How Long Has This Been Going On (47 page)

Another aspect of dancing culture that has evolved over the years is arrival time. In the late 1960s, the posted hours were respected as if for a dinner party: If the dance began at ten, ten was when the gang began to gather. By the mid-1970s, only the dolts poured in: The stars made entrances, the later the better. Years after, when the Flamingo and then the Saint were in their heyday, Chase and Thompson would think nothing of walking in well after two. But tonight at Kingdom Come they were at thedoor with Chris by ten-thirty, passing satiric comments as they pressed into the place.

"There's one," said Chase, noting an enticing yet shyly self-protected female dressed in the style of Arthur's Guinevere, all lace and for.

"Don't point," said Thompson.

One drag queen, Chase meant, and so she was: in blue drag, meaning so flawlessly copied that idiot straight men—cops—wouldn't detect her. Uncompromising queens flashed red drag: deliberately androgynous and a bait to cops.

Blue drag, red drag, handkerchiefs, arrival times. The codes, the terminology, the system—you see how gay men and women have been working up a chart of behavioral style? In the 1920s, it was red ties. In the 1930s, it was wearing green on Thursdays. In the 1940s, it was a look in the eyes, a reality shoving itself forth. Now, in the 1960s, it's clothes and music and places to go.

Chase and Thompson are like tourists, Chris is thinking. They like to emphasize how different they are from all this, yet they want to be here. It's not honest.

So Chris says, "Now,
there's
a fetching young fellow."

Chase and Thompson turn to stare: at Blue, with whom Paul is proudly on parade.

"He's so blond!" says Chase. "It's too much!"

"Oh, it's just right," says Thompson. "Come on, Chase."

"I like you two better when you're open," says Chris.

"Open? About what?" asks Thompson, ever so blandly.

"About men's looks. What you find attractive."

Truly taken aback, Thompson stutters out, "Really, Chris, you're being a little pushy now."

"Well, you
are,
aren't you? I mean, why else are we at this dance?"

"You're
not," Chase points out. "At least, not if torrid Ty is to be believed."

"So
pushy,"
Thompson repeats incredulously.

"What's Ty got to do with..." Chris begins, then switches tone. "Let's not fight this early in the evening, kiddos." Her pot high is melting away; it was one of those filmy, float-away highs, and she'll come down easily.

Thompson nods, but Chase is wary. Chris is blunt—that's dangerous in a friend.

* * *

Paul was having one of the few nights in his dreary life that he could call tip-top. During the walk from the subway, he watched men staring at Blue; some even glanced inquiringly at Paul, as if... Well, who can guess what they wanted to know?

Number,
that's what they called an attractive man in Paul's youth. "Take a look at
that
number," a queen would say, poking you; or, "Who was that suit-and-tie number you picked up at Dreams?" Number: as if any man were but one of an endless series. Number: because affection was evanescent and that made you promiscuous. But were we?, Paul wondered. Wasn't the idea that gay people are unsteady invented by the state and its confederate witch cults, religion and psychiatry?
Number.
I never saw anyone as a number, Paul thought, forgetting Blue to travel back to the Other Side, as Paul so often did lately. I saw a handsome man as the great love I would never have.

And there was the Kid standing in front of them, crying, "Who's the heaven number in the deep eyes and true skin?"

Blue said, "Look who's here," with a hand on the Kid's shoulder.

"He's mine," Paul announced.

"He's no one's," the Kid replied, adding, "Why don't you go see about the drinks, Paul? I'll take a Bombasta—that's wit and raw nerve straight up."

Before Paul could answer, Blue said, "Look, it's okay, 'cause I'm with you. If I could just talk to him a little...."

"Three beers," said Paul, vamoosing.

"Well," said the Kid. "Enjoy your weekend in Key West, or wherever it was?"

"He took me to a place up north a here. A country hotel. He showed me tennis playing, and there was a whole lotta food at every meal. But what I liked most was miniature golf. You ever try that?"

"I like you," said the Kid. "It'd be great if you liked me. You could come and stay with me in San. I wouldn't kill for it, mind you. But I think we'd get along really well somehow. Want my phone number?"

"Sure."

Instead of business cards, the Kid carried blank cardboard chits to fill out at will. He wrote:

J
ERRETT
T
ROY

spare bedroom

San Francisco

(415) 626-0172

"Thanks."

"If it ever gets too tense for you here."

"Yeah," said Blue, watching the dancers on the floor. It was a slow one, couples swaying to the promise of a happy elegy with no penalty to pay. The Kid spotted Elaine at the edge of the crowd and, on impulse, went up and took her onto the floor. Till Lois cut in, they were the sole coed couple in sight.

Martin grabbed Henry and told him to get to the door fast because the bouncer wouldn't let Jezebel in. Before Henry had taken three steps, Jezebel (and Louis) sauntered up, Frank and Eric right behind them.

"It's cool," Frank told Henry. "I set the doorman straight on his racial policy."

"They already let in the three black peoples for the evening," said Jezebel, punctuating his rhythm with snaps in the face and snaps to the side, bellicose snaps like
so
at doormen, and slyer, somewhat ontological snaps at the world at large. "They met their quota, so—"

"One nice side effect," said Frank, "was, in the excitement, he forgot to card Eric. So we slipped in nice and easy."

"This is some setup," said Eric, looking around. "Man alive."

"Henry," said Jim, turning up—as one does at these dances—out of nowhere, "we just lost both our flyer hander-outers. Apparently, they fell instantly in love and..."Jim looking at Eric. "Well," Jim recovers, "so we need two guys to..."

"Eric," says Frank, with an eye on Henry, "help Jim with the flyers."

Jim protests, "I don't want to hand out flyers."

Frank and Henry shove the two of them in some direction, then nod.

"Oh, that's so pretty," says Jezebel. "That's smoother than Mary Worth. But what we gonna do about the racist
doorman
at our Sacred Acts
dance
? Because that is a
scandal,
you hear?"

"Jez—"

"You spare me your jive, Henry, because you ain't gonna have peace between straight and homo till you get peace between black and white."

Blue has appeared, smiling at Henry.

"That's right, don't heed the oracle," says Jezebel, bustling off.

"Blue," says Henry. They're shaking hands.

"Thanks for getting me that job," says Blue. "With Jerrett Troy."

"Good money?"

"Good exposure, certainly."

They laugh.

"Thought about you from time to time," says Blue. "Guess that sounds like I'm angling, but I did, just the same."

"You want to dance?"

Blue turns to survey the floor, the boys with the boys and the girls with the girls. Revolutions.

"Sure I'll dance," says Blue.

"Ty," said Chris, under her breath.

"Where?" said Chase.

"Oh, yes," said Thompson. "See there?"

"He just comes to this dance like that?" said Chris. "What's going on?"

Thompson looked inscrutable and Chase looked away.

"Spill it!" said Chris.

"He begged me, Chris," said Thompson. "He's been trying to bump into you all over campus. I told him we'd be here."

"Thanks a lot!"

"He says you haven't been taking his phone calls. That's not very upstanding, Chris."

Look who's lecturing me on morals, Chris thinks, keeping an eye on her searching ex-boy friend: wonderful, heartless Ty.

"The fuck of it is, there aren't enough women," said Lois, gazing upon the dance floor. "We're always the Who-letthem-in? group."

"Does our sexuality set us apart from the joes," the Kid asked, "or does it set gay men apart from gay women?"

"Everything in life gives us distance from straights, I should think," said Elaine. "Because we know them so well."

Just then Johnna Roberts showed up. Now,
she
had had no trouble at the door, in her conference-room blouse, touch-me-not skirt, and avant-garde silk scarf hanging open off her shoulders. She looked tough and sincere, and Lois was impressed.

"Alicia?" said Johnna.

"No, this is Lois," said Elaine. "She's always Lois, in fact."

"And I'm Jerrett Troy," said the Kid, "except when I become the Green Goddess of truth and desire, those essential elements of the sweet life, ever in love yet at war with each other."

Johnna Roberts wasn't smiling, so Lois said, "None of that Fauntleroystuff. This is Elaine's editor, and the whole thing is to show her how we have this special world."

By then, Johnna was thoroughly insecure, suspicious, and irritated, so Elaine briskly took her off on a tour while Lois and the Kid shared an excuse-me-for-living shrug.

Paul pulled up before them like Diogenes with his lantern. "Have you seen my date, Johnny? That gorgeous southern cracker who—"

"Paul, you silly victim, why are you never in the useful places at the helpful moment? Blue was in my Act at Tremendo for six weeks. You're best friends with the owner, yet you never came to see us. But
that's
when you should have hooked up with him, say for a quiet dinner and the rest—not at a major party like this, with beauties rummaging through the crowd, hot to audition the new talent."

At this, Paul was worse than forlorn, deeper than crushed. He was totally dismantled.

"I only wanted everyone to respect me," he said quietly.

"Well, go find him, goofy!"

Way across the floor, Jim and Eric were sharing a cranberry juice after lasting out six consecutive dances and having managed to, uh, lose the flyers they were supposed to hand out. They felt mischievous and happy.

No doubt you've hardly noticed Jim. He's one of those "okay" people: okay looks, okay sense of humor, okay company. But he's in there, nevertheless. He knows his rights on earth and turns up in the useful places at the helpful moments, and that can take one far. It's the Jims of the world who sway elections, keep shows running, patiently argue causes with unbelievers. They're the bedrock of culture.

"I see a hot one," said Eric, as a couple brushed by them.

"Red T-shirt?"

"No, his boy friend. Look how's he's walking, like his legs are in charge of the whole place. He'll really plow Red T-shirt tonight."

Jim did a take. "Don't I keep hearing that you're straight?"

Eric made a face.

People were sailing by them, dancing, talking, kissing: It was like sitting in Cafe Florian or Quadri in the center of Venice and hearing, all about one, the gossip of Europe, of the world. Only connect. Jim put an arm around Eric's shoulder and Eric leaned into it. They shyly smiled at each other as the Kid and Blue came in sight, slow-dancing heart on heart, lost to care. Chris came tumbling past, Ty stalking her. Johnna Roberts circledthe dance floor, with Elaine explaining, indicating. Henry was dancing with Andy. Jezebel was lecturing Louis. Gay girls and boys moved to the music, forgot their troubles, came on, got happy.

Paul ran into Andy, returning from the men's room.

"Paul," said Andy, "I'm moving tomorrow, have you heard?" "Into Henry's place?" "That's a nice shirt."

Paul made a little noise and preened. "Putting on the dog, don't you know. Oh, you haven't seen a big blond boy with devastating cornfed ways, have you? My date, dare I say?" "No...."

"All right, you found me," Chris told Ty.

"Darlin', darlin', I only want to talk to you. Didn't I come to see you here, like so?"

"God, don't charm me, please, will you?"

"What charm? It's just me, pretty one."

I hate this, Chris was thinking. He makes girls who are not natural beauties think they're irresistible, and I need that and he knows it.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" she challenged, "at a gay dance?"

"Look who's talking."

"I'm a fag hag—what's your excuse?"

"I
know,
darlin'. The mean old habits of our Ty here. He can't help himself. He gets... afraid of something in there."

"Don't dramatize yourself, play the reality of the scene."

"The lady directs."

"You're always forgiven, is that it? Everybody wants you to like them, so they'll always take you back." Chris is helpless, knowing that it's going to hurt again the next time he makes himself scarce. "God
damn
you handsome guys! Liberation for the girls!"

"Wish you'd sweeten up," he says, with a little hands-on and a dangerous-when-wet look. He's holding her; and Chris can't find it inside her to throw him away.

Elaine, with Johnna in tow, has just swept a cache of drugheads, neckers, and various kibitzers out of one of the balconies, and now author and

editor stand at the front of it, gazing down on the scene. It's well after midnight and the place is packed and roaring.

"It's hard to believe," says Elaine, "that there was a time when such people had nothing of their own to go to but dingy demimonde saloons. Now they're dating and dancing like teenagers in July."

"Yes, it's been a reestablishing decade," Johnna responds. Her hand explains, vaguely. "Diversities."

"Will our lit reflect those diversities, I wonder?" A loaded question.

Johnna smiles. "Your book."

"My book and other books. Other writers' books."

Johnna shakes her head. "Who will buy?"

"Didn't I hear somewhere that most book buyers are women?"