Everybody Loves You (32 page)

I took the glass from him and placed it on the table and sat next to him on the bed and put my arms around him and he held on to me for a bit and then he said, “Oh, this is such a concessive cliché,” and tried to free himself, but I held on to him. So he stayed put till we heard Virgil's key nudging the lock, whereupon we sprang apart like adulterers in a Whitehall sex farce.

Virgil, getting out of his coat, sensed trouble. First he checked his souvenir counter. Then he went up to Dennis Savage.

“What do you want?” Dennis Savage asked him. “What can I give you? A rent-boy in a leather jacket and bright red corduroy pants? How about a steward with a Scots accent and veined forearms?” Tenderly, he brushed Virgil's hair back. “A piece of candy? A suit? You want a suit?”

“What have you been doing to him?” Virgil asked me.

“What do you want?” Dennis Savage repeated.

“I want to go to
Maurice.
I came back to get you two.”

“It's playing in New York.”

“I want to see it here.”

“Anything. Anything at all.”

So we went to
Maurice;
we had nothing better to do, anyway. We got there a little late, but English movie shows always start with commercials; the film itself began just as we had settled down in the top of the balcony, and all three of us connected with it immediately. It is a “beautiful” work, in the classic sense: visually sensitive, enacted with elegance, a radiant presentation. More important, it is agelessly relevant, though set in an older England of murderously homophobic prohibitions. In brief, two friends, both homosexual, choose different paths. One, in terror of prison, swears off his feelings and plays the straight man; the other, after wrestling vastly with his devils, blissfully abandons himself to his real nature in the arms of what the British call “a bit of rough,” the gamekeeper on his friend's estate.

Antique stuff, you say? Yet men face this same choice today, take either of the two paths. All gays are born actors, selecting the role they feel most secure in. Your first sixteen years or so comprise the audition, as you juggle your self-enlightenment with what the world will tolerate. You are too young to make sound judgments; but you have learned to act, to judge each scene as you enter it, to finesse the cast and work the house. Sometime later—for a few, as early as in high school or college; for many, one marriage or so after that—you take on your life's role, portraying what the world expects of you or defying the world. Of course, even free-choice gays can choose to maintain a portrayal, to favor certain personae in our dress and speech, to join or boycott the elect covens, to dwell in the ghetto or balance the gay life with the larger culture. But these
are
free choices, whereas deciding whether to be what you are or what They are is fraught with terrible pressures and penalties—and never, before
Maurice,
did a work of art present this so clearly. Never have I felt so truly the sheer tedium of dishonesty, the rapture of the truth.

The movie ends suddenly, and I was still absorbing its lesson as the credits rolled along. But Virgil was so stunned by what he had seen that he refused to move, even to speak. Dennis Savage kept looking from him to me and back. I was standing in the aisle; the houselights were coming on. The theatre was going to close for the day.

And Virgil shook his head.

“What's the matter?” Dennis Savage asked him.

I hadn't seen him like this in years, with the absolutely crushed expression of the orphan who is once again passed over on Adoption Day.

“I thought you were all grown-up now,” I said, coming over to reason with him from the row ahead. “Grown-ups don't get blown away by movies. They go out for coffee and discuss them. So come on and we'll try that.”

But Virgil wouldn't budge.

“If we do this much longer,” Dennis Savage put in, “we'll miss our plane.”

“We were so glad about you,” I told Virgil, “the way you took charge and led the expedition.” Dennis Savage shot me a look. “Some of us, anyway.”

“Can't you tell me what's wrong?” Dennis Savage asked, sitting down next to him.

No, Virgil didn't reply.

The theatre had completely emptied. It was just the three of us up in our corner, and I began to worry that we might get locked up in the building all night. Or surely some employee had to make certain that everyone was out. Indeed, the man who had taken our tickets now appeared before us. “Sorry, gentlemen,” he announced, “but we're shutting the house.”

“See?” Dennis Savage told Virgil. “You're interfering with this man's job. It's late, and he can't leave till we do. You don't want to keep him from his family, do you? So late on a Sunday night?”

“What if he calls the police?” I added. “The reckless English press will drag our names through the muck.”

“What's the trouble, then, eh?” said the usher, coming up the aisle to us.

“My friend was so deeply affected by
Maurice,
” Dennis Savage explained, “that he can't seem to … carry on with…”

The usher looked at Virgil for a bit. “'Ere, that's no way,” he said. “Goin' on about it like that. It's just a movie, in't it?”

Interesting to note, as soon as the usher went beyond the set idioms of his job, he slipped into his more natural and less polished sounds. In England, speech is class, and class is strictly observed. I imagine the guy couldn't have got hired without this diplomatic effacement of his inflection. Not that anyone handing him a ticket to tear really cares what he is when he's at home. It's all a matter of style, of acknowledging the received values.

“I've seen plenty o'people come chargin' out of a movie,” the usher told us. “Mad as hornets they'd be, too, some of 'em. But I never seen a one stop movin'.”

“He's mortified by the theme of the movie,” I ventured. “What does
Maurice
tell us, after all? It says that presentation is everything, that people—
all
people—get through life by portraying some ideal of themselves.”

“No and no.” Dennis Savage shook his head. “And thrice no. This film warns us that, however deliriously beautiful sex may be, friendship is more valuable. This is why we pity the closeted man in the movie—not because he's missing out on a night at Boybar, but because he's cut himself off from being able to enjoy the affection and support of his best friend.”

“That's all very well, gentlemen,” said the usher. “But, if you'll pardon me, the significance of this film is to the gay men in the 'ouse. It says to them, When you're with the main part of the world, you will always be alone. Isolated, like. But when you're with your gay mates, you'll be safe. Now, that may be right and that may be wrong. I don't know. But that's what it says, clear as I can make out.”

“I think so, too,” said Virgil. “But I want to know one thing. Did Maurice and the gamekeeper stay together, despite the demands of intolerant society? I mean, did one of them ever leave later on?”

“I'm very certain,” said the usher, “that they lived 'appily ever after.”

And so, trying to smile through his worries, Virgil let the usher lead us to the exit, and not many hours later we were aboard British Airways Flight 177 from Heathrow to Kennedy. It was an autumnal flight, as this is an autumnal story, reflecting on the past and trying to ascertain what point one has reached on what course of action.

In other words: What have I accomplished? There comes a day when one must ask.

There are hard stories and soft stories. The hard ones I define as strongly plotted, based on actions; the soft ones are largely interior, based on feelings. Perhaps I owe my readers an apology for closing this book with a soft story—but this is the third and, I am very nearly positive, final volume of tales on my New York adventures, and a certain amount of intellection must be allowed.

Certainly that was the atmosphere among my intrepid cohort on the trip homeward. All three of us were quiet, considering the possibilities of stabilization or meltdown, holding on or packing up. There are no permanent solutions, no absolute states. We were confounded.

Virgil had laid in so many trinkets that I had to take some of them in my valise. He wanted to set them up in the living room all at once, in another of those incomprehensible rituals he's forever instituting, so when we reached Fifty-third Street I went to their place first.

Carlo was there, watching television with Cosgrove, and they gave us, respectively, broad and tremulous smiles of welcome. Strange: I had almost forgotten them for the last week.

“Virgil,” said Cosgrove, “did you bring me something from the United Kingdom?”

“Did you go to all the play shows, Bud?” said Carlo, switching off the television.

“I took very good care of your house,” Cosgrove told Dennis Savage. “Mr. Smith and I made dinner every night and we always cleaned up after.”

“He's going to be the top houseboy of the East Fifties,” said Carlo.

“I'm a good boy now,” Cosgrove agreed.

We travelers didn't say much. We were running on London time, five hours later than New York, and thus had reached the end of our waking hours while our fellow citizens were enjoying the middle of their evening. I gave Virgil his souvenirs and was about to drag myself downstairs when Carlo said, “Now we all have to go and help Cosgrove start his new job.”

Cosgrove, standing apart from us all, put his hands in his pockets and looked down at the floor. I remembered his Story. Dennis Savage, his eyes flickering with fatigue, managed a grin. Virgil was brisk and Carlo fleet, gathering up Cosgrove, my bags, and me in a sneaky whirl, and the whole pack of us trooped downstairs to my apartment.

Inside me, voices protested that my right of free choice was being overwhelmed by an officious do-gooder faction. The sanctity of the one-person household was under attack. I was so upset that I couldn't hold my key straight when we reached my door.

“Look,” I began; but Carlo calmly took my key and let us all in. Plenty of sex and a happy ending, you know.

“Oh, you'll have a lot of tidying to do here, Cosgrove,” says Virgil as the lights go on.

“Don't break anything,” I beg. “You can't do it with just anyone. I don't want to be a woggle.”

“He's going to be a good boy,” Carlo promises me.

“Four against one,” I cry. “No fair.”

“Just throw his bags anywhere,” Dennis Savage tells Cosgrove.

Could I be dreaming this? I've had such dreams before. Sometimes I'm atop a falling building, sometimes I'm going under in an avalanche, and sometimes I'm being assigned a live-in houseboy.

“That little Cosgrove's going to take care of you,” says Carlo, having a wonderful time, putting a hold on me.

“His veal marengo!” Dennis Savage raves. “His cassoulet!”

“I fix an afternoon tray,” Cosgrove tells me, “of cheese and potato chips.”

“Kiss today hello,” says Dennis Savage. That's what the choice is.

He always goes for the good things; this is my turn, now. The theme demands it. Mission accomplished. I am the bearer, the actor. I say, “The Cambridge Theatre is in Seven Dials, not Cambridge Circus.”

“He's babbling,” observes Dennis Savage. “The horrid zany. Somebody slap him.”

I sink into my desk chair. All this reality. “How can you do this to me?”

“With a certain giddy pleasure, actually,” Dennis Savage replies. “Because this ties up everyone's problem, and you can live happily ever after.”

“This doesn't tie anything up. Nothing is resolved!”

“Well,” he shrugs. “Such is life.”

“Oh, suddenly you're in a good mood?”

“I've got all the future to be morose in, haven't I? And some recent moviegoing to think about. Maybe we're not all as grown-up as we think we are.”

“Cosgrove,” says Virgil, “you're going to be happy ever after.”

“Am I?” Cosgrove goes up to Virgil like a felon suing the governor for a pardon. “How do you know that?”

“Because all your friends are here now. Everybody
loves
you, Cosgrove.”

“But I don't know if that's true!”

Virgil takes Cosgrove by the shoulders. “I know it's true, Cosgrove. I was always planning to watch out for you.”

Pulling Cosgrove to him, Virgil slips his arms around him, and Cosgrove holds on to Virgil.

“Look at those two kids playing Lover Man,” says Carlo. “With those little waists and their smooth boyskin.”

Cosgrove's eyes are wet when the two break apart, and he whispers, “Everybody loves me.”

The phone rang.

As I reached for it, Dennis Savage stopped me and beckoned to Cosgrove. “Let the houseboy do his job,” he ordered.

“I'll get it!” shouted Cosgrove, rushing over. As he picked up, he said, “This is Mr. Bud's residence.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake!”

“Why, this is Cosgrove … the houseboy … Yes … No, because … because I have a smooth boywaist.”

I grabbed for the phone, but Carlo held me down in the chair. “Let him do it.”

“It might be somebody important!”

“Cosgrove will handle it,” said Virgil.

“Well,” Cosgrove was saying, “you know he was in London, England, and then he came back … I know, but I always have to find out who it is first. I want to do a good job, so nothing bad happens anymore. I don't want to be street grunge … Yes, for a while, but there were certain things I wouldn't do even when they threatened to beat me up. I was like a secret to them. But I knew who my friends were. The Elf King left me with a terrible family, but I escaped and came here. I don't have to be a secret anymore. And Miriam said if I don't behave that the Elf King will … he will…”