The Butcher's Son (11 page)

As if on cue—which was, in fact, the case—the chief’s family moved forward to embrace him warmly. It did not escape me that a few of the younger children appeared to be totally confused by this unfamiliar outpouring of familial love.

The two bands of supporters simultaneously moved in from both sides of the stage for congratulatory photo-op handshakes and back-pats, and I suddenly realized that the chief actually thought he could use this orchestrated outburst of wild enthusiasm—which was limited entirely to the stage—as a smoke screen to signal that the “press conference” was over.

Making sure that C.C. wasn’t looking, I gave the sound man a signal to fade out the music. The moment it died, the reporters began jostling forward, shouting questions in an attempt to be heard over the other shouted questions. The chief and C.C. looked a bit startled, and C.C. glared at me, but I merely looked at him innocently as if to say “What?”

Reluctantly, the chief returned to the podium as the rest of the throng on stage moved back, distancing themselves from the journalistic onslaught.

“Chief!” the reporter closest to the stage shouted, “The Dog Collar was a gay bar, and the twenty-nine victims were presumably all gay men. Is your investigation centering on known hate groups?”

The chief had obviously been prepared for that one.

“As I stated in my opening remarks,” he said, both hands gripping the edges of the podium, “this is an ongoing investigation in a crucial stage of development, and I cannot at this point speculate on the motivation behind the blaze.”

I’m sure that was all he was supposed to say, but being the chief, he had to add a little something of his own.

“Hate groups, a jealous boyfriend…I simply cannot speculate.”

A jealous boyfriend? Did he say that? Did he actually
say
that?
I turned, almost knocking over the chair behind me in my hurry to leave the room. I didn’t know whether to yell or cry, but I did neither. Instead, I went to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face and pull myself together.

I can’t do this
, I told the obviously shaken me in the mirror. I can’t put up with this shit one single minute
longer!

Yeah, you can
, the me in the mirror replied.
You have to. You’re the only one who has any idea of what’s going on inside that pocket-Hitler’s little clique. And if you blow it by making it obvious you’re gay, who’ll be there to try and stop him?

He was right.

I wanted a cigarette but knew I’d probably been gone too long already, so I returned to the conference room. I don’t know what the questioning had been like while I was gone, but it appeared the chief was holding his own, although I could tell from the way he was clutching the edges of the podium and the narrowing of his eyes that he was mentally making an enemies list of reporters for future reference.

At last it was over. The chief thanked everyone for coming and reminded them that his door was always open to the press.

Yeah, I thought, like the door’s always open to the
bank vault.

He turned, awkwardly hugged his wife, put out his hand to Mary, his youngest, who took it with ill-concealed trepidation, and together, the family left the stage, followed by the remainder of the party. The reporters gathered up their gear and departed, leaving me to clear up the mess.

Chapter 8

The next week and a half went by fast—way too
fast.
At this rate, I figured, I’d be 97 years old before I knew it.

Bob and a few close friends—Chris and I were touched to be asked to be among them—had a simple memorial service for Ramón at the local M.C.C. on Thursday night, and his body was then sent to his parents the next day for burial. Bob was holding up very well, under the circumstances, but there was a definite change in him.

On Saturday, one week after the fire, a huge impromptu silent memorial for all the victims was held on the street in front of the Dog Collar. Thousands of gays, lesbians, and straights, alerted by word of mouth, gathered in silence at sundown to lay flowers in front of the yellow barricades outside the gutted bar, paying the dead the respect the chief of police and aspiring gubernatorial candidate had refused them. In an act of defiance by the community, no police permits were obtained in advance, even though the crowd filled the street and completely blocked traffic.

While the police were in evidence, their presence seemed mostly—and unnecessarily—to be intended to keep anyone from entering the cordoned-off area. Nothing was done to interfere with the memorial. Not even the chief would have been stupid enough to try.

When we heard that Bob planned to attend the service, we insisted he go with us, and we kept a close watch on him. But he just stood with everyone else, staring into what remained of the open door of the Dog Collar. There were many tears shed in the crowd, but none from Bob.

The “ongoing investigation” into the fire remained ongoing. I had spoken to Tom briefly on the phone. He couldn’t say much, of course, but I got the impression the arson squad, at least, was sincerely doing its best to piece the puzzle together. I had several questions I wanted to ask him, but they would have to wait.

We tentatively planned to meet at the memorial on Saturday, but there were so many people there, we missed each other. I called him again the following Monday and left a message on his machine.

On Thursday, the newspapers and TV stations headlined the story that an arrest had been made in the Dog Collar fire—the bar’s owner, for “criminal endangerment” of his patrons by exceeding occupancy limits, for putting up the toxic mesh, and for not providing more than one exit from the basement, where most of the victims had died.

As for the arrest of the actual arsonist…

Chris had bought his tickets and would be leaving on the morning of the twenty-fifth, the day I was to head up to the police chiefs’ meeting. Our plans for his going-away party had changed drastically, of course. We still wanted to have all our friends over for one last time, but the emphasis had definitely shifted from party to gathering.

My days at work were hectic, as C.C. got out his drums and whips to beat us into rowing the chief’s barge ever faster. Endless press releases, lengthy phone calls to newspapers throughout the state offering fill-in-the-dots-with-local-color stories; requests for interviews with the chief were declined on the grounds of his deep involvement in the fire investigation. Personal appearances were kept to an absolute minimum with the same excuse—the fire had, in fact, given the chief a perfect alibi for not having to run the risk of facing real people.

Stories were “leaked” by the chief’s insiders as to how profoundly he regretted not being able to be out there among the voters, but that his commitment to his duties and to protecting the citizens of his home city had to take precedence over politics. Made him seem noble as all shit.

Only a few contacts with Kevin, all by phone. He was spending much of his time making quick trips around the state, speaking to church groups and various conservative organizations on his father’s behalf, trumpeting the message of the chief’s deep concern for the restoration of law, order, and moral values. Sue-Lynn and the baby accompanied him whenever possible, of course, and anyone seeing them together would have had little doubt they epitomized everything America—and, therefore, the chief—stood for.

The bars were suffering huge financial losses, their business down by as much as eighty percent. Even the lesbian bars were affected, although none of them had ever been firebombed—the Dog Collar had served as a clear warning that no one was safe. Bacchus’s Lair had announced it would be closed “for remodeling” for at least two weeks. A couple of the more well-off bars did go to the considerable expense of installing sprinkler systems and adding emergency exits, but for the foreseeable future, it didn’t matter.

*

We had invited Bob to Chris’s going away gathering, but
he understandably declined, inviting us instead to dinner at his apartment on the twenty-third, which we accepted with thanks.

On the Saturday before Chris’ departure, about twenty of our friends came over to say goodbye to him and to our relationship. The mood wasn’t somber, but it was definitely subdued. We laughed, but it was the laughter of warmth and remembrance of good times, not of wit. Several of our friends had known Ramón or others who had died with him, and there was an almost tangible sensation of an all-too-rare phenomenon—the recognition of the value of friendship and life, and of how brief each could be.

No one got very drunk, and there were no tears as each of the guests departed. It was as though everyone shared the unspoken agreement that tears are for the dead, not the living, and that, while Chris would no longer be as immediate a part of their lives as he had been, he was still alive.

*

We slept late Sunday morning then did the post-
party cleaning up—washing dishes, throwing out food we’d forgotten to wrap and put in the refrigerator before we went to bed…

Like I said, the usual.

We treated ourselves to our last Sunday brunch at Rasputin’s. The place was busier than I’d expected, but Chris pointed out that it was daylight, and many people felt relatively safer then.

I got the impression as we talked that we both felt as though we’d stepped over some sort of threshold and that, while we would no longer be lovers, we would remain loving friends. I think we were both very grateful for that.

*

Another blurred week followed. At work, I was
in
creasingly fielding media requests for personal interviews with the chief. I had been instructed that any such request was to be booted up the food chain to the chief’s handlers, so it wasn’t my responsibility to lie through my teeth about his sincere regrets that his pressing duties prevented blah-blah-blah. With the print media, I did my best to determine what their editors were looking for and tailor standard press releases to the requester’s specific needs and/or questions.

For the releases, I dipped into the chief’s well-worn little collection of acceptable standard responses. This worked pretty well, and since those of the chief’s pronouncements that were not firebombs were often ambiguous, I would choose those I thought would sound perfectly harmless on the surface yet have potential for the strongest negative subliminal reaction from the targeted audience. I knew I was walking a tightrope, but it was worth it.

Kevin was increasingly used as the chief’s substitute for second-level requests, primarily from TV and radio talk shows. Sort of a bait-and-switch deal, but he was becoming pretty effective as the chief’s spokesman, and he sure as hell came across as a lot more personable. If he were running for office, even I might have considered at least listening to him. I could only imagine the pressure he must be under.

On Wednesday night, while Chris was busy boxing up some of his smaller things I’d ship to him once he got settled in New York, I was surprised to answer the phone and hear Kevin’s voice. I was glad I caught the call rather than Chris or our answering machine—which still started with “Hi, you’ve reached Dick and Chris…” I didn’t give a shit whether Kevin found out I was gay; it’s just that his knowing would have opened all sorts of doorways I’d rather walk than be pushed through.

“Kevin. This is something of a surprise.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, Dick. I wouldn’t be bothering you at home if it weren’t important, but something has come up and I’m really not sure I know how to handle it. And now it’s come up, I’m sure it will come up again. I really need your objective advice.”

Well, that was certainly cryptic
, I thought.

“Of course, Kevin—that’s what I’m here for. What is it?”

“I don’t really feel comfortable discussing it on the phone. Could you come over to the shelter?”

“Tonight?”

There was a pause and then: “Well, I have my prayer and meditation every evening from ten until midnight, but if you could make it before then…” Another pause. “But if you would prefer to make it tomorrow morning, I’m sure it can wait until then.”

With only a couple more days left for me to spend time with Chris, I really didn’t feel like going out.

“Well, if you really don’t mind, Kevin, I am in the middle of something here, and—”

“No, no, that’s fine, Dick. Tomorrow will be fine.”

“I can meet you at around nine-thirty, if that won’t interfere with your schedule.”

“Nine thirty will be fine.”

But now I was really curious.

“I know you don’t want to go into detail on the phone, but could you give me some idea of what it’s about, so perhaps I can do some thinking about it between now and then?”

There was a long pause.

“It’s about Patrick.”

*

Having called work to leave word where I’d be, I
drove
directly to the shelter, swinging by Marston’s to drop Chris off. By mutual unspoken agreement, we wanted to spend as much of our last days together as we could, and even a twenty-minute ride into town was twenty minutes we wouldn’t have had.

Although, as usual, there weren’t many people on the streets around the shelter, once inside the doors there seemed to be a lot of activity going on. People I assumed to be volunteers were coming down the stairs with armloads of sheets, others were carrying stacks of fresh bedding back up. Tables were being scrubbed and set in the dining room.

There was no sign of Kevin. I stopped one of the passing sheet-carriers to ask where I might find Reverend Rourke, and she nodded toward the end of the corridor, which I assumed meant he was in his office.

As I climbed the stairs, I heard the sound of music. Piano music. I recognized it as Beethoven but couldn’t place the composition. The door to the office was again partially open, and I saw Kevin seated at the old upright I’d wondered about the first time I’d come into the room.

I waited until there was a pause then knocked. Kevin swung around on the equally old piano stool and smiled, a little sadly, I thought.