Further Tales of the City (4 page)

A
CROSS TOWN ON VALENCIA STREET, MICHAEL AND
Ned were sharing a Calistoga at Devil’s Herd, the city’s most popular gay country-western bar.

What Michael liked most about the saloon was its authenticity: the twangy down-home band (Western Electric), the horse collars dangling from the ceiling, the folksy Annie Oakley dykes shouting “yahoo” from the bar.

If he squinted his eyes just so, the dudes doing cowboy dancing could be grizzled buckeroos, horny claim-jumpers who were simply making do until the next shipment of saloon girls came in from the East.

True, the beefcake cowboy murals struck a somewhat citified note in the overall scheme of things, but Michael didn’t mind. Someday, he believed, the homoerotic cave drawings in San Francisco’s gay bars would be afforded the same sort of reverence that is currently heaped upon WPA murals and deco apartment house lobbies.

“Oh look!” a sophisticated but hunky workman would cry, peeling back a piece of rotting wallboard. “There seems to be
a painting back here! My God, it’s from the school of Tom of Finland!”

The band was playing “Stand By Your Man.” As soon as they recognized the tune, Michael and Ned smiled in unison. “Jon was big on that one,” said Michael. “Just as a song, though. Not as a way of life.”

Ned took a swig of the Calistoga. “I thought it was you that left him.”

“Well,
technically,
maybe. We left each other, actually. It was a big relief to both of us. We were damn lucky, really. Sometimes it’s not that easy to pull out of an S & M relationship.”

“Wait a minute. Since when were you guys …?”

“S & M,” Michael repeated. “Streisand and Midler. He was into Streisand. I was into Midler. It was pure, unadulterated hell.”

Ned laughed. “I guess I bit on that one.”

“I’m serious,” said Michael. “We fought about it all the time. One Sunday afternoon when Jon was listening to “Evergreen” for about the three millionth time, I suddenly found myself asking him what exactly he saw in … I believe I referred to her as ‘that tone-deaf, big-nosed bitch.’”

“Jesus. What did he say?”

“He was quite adult about it, actually. He pointed out calmly that Bette’s nose is bigger than Barbra’s. I almost brained him with his goddamned Baccarat paperweight.”

This time Ned guffawed, a sound that told Michael he had struck paydirt. Ned was the only person he knew who actually guffawed. “It’s the truth,” grinned Michael. “Every single word of it.”

“Yeah,” said Ned, “but people don’t really break up over stuff like that.”

“Well …” Michael thought for a moment. “I guess we just made each other do things we didn’t want to do. He made me alphabetize the classical albums by composer. I made him eat crunchy peanut butter instead of plain. He made me sleep in a room with eggplant walls. I made him eat off Fiesta Ware.
We didn’t agree on much of anything, come to think of it, except Al Parker and Rocky Road ice cream.”

“You ever mess around?”

“You betcha. None o’ that nasty heterosexual role-playing for
us.
Lots of buddy nights at the baths. I can’t even count the number of times I rolled over in bed and told some hot stranger: ‘You’d like my lover.’”

“What about rematches?”

“Once,” said Michael grimly, “but never again. Jon sulked for a week. I saw his point, actually: once is recreation; twice is courtship. You learn these nifty little nuances when you’re married. That’s why I’m not married anymore.”

“But you could be, huh?”

Michael shook his head. “Not now. Not for a while. I don’t know … maybe never. It’s a knack, isn’t it? Some of us just don’t have the knack.”

“You gotta want it bad,” said Ned.

“Then, maybe I don’t want it bad enough. That’s a possibility. That’s a distinct possibility.” Michael took a sip of the mineral water, then drummed his fingers on the bar in time to the music. The band had stopped playing now; someone at the jukebox had paid Hank Williams Jr. to sing “Women I Never Had.”

Michael handed the Calistoga back to Ned. “Remember Mona?” he asked.

Ned nodded. “Your old roommate.”

“Yeah. Well, Mona used to say that she could get by just fine without a lover as long as she had five good friends. That about sums it up for me right now.”

“I hope I’m one of ’em,” said Ned.

Michael’s brow wrinkled while he counted hastily on his fingers. “Jesus,” he said at last. “I think you’re three of them.”

P
RUE GIROUX AND VICTORIA LYNCH WERE KINDRED
spirits.

For one thing, they were both handsome women. For another, Victoria was engaged to the ex-husband of the woman who was engaged to Prue’s ex-husband. Bonds like that were not easily broken.

Today, Victoria had called to share a secret with her spiritual sister.

“Now listen, Prudy Sue, this is cross-your-heart stuff, definitely not for publication, understand?” (Prue’s closest friends always addressed her by her childhood name.)

“Of course,” said Prue.

“I mean, eventually of course I would adore for you to give it a little publicity in your column, which is part of the reason I called, but right now it’s just in the embryonic stage, and we don’t want to kill the baby, do we?”

“Of course not,” said Prue.

“Well,” announced Victoria, sucking in breath as if she were about to blow a trumpet fanfare, “yours truly is in the process of organizing the world’s first society wax museum!”

“The … come again?”

“Now, shut up a sec, Prudy Sue, and hear me out. I met this absolutely divine little man at the Keatings’ house in Santa Barbara, and it seems he’s fallen on rather hard times lately, which is too tragic, because it turns out he’s descended from the Hapsburgs or something. I mean, he’s got the prominent lower lip and everything. Anyway, Vita told me he used to work at Madame Tussaud’s, where he was their principal designer …”

“Ah, yes. I have one of his gowns.”

A pause, and then: “You do
not
have one of his gowns, Prudy Sue.”

“But that mauve cocktail dress I wore to …”

“That’s a Madame
Gres,
Prudy Sue. You do not own a Madame Tussaud. Madame Tussaud’s is a wax museum in London.”

“I knew that,” sulked Prue. “I thought you said …”

“Of course you did, darling. Those French names all sound alike, don’t they? Now … where was I?”

“He used to work at Madame Tufo’s.”

“Uh … right. He worked … there, and he’s terribly aristocratic and all, and he thinks that it’s just a damn shame there’s never been a wax museum for society figures. Think about that, Prudy Sue! We have wax museums for historical people and show business people and sports people, but nary a thing for the movers and shakers of society. It’s shocking really, when you stop and think about it.”

“That’s a good point,” said Prue. “I never really …”

“And if
we
don’t take the initiative on this, who will? I mean, that’s what this little man said to me, and I was absolutely
floored
by his insight. Our children can see for themselves how short Napoleon really was, for instance, but where can they go to look at a replica of, say, Nan Kempner. Or Sao Schlumberger. Or Marie Hélène de Rothschild. These people are
legends,
Prudy Sue, but they’ll be lost to posterity forever, if we don’t take decisive action now. At least, that’s what Wolfgang says, and I think he’s dead right.”

“Wolfgang?”

“The little man. He’s such a dear, really. The wax figures
usually run about fifteen thousand apiece, but he’s offered to do them for ten as a sort of a public service. He wants me to scout locations for the museum, which is a damn good thing, since he was leaning towards Santa Barbara when I talked to him, but I think I convinced him to move it here. That way, see, we can have a San Francisco wing as well as an international wing.”

“I see.”

“I thought you might, darling.” Victoria giggled conspiratorially. “God, isn’t it fabulous? We’ll get to donate our old gowns and everything. Plus Wolfgang can make marvelous paste imitations of your emeralds, and … well, I’m just positive we can raise the money in no time.”

“Have you talked to Denise yet?”

Victoria chuckled. “I’m way ahead of you, Prudy Sue. I think she’s good for fifty thousand,
if
we put her in the international wing. Ditto Ann Getty. That one may be a little tougher to pull off unless we stack the board of directors, but what-the-hell, we’ll stack the board of directors.”

Prue finally managed a laugh. “You haven’t told Shugie Sussman, have you?”

“God no! We hadn’t planned on a Chamber of Horrors, darling! On second thought, let’s do—have you seen Kitty Cipriani’s latest facelift?”

Prue laughed even louder this time. Then she said: “Oh Vicky, thank you! I’ve needed to laugh more than anything. I’ve been so depressed over Vuitton.”

“Over …? Oh, your dog.”

“It’s been almost two weeks now. The Park & Rec people haven’t seen him anywhere. I don’t know what to do except …” Prue’s voice trailed off as the melancholy swept over her again.

“Except what, Prudy Sue.”

“Well … I thought I might go back to the park and … wait for him.”

“That’s an awfully long shot, isn’t it. I mean,
two weeks,
Prudy Sue. It’s not very likely that he’s still …”

“I
know
he’s there, Vicky. I can feel it in my bones. I know he’ll come back to me, if I give him the chance.”

Even as she spoke, Prue knew how she sounded. She
sounded like poor old Frannie Halcyon, still believing against preposterous odds that her long-lost daughter would return from the jungles of Guyana.

But stranger things had happened.

O
N HIS WAY HOME FROM PERRY’S, BRIAN STOPPED AT
a garage sale on Union Street and bought an antique Peter, Paul & Mary album for a quarter.

Also available: two Shelley Berman albums, an early Limelighters album featuring Glenn Yarborough, and the soundtracks of
Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Mondo Cane,
and
To Kill a Mockingbird.

Somebody’s youth, in other words.

There was nothing like a stack of dog-eared record albums to remind you that the past was just so much dead weight, excess baggage to be cast overboard when the sailing got tougher. Or so Brian told himself.

Nevertheless, he lit a joint upon returning to Barbary Lane and crooned along euphorically while PP&M sang “If I Had a Hammer,” “Five Hundred Miles” and “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

Had it really been eighteen years—Christ, half his life!—since Nelson Schwab had cornered him during Hell Week at the Deke House to impart the privileged information that “Puff” was really an underground parable about—no shit!—smoking marijuana?

Yep, it really had.

He fell into a black funk, then snatched the record off the turntable and shattered it with the hammer he kept in the tool box under the kitchen sink. Inexcusable symbolism, but somehow richly satisfying.

So much for the iron grip of the past.

Now, what about the present?

The
Chronicle
“help wanted” ads were so dismal that Brian postponed any immediate career decisions and trekked downstairs to help Mrs. Madrigal plan Mary Ann’s birthday party. He found the landlady installing a Roach Motel in a dark corner of her pantry.

Looking up, she smiled defeatedly. “I told myself I would never buy one of these dreadful things. Those TV commercials seem so sadistic. Still, we can’t love absolutely all of God’s creatures, can we? They haven’t found their way up to your place, I hope?”

Brian shook his head. “The altitude’s too much for ’em.”

Mrs. Madrigal stood up, wiping her hands against each other as if they were sticky with blood. She cast a final glance at the grisly Motel, shuddered, and took Brian’s arm. “Let’s go sit in the sunshine, dear. I feel like Anthony Perkins waiting for Janet Leigh to check in.”

Out in the courtyard, she ticked off a list of prospective delights for Mary Ann’s upcoming celebration: “A nice roast of some sort with those baby carrots that she likes … and some ice cream from Gelato, of course, to go with the birthday cake. And … well, I guess it’s about time for Barbara Stanwyck, isn’t it?”

“A movie?” asked Brian.

Mrs. Madrigal clucked her tongue at him. “Miss Stanwyck, my dear boy, is my heartiest specimen yet.” She pointed to the edge of the courtyard where a sensemilla plant as big as a Christmas tree was undulating softly in the warm spring breeze.

Brian whistled in appreciation. “That stuff knocks your socks off.”

The landlady smiled modestly. “I didn’t name her Barbara Stanwyck for nothing.”

They previewed Miss Stanwyck. Then they wandered down the hill to Washington Square and sat on a bench in the sunshine, docile and groggy as a couple of aging house cats.

After a long silence, Brian said: “Does she ever talk to you about me?”

“Who? Mrs. Onassis?”

Brian smiled languidly. “You know.”

“Well …” Mrs. Madrigal chewed her lower lip. “Only about your extraordinary sexual prowess, that sort of thing … nothing really personal.”

Brian laughed. “That’s a relief.”

The landlady’s Wedgwood saucer eyes fixed on him lovingly. “She cares about you a great deal, young man.”

Brian tore up a tuft of grass and began to shred it. “She told you that, huh?”

“Well … not in so many words …”

“It only takes three.” His voice was tinged with doubt, more than he wanted to show. “I don’t know,” he added hastily, “maybe it’s just her work or something. She’s so obsessed with becoming a reporter that nothing else seems to matter. I don’t know. Screw it. It’s no big deal.”

Mrs. Madrigal smiled wistfully and brushed the hair off his forehead. “But it is, isn’t it? It’s an awfully big deal.”

“It wasn’t before,” said Brian.

The landlady’s eyes widened. “Oh, I know how that can be.”

“I want this to work out, Mrs. Madrigal. I never wanted anything so bad.”

“Then you shall have it,” said the landlady. “My children always get what they want.” She gave Brian’s knee a friendly shake.

“But
she’s
one of your children,” said Brian. “What if it’s not what
she
wants?”

“I expect it will be,” said Mrs. Madrigal, “but you must be patient with her. She’s just now learning how to fly.”