How Long Has This Been Going On (6 page)

Anyway, there was nothing wrong with looking up to impressive men, or in wanting to be like them and hanging around them. Right? What was wrong in Frank's life was the Vice Squad, though so far the Chief was rejecting Frank's requests for a transfer.

"A right-looking guy like you is too important to the work" was the Chiefs assessment.

Lieutenant Peterson was sympathetic, but there wasn't much he could do, because he didn't get along with the Chief himself. Frank and the Lieutenant were standing in the parking lot next to the station, cops coming and going around them, and Frank was running on at sixty words a minute, letting it out of his system to a guy he trusted. Before he left, Peterson—this towering big character with the shoulders of a linebacker—puts an arm around Frank and gives him a squeeze. You know, just to hearten him up. But Frank plays and replays that moment for a week, shivering with relish.

The Kid was up in the front seat with Derek Archer's chauffeur again, riding to Archer's house.

"This beats the bus," the Kid was saying. "This is plush and I am Johnny the Kid. And you're what, Blue-veined Joe the Driver?"

Silence.

"Limousine Lou, the Sizable Sheik?"

Silence.

"Jeanne Crain as Pinky?"

The chauffeur, staring straight ahead, said, "Tom Visco."

"Long Tom Visco," the Kid amended, "the Chauffeur Who Does."

Silence.

"Gee," said the Kid, "can't anyone else get a word in someday?"

Silence.

"Chatterbox."

The chauffeur smiled.

This was purely a social event, Archer had assured the Kid on his landlady's phone. Archer was taking the Kid to an "afternoon," as they were called then, at the home of a retired but well-heeled and even vastly respected director noted for the glamour of the all-male gatherings around his pool. It was a mutually advantageous date, for the Kid would have the chance to meet important Hollywood people and Archer could show up with something stunning in tow and thus not have to feel he was turning into a hapless old queen like dreary George Cukor, sitting off to the side with the other aunties, talking shop while their eyes drilled the doings at the pool.

"Want some lunch before we go?" Archer asked when the Kid hit the house, keyed up for an exciting and possibly life-changing day. "Or would you—"

"I want everything," said the Kid. "I want lunch, I want sex, I want fame, I want surprise, I want admiration, I want a cookie."

"Lesson number one on breaking into Hollywood," said Archer, amused. "Never interrupt anyone more powerful than you are."

"Lesson number two," the Kid countered. "Get to know the chauffeur."

Archer, not catching on, or perhaps rising above it, guided the Kid into the kitchen, where the butler, his sleeves rolled up, was cleaning an elaborate coffeepot.

"Swenson," said Archer, "could we rustle up some bacon and eggs for this young man?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Yeah," said the Kid, "the butler."

Ushering the Kid into the living room, Archer said, "I can see you're planning to become known as a raffish and unpredictable charm boy. That'll go well today, I expect. Don't go too far, though, will you? For instance, when you meet Mr. Cukor, address him as—"

"Mr. Georgette,
sir!"

Archer ran his hand through the Kid's hair and around his ear. Archer gazed upon the Kid, serenely aching to own the boy from top to toe.

Archer said, "You're an arresting young fellow, because you look like one thing and you act like another."

"Yes," the Kid agreed. "I'm Judy Garland rolled into one."

"Come see the grounds."

Archer led a marveling Kid past pool, gardens, tennis court.

"Am I supposed to be inspired by all this, and hungry for it," asked the Kid, "or doesn't it matter?"

"Do you play?"

"Play what? Chauffeur bingo?"

"Tennis."

"Sure, after you teach me."

"It's not something you pick up, tennis. You sort of know it already."

"Everyone starts somewhere, don't they?" said the Kid. "You weren't born playing tennis. Anyway, I dressed smart, didn't I? It's not like you're bringing a piece of trash to this party, is it?"

"You look fine."

"Don't just say that. Did I dress right or not?"

The Kid looked perfect, in fact, in a button-front white Mexican dress shirt and navy pants, and Archer put his arms around the Kid, who reciprocated. Archer held him for a while, not moving, till the butler strode up with the Kid's lunch on a tray and Archer slowly eased out of the embrace, surveying the Kid as the butler set up lunch on a wooden barbecue table.

"I brought you coffee, too, sir."

"Thank you, Swenson."

"I don't get what side you're on," said the Kid, tucking in as the butler returned to the house. "Like, first you're discreet and then you're open. Or one minute you're down on my cock and the next you're screwing Miss Sadie Thompson."

"I'm double-jointed," Archer said.

"What's that mean?"

"I like it both ways."

"On your back and on your stomach?"

Archer sipped his coffee and sighed. "Don't you ever feel the need to be with a woman?"

"No," said the Kid. "Nor do you, is my guess. Because, if you did, you wouldn't have had to boil yourself up for it by eating my cock. The need you feel, Mister, is to fool yourself into thinking you're jam."

"Jam?"

"Normal and boring. You'd call it heterosexual. Isn't it funny how not one of us knows
all
the terms? 'Double-jointed'? 'Jam'?"

Archer sipped his coffee.

"There's this myth," the Kid went on. "This myth about jam occasionally going to the Other Side for fun or profit. The guy who does it tells himself he likes women. But what he
really
is is a closeted homo. He's the lady in the no-way mirror. So half his life is what he thinks he's supposed to be. And half is what he really is. That's not double-jointed. That's lying."

"I'd call it protection."

The Kid shrugged.

"How do you know so much so young?" Archer asked.

The Kid slathered butter onto his toast and nodded. "Looks like I've been keeping my eyes open." Gulping down the toast, he said, "All you guys with your women covers and your double-jointed. How come I never hear about a homo being double-jointed in the other direction? It's always jam out hunting for boy ass."

Archer shook his head. "Your mouth," he said.

The Kid's mouth served him well at the afternoon, because he's bright and quick and pretty and that's an odd package; usually it's bright and quick
or
pretty. At pool parties, age decides dress—the young and trim don trunks and the aged and powerful remain tastefully clothed. This rule is observed as strictly as Ramadan in Baghdad, especially by the aged; but the Kid put his twist on it by keeping his pants on and simply opening the front of his shirt. I'm not in any of the classified groups, he seemed to say. I'm a new kind.

Archer introduced him to their host, and their host took the Kid around from group to group of the old boys, letting him stay put just long enough to dazzle, and then leading him on to the next group.

I'm a star, the Kid thought. These directors and writers are
listening
to me.

Archer, who spent this time chatting about neutral topics with a British actor who was married and the father of three children and even hungrier for young boys than Archer was, finally joined the Kid at the laden table, where the Kid was suspiciously discovering artichoke vinaigrette.

Archer put a hand on the Kid's neck, lightly, lightly. "Just scrape off the bottom with your—no, the other side."

"Neat-o."

"They liked you."

"You weren't there, so how do you know?"

"I was watching. The sight of older men enchanted by a teenager is unmistakable even at fifty yards, no matter how cautious or self-protected the men may be."

"Who's Mr. Whale? Does he have a first name?"

"James. Everyone defers to him because he's English."

"Who is he?"

"Has-been director. Some of his films were major, though. I'd call him eminent but irrelevant."

"He didn't like me."

"No?"

"Sometimes you can tell they're thinking, like, Shut up and be cute, you know? Such as I'm their private dumb bunny."

"Surely not."

"Well, that's what
you
want, isn't it?"

Startled, Archer blinked at him.

"Isn't it?"

"I... I need something of a particular kind, that's all. I don't think of you as a... a dumb bunny, was it?"

"What are those guys like?" asked the Kid, nodding at the trim-and-tan brigade hanging around the pool, the famous and indispensable Young Men of Hollywood afternoons. "They're dumb bunnies," the Kid went on. "They have to be. Their names are, like, Ted and Steve and Billy—"

"Well, you're Johnny."

"Johnny the
Kid.
The mouth. The surprise boy of truth is Johnny. Whereas Ted and Steve are not surprising. Ted and Steve are just beautiful. Some may be content with that, but I give more."

"If you want to make it in show business, you'd better concentrate on being beautiful."

"What are you concentrating on today, by the way?" the Kid asked. "Don't you want to meet those guys at the pool?"

Archer glanced at them mildly. "I've met them."

"Well, I haven't and I'm going to. See you after?"

"Without question," said Archer, smiling.

Ted, Steve, and Billy were easy to meet, though they weren't altogether what the Kid expected. For one thing, they were Griff, Phil, and Bram. Griff had a deep voice, Phil shook your hand in a grip of iron, and Bram's eyes were so intense you had to converse with his left ear.

"I'm Johnny the Kid," he told them. "I sing down at Thriller Jill's."

"What do you sing, Johnny?" Phil asked.

"Old and new," the Kid replied. "Sad and silly. High-hat and low-down."

"Would that include 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes'?"

"Yes," admitted the Kid, surprised at Phil's knowledge and a bit resentful.

"I like medleys," said Griff.

That sounded good and dumb to the Kid. "Why medleys? They're just a bunch of songs instead of one."

"Not the best ones. A really sharp medley will play one number against another, kind of develop it."

And Phil was nodding along with this.

"Kate Smith did a really interesting medley on her show a few weeks ago," Griff went on. "Did you happen to hear it, Johnny?"

The Kid shook his head.

"She sang 'Falling in Love with Love' and then went right into 'This Can't Be Love' before the first song was over. So you got two different sides of the question, you know? The sorrowful side and then the side that's joyful. It was like the musical equivalent of losing a boy friend and finding a new one in the same day."

As Molly Goldberg liked to say, This I had not anticipated.

"We ought to come down and hear you sometime," said Bram. "Are you on every night, Johnny?"

"I'm on twenty-five hours a day. But I
sing
Monday through Saturday."

Griff and Phil laughed appreciatively, and Bram said, "We'll be there."

"You wouldn't like it. It's not like this."

"This?"

The Kid gestured at the lawn and the pool and the Beverly Hills mansion. "This."

The boys were perplexed and the Kid felt a surge of power. Just then, however, a fourth pool boy loomed up out of the water, a dark-haired Viking with an expert smile. The Kid stood back a bit as the boys greeted the newcomer affectionately, hugging and patting him.

"Come and meet Johnny," Griff told him. "Johnny, this is Mark."

"Hi, Johnny," said Mark, proffering his smile and a giant hand.

"Yeah," said the Kid, taking it. "You're Dumbbell Mark of the Jungle and Gym."

"Johnny's a wild card," Phil told Mark.

"Hey, Mark," said the Kid. "Joan Crawford wants her shoulders back."

Mark, his arm. wrapped around Griff's waist, grinned.

"Just because you're a big monster beauty and I'm a little guy," said the Kid, "does not mean that I couldn't stuff your ass and have you howling with delight."

Mark said, "I'd love that sometime, Johnny."

The Kid had had enough. Quitting while he was behind and furious with himself and not having the faintest idea why he had taken them on so ferociously, he abandoned the field of contest and looked for Archer.

He found him sitting with some of the older men. The Kid perched on the grass and said nothing until one of the guests playfully observed, "The young man is strangely silent."

The Kid looked at Archer. "Whither thou goest," he said, "I will go. As soon as possible."

Archer smiled and rose. "On that note, gentlemen..."

It took forever to get out of there, as Archer diplomatically worked his way through the luminaries and the Kid dully moved with him. And when they got into the car, all that the Kid said was "I made a wreck back there."

Archer asked what he meant, but the Kid didn't want to talk.

"Your first Hollywood party, and you look as if you'd lost all your best friends."

They pulled off and rode back to Archer's house.

The Kid was breathing hard, really upset. "Mr. Archer," he began, and stopped.

"Surely you'd be calling me Derek by now."

The Kid said, "I really blew my top. I... Somehow, I lost my place. I don't know what I did."

Derek pulled him closer and caressed him. "I told you this was a social event, but you're rather putting me in a romantic mood. Do you mind that?" He brushed back the Kid's hair. "Just you and me? No Sadie Thompson?"

The Kid nodded.

"What? No jokes about my chauffeur?"

The Kid glanced into the rearview mirror to see if the chauffeur was looking at them.

"Tom's been with me for three years now. He takes it all in his stride."

The Kid said, "I made the ultimate mistake today: I showed my vulnerable side."

"Come here and let me hold you," Derek urged. "Come on. Was it the boys at the pool?"

"It was me," said the Kid, holding on to Derek, his head on the older man's shoulder. The Kid started to weep, and Derek, rubbing his back, whispered, "I love you like this."