Further Tales of the City (5 page)

A
T LEAST TWICE A YEAR THE SAN FRANCISCO GAY
Men’s Chorus made a point of retreating to the wilds of Northern California for a weekend of intensive rehearsals and camping-around-the-campfire camaraderie.

The “wilds” were always the same: Camp Eisenblatt, a summer camp for Jewish teenagers which leased its sylvan facilities to the one-hundred-fifty-member homosexual choir during the off-seasons. And
this
season was about as off as it could get.

“What a pisser!” groaned Michael as he stared out at the driving rain. “I was gonna start on my tan line this weekend.”

Ned laughed and clipped an olive drab jockstrap to the clothesline strung across one end of the baritones’ bunkhouse. “Cowboys don’t have tan lines,” he said.

Since the theme of this year’s retreat was “Spring Roundup,” the western motif was in evidence everywhere. Even their name tags were affixed with swatches of cowboy bandannas: red for the first tenors, tan for the second tenors, dark blue for the baritones, dark brown for the basses and royal blue for the nonmusical “chorus widows” who had
come along to make sure that their lovers didn’t have too much fun in the redwoods.

“Just the same,” said Michael. “I liked it better last fall when we had the luau and the eighty-degree weather.”

“And the sarongs,” added Ned. “I thought we’d never get you out of that damn thing.”

Michael inspected his fingernails blithely. “As I recall, there was a first tenor who succeeded.”

“Well, shift fantasies,” suggested Ned. “Pretend you’re in a real bunkhouse. You’ve just come in from a long, hot cattle drive and the rain is cooling off the livestock.”

“Right. And my ol’ sidekick Lonesome Ned is about to dry his jockstrap with a blowdryer. Listen, pardner, I don’t know how to break this to you gently, but
real
bunkhouses don’t have
REBECCA
is
A FAT SLOB
written in pink nailpolish on the bathroom wall.”

Ned smiled lazily. “Jehovah moves in mysterious ways.”

After a long morning of wrestling with Liszt’s Requiem and Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody, the chorus converged on the Camp Eisenblatt dining hall for a lunch of bologna sandwiches and Kool-Aid.

Later, Michael and Ned and a dozen of their compatriots gossiped jovially around the fireplace. There were so many different plaids in the great room that it looked like a gathering of the clans.

“Hey,” said Ned, as he warmed his butt in front of the gas-jet embers. “I almost forgot. I got a call from______this week.”

“No kidding,” said Michael, his voice ringing with unabashed fandom. It was almost inconceivable that someone he knew got personal phone calls from movie stars. Even if Ned
had
been this movie star’s lover.

“He’s royally bummed out,” said Ned. “They canceled the musical he was gonna tour with this summer.”

“He sings?”

Ned shrugged. “When you look like that, no one notices.”

“Tell him to come with us,” offered Michael, meaning the
chorus’s own nine city summer tour. “God, wouldn’t that knock ’em dead in Nebraska?”

“I think he’ll survive,” said Ned. “He still gets two million a picture.”

Michael whistled. “Where does he spend it?”

“On his friends mostly. And the house. Wanna see it?”

“Uh … pardon me?”

“He invited me down for a weekend. Said to bring a friend. How about it?”

Michael almost yelped.
“Me?
Are you serious? Lordy mercy, man! Me at______ ______’s house? Is this for real?”

Ned nodded, beaming like a father who had just offered his eight-year-old a shot at Disneyland.

They rode back to the city in Ned’s pickup, carrying six buddies and their bedrolls as cargo.

The illusion presented was almost redneck—except for the telltale chartreuse crinolines from last night’s Andrews Sisters sketch. And, of course, the three identical auburn wigs on styrofoam stands.

At a stop sign near the K-Mart in Saratoga, Ned pulled alongside a bronze Barracuda that was draped in pink toilet paper and spray-painted with this legend:
JUST MARRIED—SHE
GOT HIM TODAY—HE’LL GET HER TONIGHT.

A whoop went up from the back of the truck.

The bridegroom, resplendent in a powder blue tuxedo with matching ruffled shirt, cast a nervous glance in their direction, frowned and turned back to his bride. Michael saw the word “fags” form on his lips.

Rolling the window down, he shouted across at the couple: “Hey!” They were moving again now, but Ned kept the truck even with the car.

“Yeah?” said the bridegroom.

“Congratulations!” yelled Michael.

“Thanks!” shouted the bride, still holding tight to her husband’s free arm.

“What’s your song?”

“Huh?”

“Your
song.
What is it?”

The bride beamed. “ ‘We’ve Only Just Begun.’ ”

Michael hollered to the guys in the back of the truck. “HIT IT, GIRLS!”

The Andrews Sisters were never lovelier.

M
ICHAEL WAITED UNTIL THE FAMILY WAS ASSEMBLED
for Mary Ann’s birthday dinner before breaking the news.

Mary Ann was the most flabbergasted.

“Now wait just a minute!”

Michael held up his hand. “Scout’s honor, Babycakes. Ned invited me yesterday.”

“I’m not questioning that,” said Mary Ann, “but, you mean _____ _____ is
gay?”

“As the proverbial goose,” said Michael. “Hell,” said Brian, sawing off a chunk of pot roast. “Even I knew that. Remember that story about his gay wedding to _______ _______ back about …?”

“Well, of course I
heard
that, but …” Mary Ann was almost sputtering; she hated it when her Cleveland naiveté popped up like an overnight zit. “Well, I always thought it was just some sort of … bad joke.”

“It
was
a bad joke,” said Michael. “A couple of tired queens in Hermosa Beach or some place sent out party invitations announcing a mock wedding and … the rumor just got started. ______ and ______ were never even lovers. Just
friends. They couldn’t be seen in public together after that. It would only confirm the rumor.”

“Do you always refer to him by his first name?” teased Mary Ann.

Michael grinned. “Just practicing.”

Mrs. Madrigal heaped more carrots onto Michael’s plate. “That’s a rather sad story, isn’t it?”

Michael nodded. “It must’ve been a bitch, staying closeted all these years.”

“Yeah,” said Brian, his mouth full of pot roast, “but two mil a movie must soften the blow.”

Mary Ann giggled. “So to speak.”

Michael’s eyes widened in pseudo-horror. “Well, look who’s getting smutty in her senior years.” Mary Ann stuck her tongue out daintily.

Mrs. Madrigal stirred her coffee as she stared off into space.

“_______ _______,” she murmured, intoning the matinee idol’s name as if it were one of Mona’s mantras. “Well, it makes perfect sense. He’s always been a stunning creature. Remember when he took off his shirt in ________?” The landlady heaved a prolonged sigh. “I was quite taken with him when I was a young … whatever.”

Mrs. Madrigal’s tenants laughed at this playful reference to her veiled past. Then Michael lifted his glass: “Well, here’s to our birthday girl … who’s about to become an
old
whatever like the rest of us.”

Mary Ann leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Prick,” she whispered.

Then she turned to her other side and kissed Brian lightly on the mouth.

Michael completed the circle by blowing a kiss to Brian.

Smiling contentedly, Mrs. Madrigal watched the ritual like a doting matchmaker, hands clasped under her chin. “You know,” she said. “You three are my favorite couple.”

After dinner, the landlady produced a Wedgwood plate of Barbara Stanwyck joints. Then came cake and ice cream and Mary Ann’s presents: a bottle of “Opium” from Brian, a
cat-shaped deco pin from Michael, an antique teapot from Mrs. Madrigal.

“And now,” announced the landlady, “if you gentlemen will kindly excuse us, I would like to do a Tarot reading for Mary Ann.”

Mary Ann’s eyes danced. “I didn’t know you knew how to do that!”

“I don’t,” replied Mrs. Madrigal, “but I make up
wonderful
things.”

So Brian and Michael retired to the roof, where they watched the bay through the eyes of Miss Stanwyck.

“You know what?” said Brian.

“What?” said Michael.

“She’s right. Mrs. Madrigal, I mean. The three of us do so much stuff together that we’re kinda like a couple.”

“Yeah. I guess so. That bother you?”

Brian thought for a moment. “Nah. You’re my friend, Michael. And she’s your friend, and … hell, I don’t know.”

Michael handed the joint back to Brian. “Lots of people do things in threes here. Check out the audience the next time we go to a play.”

Brian laughed. “Trisexuals. Isn’t that what you called them?”

“For want of a better term.”

Brian laid his arm across Michael’s shoulder. “You know what’s bugging me, Michael?”

Michael waited.

“It just bugs the hell out of me that I’ll never be everything she needs.”

Michael smiled feebly. “I know that one.”

“Yeah?”

“You betcha. I busted my butt trying to be everything to one person. Finally, I had to settle for being one thing to every person.”

“What’s the one thing?”

Michael hesitated. “Hell, I was hoping you could tell me.” Brian laughed and squeezed his shoulder. “You’re crazy, man.”

“Maybe
that’s
it.”

“I tell you what,” said Brian, looking directly at his friend.
“I love you, Michael. I love you like my brother.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

There was a moment, a very brief moment, when their eyes met with unembarrassed affection. Then Michael retrieved the joint and took a hit. “Is your brother cute?” he asked.

H
AVING MADE UP HER MIND TO SEARCH THE PARK FOR
her missing wolfhound, Prue Giroux spent the morning at Eddie Bauer choosing just the right safari jacket for the job. To her surprise, she encountered one of her Forum regulars in the camping supplies department.

“Father Paddy!”

Swinging sharply—so sharply, in fact, that his crucifix grazed Prue’s chest—Father Paddy Starr turned to face his public, flashing the fluorescent grin that had endeared him to thousands of local late-night television viewers.

“Prue daaarrrllling!” He pecked her once on each cheek, then held her at arm’s length as if to check the merchandise for damage. “What on earth are you doing in this he-man, roughneck place?”

“I’m looking for a safari jacket. What about you, Father? They don’t make cassocks in khaki, do they?”

Father Paddy shrieked, then sighed dramatically. “And more’s the pity, my child, more’s the pity! Wouldn’t that be divine? This tired old basic black … year in, year out. It’s truly loathsome. I
long
for a new dress.”

Prue tittered appreciatively. She loved the cute way Father Paddy joked about his “dress” and used the word “divine” in the civilian sense. It made him seem accessible somehow. Not like a priest at all, more like a … spiritual decorator.

“Actually,” the cleric added breathlessly, “I’m desperate for a good, no-nonsense picnic basket. I promised Frannie Halcyon I’d take her to Santa Barbara to see the Shroud of Turin.”

“Ah,” said Prue cheerily. “Who’s in that?”

Father Paddy seemed to ponder for a moment, then explained: “It’s not actually an opera, my child. It’s a … well, a shroud. The cloth that Christ was buried in. At least, that’s what they
think
it is. Quite fascinating, really, and all the rage in ecclesiastical circles.”

“How marvelous,” said Prue.

Father Paddy leaned closer, as if to disclose confidential information. “Hotter than the Tut and Tiffany exhibits combined. You should write about it in your column.”

Prue retrieved her Elsa Peretti pen from her Bottega bag and made a brief notation in a tiny Florentine notebook. “So,” she chirped when everything was in place again, “I’d say you deserve a little vacation … after all that awful business with the … militants trying to sing at St. Ignatius.”

Father Paddy nodded grimly. “The Gay Chorus. Yes. That was most unfortunate. Dreadful. The Archbishop, bless his heart, had his back against the wall. In a manner of speaking.”

Prue shook her head sympathetically. “Some people just don’t know where to stop, I’m afraid.”

Another nod, even graver.

“They can hire a hall,” Prue added.

“Of course they can. We’re
liberals,
you and I. It isn’t that we aren’t in favor of … well, human rights and that sort of thing. We are. We
feel.
We care. We reach out and touch those in need of our caring. But a chorus of admitted homosexuals singing in a church? Well,
please
… I haven’t lived this long not to know tacky when I see it!” Prue’s driver dropped her off at the conservatory in Golden Gate Park shortly before noon.

His instructions were to return in two hours.

If her efforts proved fruitless, they could mount the search from another corner of the park, systematically combing every acre of the terrain until the dog was found. Or not found. Prue was braced for the latter, but she knew she would never forgive herself if she didn’t at least try.

She had lost Vuitton in the tree ferns, so that was where her search began, there amidst the lush and lacy extravagance of those otherworldly plants.

Momentarily moved by the beauty of her surroundings, she stopped and jotted a reminder in her notebook: “If
W
calls, ask to be shot in the tree ferns.” She expected to be included in the magazine’s summer spread. And why be photographed at home, looking stiff and matronly like the rest, when they could shoot her here, framed in exotica, wild and free as a white-plumed cockatiel?

She set off along an asphalt path that wound through the tree ferns then dramatically ascended to a densely wooded ridge lined with eucalyptus trees.

“Vuitton,” she called. “Vuitton.”

An aging hippie woman, dressed in Birkenstocks and a fringed poncho, passed Prue on the pathway and frowned at her.

But Prue was lost in the singlemindedness of her search.

“Vuitton … Vuiiiiimtton …”