Gossip (10 page)

“I once wanted to be famous as a poet,” I confessed. “Which is a tiny fame. Like wanting to be famous as a champion bowler.”

He gave my joke the brief maraca laugh it deserved.

“But I was too literal to be a good poet. Too prosaic. My poetry was all self-conscious knots and secondhand phrases. I got no pleasure in writing it, so I put it aside. Maybe I’ll go back to it one day, when I have more faith in my own words.”

“What did you replace it with?”

“Life itself. Friendship. Love now and then. Sex,” I quickly added. “Books. I get more pleasure reading than I ever got from writing.” I heard how trifling that sounded. “They say poetry makes nothing happen. So maybe I’m still a poet.”

“And doing good? You once told me you liked to do good.”

I must have said that in one of my more righteous moments. I did not feel righteous tonight. “Oh, now and then. When the opportunity presents itself. Like last year. A man I worked with at the bookstore became sick, and I took care of him. I didn’t do much,” I explained. “There wasn’t much I could do. Except visit him in the hospital, help with the home care and paperwork, contact his family. Arrange the funeral.”

Bill looked uncomfortable, even embarrassed. “He was a good friend?”

“Not really. Alberto was good company when other people were around, but we were never close. Until he became sick. A snippy young queen from Indiana. Nastily funny when he had an audience, but with nothing to fall back on when he was alone. A difficult person to be with when he was ill.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because he had nobody else. When he first went into the hospital, I found I was the only person visiting him. No lover, no friends. I did it as much for me as for him,” I insisted. “First for the experience. Lovers of friends had died, and acquaintances and neighbors, always at a distance. And out of duty: I thought it was time I did
more.
I felt quite virtuous during his first stay, very pleased with myself walking to the hospital each day. But that wore off by the second stay, then the third. I continued because I’d committed myself, and because I felt I’d be all paid up when it was over.”

“Paid for what?”

It was hard to explain, it seemed such a natural, human need. “I don’t know. My friend Peter says one can’t feel guilty for living. And I don’t. But I did feel I’d had it easy and owed people something and could balance the account with Alberto. It didn’t work that way. It was a humbling experience, a lesson in helplessness. I did what I could, and it wasn’t much.”

“Well, I think it was admirable,” said Bill. “Noble.”

“It wasn’t noble. Just one of those things you do because not doing it makes you feel worse.” I hadn’t intended to say so much about Alberto. Bill should know that I was more than sex and politics, but I was unsure what the story said about me or what he might make of it. He gave me a sad, quizzical look of admiration, but he remained uncomfortable, intimidated by what I’d done. He seemed so innocent, so young.

“You have no goals now?” he asked. “Nothing solid? For example, don’t you want a boyfriend?”

“I’ve had boyfriends,” I said, surprised by the new topic.

“But a real one. Someone with whom you’d want to spend the rest of your life.”

He shyly stepped past death to sniff out my intentions about
him.
We resumed playing poker with our hearts.

“I’ve had too many boyfriends to think like that anymore. I know myself too well.” I decided to be blunt. “I should tell you, Bill, I’m not boyfriend material.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” he said with a laugh. “I enjoy being with you. But I don’t think of you like that. You flatter yourself,” he added, without nastiness, only his serene housecat smile.

“And I enjoy being with you,” I told him. “Today.”

There, we’d said it—we’d both declared a lack of romantic motives. We smiled at each other and resumed eating. I believed him and was relieved. This could get messy if one of us was more serious than the other.

“Would you like to come with me to Miami next month?”

He proposed it as idly as a trip to Coney Island.

I laughed. “You’ve heard how I live. I can’t afford to zip down to Florida. But thank you just the same.”

“I’ll take care of it. Or rather, the people who’re flying me will pay. I’ve been invited to a conference. To promote my book. I’m allowed to bring a spouse. Or a personal assistant.”

“You’re serious?”

“Truly.”

“What kind of conference?”

“A Republican thing,” he admitted blithely. “But I only have to make one appearance. The rest of the weekend is mine.”

“Who’s paying for it?”

“The conference. Hence the ‘personal assistant’ euphemism. There’s no such thing as ‘spousal equivalent’ in the GOP.”

“Won’t that make you complicitous in political corruption?” I said to mark time before I refused his invitation.

“Just an airplane ticket. And when in Rome …”

“It’s tempting,” I said “Very. But—” I frowned. I sighed. “Oh hell. Why not?”

“You will?” he said. “You want to?”

I did, and I understood my pride well enough to realize that if I said no I would later say yes. I should save myself the loss of face that would come of changing my mind.

“Be nice to go somewhere warm,” I said. “I’ve never been to Miami. And it’d be nice to see you again. When would this be?”

“Last weekend in February. They’ll fly you out of D.C. or Baltimore, not New York, but that won’t be a problem, will it? I have to make a phone call or two, but I can’t imagine them refusing.”

“If they do, no problem.” The possibility that this might not happen made it easier to accept. I enjoyed the joke of the Republicans bankrolling a weekend of sodomy, but didn’t share it with Bill.

“We should probably pay and go,” I said. “There’s people waiting for this table. Can I take you to a real New York gay bar? My favorite bar is a few blocks over.” Since he was showing me his world, I should show him more of mine, although it was too early for any of my crowd to be at Wonderbar.

“I don’t like bars.”

“You don’t go to any in D.C.?”

“Never.”

“Then how do you meet guys?”

“There’re other ways.” He aimed his grin at me.

“So how many men have you had sex with?”

He laughed uncomfortably. “What a question! I’ve never sat down and tallied it, if you must know.”

I’d counted mine but, since he didn’t ask, I didn’t volunteer the number. “We pay up front,” I said as I stood and put on my coat.

I was halfway to the register before I noticed, among the bundled people thawing inside the door, the dark eyes and wet mustache of Nick Rosi. He was already watching us. He lifted a black-gloved hand and smirked knowingly at the baby-faced boy at my heels.

“Nick, hi! What brings you to this end of town? Cold night like this?” I said more loudly than necessary.

“Maura and I wanted to compare notes before our committee meeting next week. You remember Ralph?” he asked the stocky redheaded woman beside him, Maura Morris, who sometimes wrote for the
Voice.
She wiped her fogged glasses with a big knit mitten.

“Right. Haven’t seen you lately at meetings, Ralph.”

“Sorry. Time and work and other things.” I did not want to get into that conversation.

Nick was checking out Bill, half a head taller than he was.

“This is Bill,” I explained. “My friend Nick. His friend Maura.” I left off their last names on the slight chance that one of them might have heard of the other.

Nick and Bill scanned each other as they shook hands, Bill wary, Nick amused. Maura looked bored, as if a dog-loving friend had stopped to fuss over a spaniel on the street.

“You live in New York?” Nick asked while I hurriedly paid.

“Washington,” Bill said in his stuffiest voice. “I’m up for the weekend on business.”

“Spic-and-span D.C.,” Nick scoffed. “This must be like the lower depths for you.”

“It’s different,” Bill snootily declared.

“Uh-huh. Well. Have a nice visit.” Nick decided this boy was not worth his time. “Maura and I were talking attrition, Ralph. We could really use someone who knows the ropes on our committee. Couldn’t we, Maura?”

This was for her benefit; Nick no longer pressured me when we were alone.

“Definitely,” said Maura. “Too many alpha wolves and not enough betas. And most of the alphas have walked.”

“I wasn’t good for much except stuffing envelopes,” I said.

“Stuffing envelopes is good,” said Nick. “Not as much fun as stuffing other things, but necessary.” He grinned lewdly.

“Got to go,” I said. “I’ll think about it.” I put a hand at Bill’s back to send him out.

“So we shouldn’t expect you at breakfast tomorrow?”

“Probably not. But I’ll see Peter at work. Good night.”

I followed Bill outside into a gust of arctic air and dumb remorse. Who cared if two contradictory pieces of my life had just met and stared straight through each other? So what if I spent a weekend in Miami while my friends froze?

Bill stepped away from me, pulling up his hood and turning his back to the wind.

“I live around the corner,” I told him. “I’d invite you up, but the place is a mess.”

“Cold,” he said. “Why don’t we go back to the hotel? You are coming back, aren’t you?”

“Of course.” Had I said something wrong?

“I thought you might change your mind after seeing your pals,” he said haughtily.

“Don’t be silly. They have nothing to do with—us.”

“I didn’t like them. I could tell they didn’t like me.”

“But they don’t even know you.” Thank God.

“The way that guy looked at me. Like I was an insect.”

“Nick looks at everyone like that. He looks at me like that.” Which was true, but I wondered if Bill had picked up on something I missed. Did Nick know who Bill was? No, he would’ve torn into him if he had.

I went to the curb to flag down a cab that skated to a halt. I held the door open and Bill climbed in. He sat stiffly while I gave directions to the driver. My kicking and poking at his magazine didn’t threaten Bill, but a nasty look from Nick Rosi was enough to send him into a sulk.

“New Yorkers,” I claimed. “We’re not as polite as people in other cities.”

“Is he an old boyfriend?”

“Nick? Oh no. Not Nick. We know each other from ACT UP. His lover works with me at the bookstore.”

“I see.” Bill took my hand and held it in his lap. He thumbed my knuckles through the glove. “Sorry. I don’t know why I reacted to him like that. Except I hate it when people look down their nose at me. I know you have this other life that has nothing to do with me. I certainly have mine.”

“Which I’ll get to see in Miami,” I said.

He clutched my hand tightly, reassured to remember that. “I’m not going to inflict them on you. We’ll have better things to do than hobnob with politicos and blue-haired ladies.”

By the time we walked through the white dazzle and red carpets of the lobby at the Plaza, Bill had regained his smooth cheerfulness, although I was still confused by his hatred of Nick and my feeling that I’d been disloyal to someone, either Nick or Bill, I wasn’t sure which.

It was early, but I proposed we get ready for bed. We brushed our teeth, then undressed on opposite sides of the mattress, nonchalantly stripping to our underwear, then stripping off that as well. Sex had become as automatic for us as breathing. When we met again under the covers, however, I placed my hand against his chest and looked into his eyes for a moment. I liked him again. I was glad to have his body back. If this Bill ever flowed into the Bill of the vertical world then our affair would be more real, but also disruptive, even dangerous. We resumed kissing and nothing else mattered to me except seeing his face go blank with bliss one more time.

Afterward, we turned out the light and fitted ourselves together. It often takes a night or two for my body to grow accustomed enough to another person for me to sleep comfortably. Bill promptly dozed off, holding my arm across his chest like a teddy bear. I quickly joined him.

I woke only once that night, when he began to twitch and moan in his sleep, like a dog dreaming of punishment. I rubbed his chest and drew him to my side, and we sank back down into oblivion.

W
HO’S THE REAL ENEMY?
We cannot forget our real enemy. Not Jesse Helms. Not that two-faced coward in the White House. Not the turncoat Log Cabin queers of the Republican Party. No, our most powerful, scurrilous foe in the war against AIDS is—John Cardinal O’Connor!”

The drumroll of names by the speaker, a young woman with the short speckled hair of a baby chick, prepared us for a fresh new villain, not that tired old bogeyman in skirts. There were enough ex-Catholics in the audience, however, for the claps to outweigh the yawns. In the aisle seat beside me, Nick seethed like an ulcer.

This was my first ACT UP meeting in over a year. Numbers had been dropping when I dropped out. They no longer needed the Cooper Union auditorium in my neighborhood for the weekly general meeting but had moved back to their first home, the assembly room of the Community Center in the West Village. Even here, under the white tin ceiling and cast-iron columns as thin as birthday candles, half the folding chairs were empty.

Meetings were once as exhilarating as the trial by sansculottes in
A Tale of Two Cities
—if you were a sansculotte—their energy almost compensating for the hours required to reach the simplest decision. Now people actually took turns to talk, not because they were more disciplined but because they had less to say. Gone were the speakers who hoped to piggyback this cause with campaigns against racism, sexism and class. The humpy beauties no longer came either; there were few licorice black leather jackets tonight and no sixty-dollar haircuts. Despite their torn jeans and earrings, the two white boys facilitating tonight’s meeting suggested a pair of student-council presidents. When they opened with the ritual announcement that police or FBI agents were required by law to identify themselves, Nick had grumbled, “As if such people would waste their time here.”

Nick had pressed me hard this week about joining him tonight. It was already February and I was definitely going to Miami. I attended the meeting thinking that it might be good for me, like going to church. I listened piously, sheepishly, but my chief emotion was nostalgia for the old illusion that sitting through long-winded debates and occasionally being hauled off in plastic handcuffs were all that was needed to set things right.