls and twists would fill him with that sense, again, that he knew everything and nothing at the exact same time, that between the sight of his foot and the feeling of the water there would be an intoxicating mystery, and that was the only thing in this world that he wanted.

—

MICHAEL GOT IT
into his mind that the best place to take girls was down to New Hope, where the queers had these great dance clubs, like the Prelude. Richie didn't object—the sound system was top-of-the-line loud, the mirror lights were flashing, the dance floor was big, and girls could wear great outfits and get plenty of compliments. If you didn't mind queers that much and kept your elbows up in the john, that part was fine, and there were also plenty of poppers, which made for an even better time. Sometimes Michael went without Richie, but they didn't have to go everywhere together, and they weren't living together. Michael worked for Mr. Upjohn as a runner
on the trading floor; Richie worked for Mr. Rubino, updating commercial listings and answering the phone. Michael made fifteen hundred dollars a month, and Richie made sixteen hundred.

Their car was the old Chrysler (though Michael was looking at a Jag, and Richie liked Porsches). The number-one girl was Marnie Keller. She worked as an assistant in publishing at Viking, and made about two cents an hour. She lived in an illegal sublet in Chelsea and couldn't answer the phone or the door. If Michael wanted to see her, he had to go to her place and knock, and she would look through the little hole in the door and let him in if she was in the mood. Girl number two was a friend of Marnie's from work, who lived on the Upper East Side, in a dump. The main floor of the apartment was nice enough, but Ivy's room was down a spiral staircase that had been cut into the floor. No window, but there was a double bed and a colorful rug, and it was better than sleeping on couches, which is what Ivy had done for three months after coming to New York after graduating from Bard. Marnie was in publicity, and Ivy was in editorial. They didn't let you hold doors for them, but they did let you pay. Michael said that that was women's liberation for you.

Everyone was waiting for him outside Michael's place on Eighty-fourth Street, also a dump, but in a good neighborhood. Michael had an arm around each girl. He was wearing a tight jacket and boots with heels. A cigarette was dangling from the corner of his mouth. When Richie pulled up, Michael hustled Marnie into the back seat with him and let Ivy open the passenger's door for herself. She got in and gave Richie a kiss on the cheek; Michael said, “Fuck, it's cold. The heat on?”

Richie kissed Ivy in return, then said, “Hi, Marn. Where'd you pick up this asshole?”

“Usual spot,” said Marnie, and the two girls laughed.

“Fuck, she loves me, she loves me not,” said Michael. He had the expanded quality that indicated to Richie that he'd had a few drinks before the girls arrived. He lay back across most of the seat, and pulled Marnie against him. She said, “How can I fasten my seat belt?”

“No seat belts on you, baby,” said Michael.

Ivy fastened her seat belt, put her hand on Richie's knee.

New York was not like college in many ways, and one of them was that the girls he dated in college wanted boyfriends, a ring, and a
wedding, but the girls that he dated in New York wanted something more like a wild brother. Michael said that the only thing girls in New York wanted was a decent apartment, and to get that you had to find an older man who (as Richie knew) had purchased his apartment in the early sixties. If that meant kids and an ex-wife, so be it. Boys their own age were for fun, and older men were for membership at MoMA, an account with a car service, access to book parties where Norman Mailer might show up. This system was fine, according to Michael. In the first place, look at their mom and dad, who might as well be living in a hotel as in a house together—a thirty-year-old stepmother would at least buy the old man some cooler suits. In the second place, in ten years, when they themselves had it made, they would have their pick of that crop, the 1963 crop, and who was to say that 1963 wasn't a very good year? Michael planned to sample all the vintages along the way.

Richie felt that he could go either way, depending on the girl. He was a little lonely, so he could imagine himself making something permanent, living in Brooklyn, an upper-floor apartment where the plumbing worked and the cockroaches were more reticent. He could imagine himself talking to this girl and making jokes, and going out to breakfast and seeing movies and taking the subway to work every morning. And not introducing her to Michael. On the other hand, there was nothing wrong with the system they'd come up with, and they could have dated every night if they felt like it. There were that many girls.

New Hope was about an hour and fifteen minutes away. The town was full of restaurants and shops, and all the houses were fixed up, with paint jobs and gardens. Michael said this was mostly because the queers decided they needed a nicer spot than Woodstock, and a closer one, too. This was how New York worked—money went to the Hamptons, hippies and Jews went to the Catskills, queers went to New Hope and Fire Island. In the back seat, Michael was making out with Marnie. They were laughing, and she said, “I should have worn jeans! Keep your hand in your own pants, Michael!”

“You know you don't mean that.”

“I do. Shit!” She sounded actually annoyed.

Richie tapped the brake pedal, and the car lurched. There was a moment of silence. When he looked in the rearview mirror, Richie
saw Michael hoist himself upright. A moment later, he put on his seat belt (Richie could hear the click), and then Marnie put on hers. He and Ivy exchanged a glance and a smile. Ivy's lips formed the words “Mission accomplished,” and the two of them laughed, but softly.

Inside the Prelude, the sight of men with their arms around one another, dancing together and sometimes kissing, sort of shocked him, and when he looked again, there was the even odder sight of very, very tall women with narrow hips in high heels and heavy makeup who he realized after a few minutes were men in drag. Twice, they had seen shows of dance numbers on the stage. The dancers were beautiful and skilled, and when they bowed at the end, they pulled off their wigs and revealed their bristly heads. They got rounds and rounds of applause. The flashing lights and the pounding music made these sights all the more strange; it took him maybe fifteen minutes every time he came to stop staring and start having fun. No matter how well dressed Marnie and Ivy were, he and Michael got the stares. Ivy started laughing as soon as they walked in the door—she loved the outfits the cross-dressers had on that she herself didn't have the figure or the nerve to wear, and she loved the dedication with which some of these guys had taught themselves wonderful old Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly moves. She kept poking him and pointing. The music was disco, but the dancing, often, was
American in Paris.
She got so pleased that she kissed him, saying, “Oh, you are sweet, Richie.”

He danced and danced, making sure he partnered with both Ivy and Marnie, until he collapsed at a table and ordered a Heiny. Michael liked Stoli and grapefruit juice. He said it was nutritious.

At one-thirty, Richie was ready to go—after five Heinies, he was still okay to drive, but he didn't want a sixth. Ivy was sleeping against his shoulder, and Marnie was dancing with a tall woman in heels who needed a shave. Right then, the Donna Summer song came on, “Last Dance.” He didn't know where Michael was until he heard his voice. Three queers on the dance floor were having an argument Richie had heard before: “He's mine, he's going home with me,” followed by “No, Tommy, this is my new friend. I'm leaving with him.” Then another voice, saying, “You want to come with us?” Then the first voice, rising, “I brought you! You called me because your transmission is fucked! I paid the cover!” Then Michael's voice, “Yeah!”

Richie eased Ivy's head onto the table and stood up. He was a little off kilter. Michael's voice shouted, “All right.” It was Michael's I'm-about-to-punch-somebody voice. Richie made his way through the hugging bodies on the dance floor. They were in the back corner. Michael's jacket was off, and his shirt was unbuttoned, but the three guys (all dressed as guys) were ignoring him. One was shaking his head regretfully, and another was putting his arm around the head shaker's waist. The third was between Michael and his friends; just as he opened his mouth, Michael pushed him toward the other two and exclaimed, “Act like a fucking man, you faggot!” The guy fell forward, and the other two caught him. Michael ran at them and managed to grab one of them before Richie knocked into his twin and bumped him aside; then he closed his fingers around Michael's upper arm and pushed him across the dance floor to where Marnie was petting Ivy's hair. He said, “Let's go to the diner. I need a cup of coffee before we head home.”