How Long Has This Been Going On (23 page)

"We were going to talk for a while. Friendly talk, like brothers, or strangers. Now you seem like a freek."

"Oh, I'm a freak all right," Derek agrees, killing the cigarette.

The boy gets up and approaches Derek, taking his towel along. He is hard, brazen, pensive. He places the towel on the table and stands behind Derek, rubbing his shoulders.

"Do you like that?" the boy asks.

"Oh, yes."

"Stand up, please, sir."

As Derek rises, the boy gently unfastens Derek's towel and lets it fall. The boy's outstretched cock nudges Derek from behind, and Derek arches his back, moaning, as the boy holds him.

I didn't mean it to be him, but he opened up the book and wrote his name there without I even asked him to, and he was going all dippy while I sizzled him up, the way they all do. He was just another Midnight Queer, and I took my time. Got him rubbing his cheek against my palm while I eased the knife out of the towel. It was all so smooth that I didn't pull his hair back, and I cut real light along the throat so he would flop around all quick and creepy-like.

Derek made a larger headline than the man in Griffith Park had; but again the police had no leads and no suspects. The funeral, held at the graveside, was as sparsely attended as Derek's last pictures: a sister and brother-in-law and two men whom the Kid took for reporters, though they asked no questions of anyone. The sole other mortal on hand, besides the gravediggers, was the rabbi.

Derek, the Kid was thinking, you tricky devil.

Derek had never mentioned his family, and the Kid had long assumed that Derek was one of those who had none. I'm like that, the Kid thought. Self-contained and born out of me.

The rabbi had a supply of little white caps for the men to wear. (The reporters declined.) Then, after intoning the traditional prayer for the dead, the rabbi signaled to Derek's kin, and they each took a bit of the earth heaped up at the grave and tossed it onto the coffin. When the Kid moved to share in this ceremony, the rabbi gently waved him back.

"I was more his family than any of you guys," the Kid told them, taking an ample helping of dirt and letting it dribble into the grave as slowly as possible.

He was crying.

Lois had no trouble unloading Thriller Jill's, because the L. A. club scene was on the boom and there were plenty of offers. She did try to isolate a buyer who would keep Jill's the way it was, or at least a place welcome to those on the Other Side. But everyone had plans to make it over.

"They aren't landlords," Lois observed. "They're entrepreneurs. They want to do something personal with the place."

She shrugged, and the rest of them tried to look philosophical—Elaine, Larken, Jo-Jo, Desmond, the bartenders, and a very few regulars, who had gathered for a spaghetti dinner and closing party on Lois's final night as the Mistress of Thriller Jill's.

"I always thought the place was personal as it was," said Desmond. "Especially with our wonderful new singer."

"She wanted me to fire you."

"Great artists are always difficult," Desmond replied, extending his hands to add, What can you do?

"She
was
good, Lois," said Larken. "In a way, she was more appropriate here even than Johnny."

Lois snorted.

"The customers loved her," said Jo-Jo. "They shut up when she came out, and they never did that for Johnny."

"They wanted other things from Johnny, okay?" said Larken.

"You know," Lois told Larken, "you're getting to sound like that cop boy friend of yours."

"Ex-boy friend."

"Oh, I forgot about Smelton."

"Hudson.
He's my
current
ex-boy friend."

"You broke up?"

"Well... I have a kind of closing announcement to make, too. I'm moving to San Francisco."

"What?"

"Larken!"

"Hey, that's—"

"Congratulations, boy!"

They were crowding around him, beaming, forgetting the loss of their clubhouse for a moment, and Larken thought, I guess they always liked me.

"So how come?" said Jo-Jo.

"It was Johnny, really. I helped him put an act together, and when—"

"The Kid actually
collaborated
on something?"

"Well, it's hard to direct your own show. You need someone to look it over, tell you where it plays and where it goes off, so you're free to dive down into the
performance
part of it. Anyway, they held him over at the Trocadero, you know—"

"So he's really good?" Lois asked. "Not just Thriller Jill's good, but the whole world good?"

"He'll take some getting used to, but yes, he is that good. Smart, too. He was such a hit he became the thing to see, and he wanted fresh material so when people came back and brought their friends they'd feel they got their money's worth. So Johnny needed new stuff and a co-director in a hurry, and I went up there and... I liked it." Larken smiled. "It's so surprising all the time—the streets going up and down... and the weather can change from one neighborhood to another. And this incredible thing. You're walking along, and you turn a corner, and there's beautiful water in front of you. Not on the beach, like Malibu—right there, in the city!"

"What's the big deal?" said Lois. "Didn't you have views of Salt Lake when you were growing up?"

"Oh, Salt Lake City isn't on the water. It's seventeen miles away. Didn't you know that?"

"It must be one of the better-kept secrets," said Lois dryly.

"Well, anyway," Larken concluded. "I'm moving for my life."

They gave him three cheers, and Desmond, at the piano, tried (and failed) to pick out "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" by ear; so everyone sang it instead as Jo-Jo hammered out the rhythm with forks on glasses.

"Everybody's so nice and everything," said Larken. "Now I'm sorry to leave."

"Speech! Speech!"

"No. No... speech. It's just that I think people like... well, like
us
need a city to get things done in. We're special people. Sophisticated and knowledgeable. Seeing San Francisco, I realized that I've been living in big small towns all my life. What have I been here, I mean? A fired waiter and a fired store clerk, then a mover—and that only because my boy friend started the business. Now I've got a job as producer of acts for the Troc. Okay, it's only part-time. But it's a start, right?"

"And this," said Jo-Jo, raising a glass and urging the others to join him, "is an end. I don't know about you, but for me this closes an era. I know everyone's got other work lined up. Except Desmond, of course."

One of the bartenders cried, "Hooray for Desmond!," and Desmond, blushing, said, "I can always go back to the A & P."

"Where you have been sorely missed, I feel almost certain," said Jo-Jo. "But we will be sorry to lose our two bosses, Lois Rybacher and Elaine Denslow, to the Emerald City of the East, where we wish them health and prosperity forever. To the girls!"

"To the girls!"
came the answering salute as they all drank. Then it was
"To Larken!"
and
"To Jo-Jo!"
and even
"To Desmond!,"
who got so drunk by the end of it that Jo-Jo had to drive him home.

Frank insisted on buying Larken out of the business, though Larken only agreed to take it in I.O.U.s. "That way," he said, "you'll have to stay in touch." Together, they loaded a van to haul Larken to San Francisco, the first time Move For Your Life had ventured north of Santa Barbara.

They decided to take it easy and enjoy the drive, making plenty of rest stops and investigating curious places, such as—for Larken had always wanted to see it—William Randolph Hearst's castle at San Simeon, opened to the public since his death two years earlier.

It was one of the happiest days in Larken's life, possibly the longest time he had ever spent in Frank's company, with no Todd, no gym, no law enforcement, no Frank's family to distract Frank. At one point, just north of Watsonville, Frank said, "How come you and I never run out of things to talk about?"

"What do you mean?"

"Other people, after a few hours they've gone through everything they have to say, so the rest is fadiddle. I ought to know, logging all those hours in black-and-whites, okay? But you and me, pal... I don't know, it's as if we could keep going forever."

"I wish we could—just ride the highway and never have to get there."

"Yeah, but, I'll tell you, I'm pretty pooped."

Nevertheless, when they got to Larken's new place on Polk Street they immediately began unloading, and by one
A.M.
they were finished, halfing a bottle of beer and doing an Alphonse-Gaston routine over who would shower first. Finally, Frank took Larken into the bathroom, and they played around in the water and kissed and got hot, so they ended up making love all night, and now they were very confused: because have they broken up or not?

This is what Larken would have said if he could have been in grasp of all the contours of his thoughts:

I am one of the people with the knack, or the skill, or the luck, that enables me to pair off infinitely. As soon as one romance ends, I happen upon another. And I don't choose badly. This may be the result of my origins, among a brood without family. Foundlings, orphans, and foster kids learn to recognize certain qualities in people—tolerance, patience, and above all forgiveness. Whatever the reason, I know that I can go on mating up, but I only want you. I know that the sex went from satisfactory to perfunctory pretty soon, because you're accomplished and driving and I'm not. And I know that we can't couple up if we're not sexually attuned. But I also know that I am going to be in love with you for the rest of my life. That's a definite. Because of those qualities you have, that I recognized. I recognized them from the first moment, way back in Griffith Park, when I talked to you on that bench and then you arrested me. And I hereby forgive in advance every hasty or inadvertent offense you make, because I know that, at rock bottom, you respect me and enjoy my company and like to hear me talk. What more can a man give another man on this green God earth?

This is what Frank, free of his armor, would have said in reply: I love you back, but how come I can only get off with other men? When you're away, I want you around; but when I'm hot, I need some new guy. How could we live together, with me always hunting a catch and you feeling left out?

L
ARKEN
: I guess it would be strange, living together asexually. It would be like your parents.

F
RANK
: Don't bring them into this.

L
ARKEN
: Okay, that's fair.

F
RANK
: I'm afraid to leave San Francisco, you know that? Because this means you're out of my life.

L
ARKEN
: If I thought I could, I'd drag you up here with me.

F
RANK
: Leaving L.A. would be admitting that I've failed.

L
ARKEN
: At what?

F
RANK
: At living up to my [father's] expectations. Keeping the dog off the quicksand.

L
ARKEN
: Frank, whatever happens, please, please keep me in on it. Remember, we were going to be this great historic couple.

F
RANK
: Speaking of that, what happened to your Meetings?

L
ARKEN
: Oh, they broke up when Jake was arrested. They convicted him, too.

F
RANK
: Shit.

L
ARKEN
: Yeah.

F
RANK
: So tomorrow morning, I'll just get up and... get out?

L
ARKEN
: And we'll be hesitating in the doorway, and trying not to be solemn....

F
RANK
: I really do love you, Larky.

L
ARKEN
: I know that much.

F
RANK
: I love you because you don't judge me. You accept me.

L
ARKEN
: I delight in you, actually. Except when you were mean about how sloppy I am.

F
RANK
: I'm sorry, Lark.

L
ARKEN
: That's why I love you. When an issue comes up, you don't defend yourself no matter how wrong you may be, the way most people do. You don't attack. You soften.

F
RANK
: Keep in touch, Larken. Promise?

What they did in fact say to each other that night was a jumble of some of these and other ideas in tones as supportive as they were ambivalent. Unfortunately, the two were unable to see that they should stay together not as lovers but as best friends. That didn't sound like a couple to them: but we were hoping that they would invent a new kind of couple—"a different kind of loving," as Frank once phrased it. Apparently, they didn't see that they had invention in their power.

It's funny. The main thing in Frank's life when Larken was around was cruising. Now the main thing in Frank's life was his phone calls to Larken in San Francisco—every one of them answered, Frank might have grumbled, by some lunkhead boy friend. Obviously, Larken had expounded upon the wonders of Frank to them, and they were jealous, suspicious, reluctant to call Larken to the phone and expose him to more of the man they couldn't be. Once, one of them announced that Larken was napping and mustn't be disturbed. "Just get him," said Frank.

"I certainly will not. We all need our beauty sleep." "Oh, fuck you, you girly twit," said Frank as he hung up, wondering where on earth he had picked up that phrase. It sounded British—maybe he'd fucked an Englishman somewhere.

Frank's father died, and Frank thought, Okay, right: because it turned out that, indeed, parents are not sacred beings. They can alienate you—particularly if you undergo some major change in style that causes you to consider the world rather than simply inhabit it.

* * *

In late 1955, a rival moving firm jolted Frank with an immensely handsome offer for Move For Your Life—far less for its equipment than for its name and its boss. "We want you with us," they told Frank, "not against us." Never in his life had Frank had enough money to feel truly free, so he jumped at the deal, not realizing that absolute autonomy lay at the center of his freedom. As an employee, Frank became disaffected and difficult. His co-workers began to refer to him, sarcastically, as "Charm boy." There was an incident, directly followed by one of those moments in which one quits and is fired simultaneously.