How Long Has This Been Going On (7 page)

* * *

Elaine's right rear tire went flat just after Sycamore, and for the first few minutes she simply sat there hating cars, having to drive to the grocery store and the laundry, and her life. Then she said, "All
right!
," and got out to see what was in the trunk, such as a genie.

Well, the necessary parts were there—spare tire, crank, the gizmo that unfastens the tire bolts. However, as Elaine had put it in one of her letters, "I am a very thorough maid and an unadventurously competent cook, but I know nothing about Equipment."

Glancing from the stuff in the trunk to the cars sweeping past on the road, Elaine wondered if she should stand there looking helpless but game so that some chivalrous guy would stop and change the tire for her. Isn't that how Claudette Colbert always handled it? Trouble was, Elaine had never been listening when her mother was giving her the helpless lessons.

Because where do you stand? How do you hold yourself? Hands on hips?: bewildered. Giving car dirty look?: adorably unable. Waving gizmo at passing cars?: demented. What exactly did Colbert do? Didn't she flash a bit of leg at them? Rogue that she is, Elaine tried that for a second or two. And, lo, a car did slow down and pull over. And Lois got out.

"Flat tire, huh?" she said, coming over.

Elaine nodded.

Lois was already poking into the trunk.

"A cinch," she called it. "You know? Some women can't change a flat. But some men can't, either."

Lois handed Elaine the gizmo. "Hold that? Yeah."

She winked at Elaine.

"Now, the whole thing: Crank it up, pull it off, push it on, crank it down. A cinch. Excuse me here."

"Much obliged," said Elaine, giving her room.

Lois permitted herself a smile as she passed.

"Thing is," said Lois, cranking up the rear of the car, "sooner or later everyone gets a flat. So everyone's got to learn how to switch tires."

Lois looked back at Elaine. Elaine nodded.

"My name's Lois."

"Elaine."

Lois nodded.

"Elaine the wife of Jeff."

"Good man?" Lois asked, working away.

"The best, unfortunately."

Lois gave Elaine a look.

"We have lovely memories. You know where we went on our honeymoon?"

"Hand me the wrench?"

Elaine gave it to her, saying, "We went to a bungalow village near Bakersfield. I have no idea why. There was nothing there but... bungalows. And couples like us. We'd say Howdy to each other whenever we'd pass, which, given the nature of the bungalow village, was much too often. And what I noticed was, everyone said Howdy in exactly the same way.
Amiably.
So I tried bringing up the personality in my Howdy. I'd say it tensely, or mysteriously, or flirtatiously. But all I ever got back was the same amiable old Howdy. What does that mean?"

Lois grunted.

"Down the road from the bungalows was a barbecue spot. So every evening we'd all troop down to this one place and have barbecue. So it was Howdy all over again. Except this time it was 'Howdy, you having the chicken?'; 'Why, Howdy, no, we're trying the ribs'; 'You go for the steak tips, Howdy?'; 'No, we're up to the combination Howdy dinner, with fries, slaw, and pickle choice.' But you're not married, are you?"

"Nope."

"Who are you not married to?"

"My job at Thriller Jill's."

"Thriller Jill's. Is that a sophisticated nightclub?"

"Well," said Lois, fitting in the spare, "no one says Howdy."

"Very
sophisticated. Got it. Tuxedos and movie stars."

"We get a few."

"I shouldn't be so flip. It's very nice of you to help me out."

"Spare's a little flat, too," said Lois, testing it. "You'd better get this into the shop before long."

"Lois."

After a moment. "Yeah?"

"What's it like at..."

"Thriller Jill's."

"Yes."

"Dandy. It's on the Other Side, in case you're wondering. And so am I."

Elaine was thinking.

"Yep," said Lois, working away with the wrench. "The Other Side is where I live."

"Where is Thriller Jill's?" "West end of Hollywood. Just off the Boulevard, between Davis and La Forma."

"Is
Jill a thriller, in fact?"

"Jill... Jill's a satisfier. I'm a thriller."

Elaine was thinking.

Lois got up. She said, "I'm the deepest thriller this side of the Valley," and held out her hand. Elaine took it, smirking as one might at a school-child's prank. The two women shared a long look of the eyes, auditioning feelings, attitudes. Men want a shape; women want an idea.

"You should come down sometime and see the show," Lois told Elaine, as they broke. "We've got Jo-Jo there, our emcee, and a real sweet-voiced kid named Johnny. Bar discount for all unaccompanied females."

"Half off my Pink Lady?"

"Everything off and we'll go all the way."

"My. Something tells me I oughtn't bring my husband."

"Oughtn't," Lois echoed, shoving the flat into the trunk. "Right."

"Thriller Jill's."

"That's the place." Lois looked at Elaine, long and true. "I'll tell you this, and I'm telling it honest. I'd like to see you there. Any night of the week, it's always me. Lois Rybacher. Any night. Thriller Jill's."

"The west end of Hollywood."

They shook hands.

"Thank you again," said Elaine, now feeling truly helpless: helpless to express her gratitude, and interest. "I really mean it!" she called out.

"I know you do," Lois replied as she got into her car.

Well, that was... that was very odd, Elaine is thinking.

Wasn't it?

Larken, driving to Griffith Park, kept thinking of him as That Guy on the Bench. It had become a mission now, something Larken had to complete in order to retain his self-respect. He would find that guy if it took the rest of the year, and collar him, and make him say
either
I don't like your face so get lost or I do like you so I'm taking you home.

I should be good at cruising, Larken told himself. I do enough of it. I should know how to let down in a very gentle way the guys I don't care about, and how to make a quick connection with the guys I do. I should; and I don't. Somehow it always gets confused. Or it starts out fine and then...

I've got to get better at this.

Larken was prepared to sit on That Bench for two or three hours, waiting for That Guy. Sometimes you have to. But That Guy was there when Larken came up the path.

Larken smiled and quickened his pace and sat down and told Frank, "Just listen to me. I'm twenty-three years old and a nice guy. I've got a good sense of humor and I'm considerate of other people and I'm very lonely. I came here from Salt Lake City almost two years ago, and I'm all by myself. I've met people, but it never gets past that first night. You know, how you exchange phone numbers because you had a really fine time and they did, too? All this enthusiasm, and this great hug at the door. Then you call him a few days later and he doesn't know who you are."

Larken paused, searching Frank's face for directions. There was nothing there—nothing, at least, that Larken could read.

"It's Friday night," Larken went on, "and I'm supposed to have my whole life before me. But I'm losing hope, and that's putting it honest."

Some moments passed, as the two men looked at each other, then Frank put his hand on Larken's shoulder, just touching him. Feeling suddenly welcomed, Larken leaned his head against Frank, and Frank, startled, leaped to his feet.

"What did you have to do that for?" Frank shouted.

Larken was speechless.

"That isn't..." Frank began, without knowing where to take it. That isn't what?

Larken rose and tried to take Frank's arm, but Frank pushed him away and called out, "No!," to someone behind him. "He didn't bite!"

"Screw that," said Jack, shoving Larken against the bench to pat him down. "How long are we supposed to stand around and—
hands on the bench,
cocksucker! So what are
you
looking at?" Then, to Frank: "You put him under arrest yet?"

"He's not under arrest," said Frank.

Jack was cuffing Larken.

"Jack, he didn't bite."

"He bit, you stood, so I say he's made."

Larken was staring at Frank.

"He
didn't bite,
Jack!"

"He bit. I heard him, pretty much. Yeah, he said, 'I want to blow you, big boy.'" To Larken: "You said that, didn't you, sweetie-pie?"

Larken wouldn't take his eyes off Frank.

"We can't bring him in, Jack."

Jack was hustling Larken down the path to the unit.

"Jack!"

Jack stopped and turned to Frank. "What are you, anyway, Hubbard?" he said. "Are you a cocksucker or are you a cop?"

I'm not a cocksucker, thought Frank later that night, lying fully dressed on his bed in the house he grew up in, his parents' house. But I'm probably something close to it. Some kind of reluctant homo, right? Don't want to do it, wouldn't know
how
to do it, yet I think about it all the time. Think about Lieutenant Peterson and his wife, or about Skip Deroyan and the date he told me he had with the twin redheads where they divided him up at the navel and one worked his top half and the other his bottom. Now I'm being honest, right? Now I'm saying who I am and I still don't know what it means: because, if I'm not a cocksucker, what kind of homo am I?

Frank's bedroom hadn't changed since he'd been fifteen—
Hardy Boys
books and minor sporting trophies on the shelves, world globe on the desk, hiking boots at the foot of the bed. The Great American California Teenager's Lair. Normal room, normal guy. Right? And there's Frank beating off, night after night, to a dream of Lieutenant Peterson walking in on Skip Deroyan's little trio and trying one of the twins, then the other, and then Skip Deroyan himself. It is as if Frank were directing a movie and got stuck on one scene and is running it over and over till they get it right.

Christ, next thing you know I'll be in that movie, too.

They booked that guy in the park. Larken Young, of 2030 Abigail, in Burbank. And that's
wrong.
That's a dirty case. In the unit going back to the station, Jack, driving, kept telling Frank to cool off, meaning Shut up. Frank tried to visualize telling the Sergeant that they have a bad arrest on their hands. Sure: Jack's hauling the crook in and Frank's going to pipe up and announce to all and sundry, This is a bad arrest and Jack Cleery is a bad cop.

That just isn't the way it works, especially when you're a rookie and your partner's logged eight years on the force. Frank was as trapped as Larken was.

Technically, Larken had not been trapped but entrapped, meaning he never said anything incriminating and therefore shouldn't have been taken in and shouldn't have been booked. The whole time, the whole ride back and all through the booking process, Larken never said anything except in answer to the Sergeant's questions. And he never took his eyes off Frank.

There was a soft knock at Frank's door, and Frank said, "Come in, Dad."

"I saw your light on," said Frank's father, coming in and pulling up a chair. "Anything wrong?"

Frank shook his head.

"Your mother's having a difficult time. She's always like this before one of her visits, I guess."

There are three ways to die of cancer: the quick way, whereby one day you feel a little odd and three weeks later you're gone; the slow and steady way, whereby the pain gradually outwits the anodynes until, instead of the illness becoming part of the body, the body has become part of the illness; and the slow, mysterious way, whereby medicine is unable even to prescribe an effective anodyne from the onset. Frank's mother was dying the third way. She had to go in and out of the hospital for tests and further tests. These the Hubbard family euphemized as "Mother's visits."

Frank and his father talked for a bit, touching upon the usual matters—how glad Frank's parents were to have him with them at such a Difficult Time, how proud they were of this son of theirs, how Frank was happy he could help out. Frank and his father used to have more colorful conversations; the gap in their ages and interests was beginning to separate them.

"Sure there's nothing wrong, Frank?"

Frank shrugged. "Everyone has something wrong, right? I'll work it out."

"If it's something you're uneasy about telling me—"

"Look, it's just not—"

"Because there's nothing you couldn't tell me, you know that."

"How can you
say
that?" Frank almost shouted. "There's plenty of things I couldn't tell you and we both know it!"

"All right, now, simmer down, Frank."

"Jesus!"

"Don't wake your mother. Let's—"

"Parents... Please stop.... You don't..."

Frank's father got up, sat on the bed next to Frank, and put a hand on his arm. "If you've got to talk about something, son," he said, "talk about it. Straight out, now. Maybe there's someone better than me to tell it to, I don't know. Just let it out and off of you."

Frank was thinking, If I tell him I'm in on a bad arrest and I'm a homo, which would kill him first?

"Talk to me, Frank." "No, Dad."

"You can at least say you're sorry you hauled off on me. Makes me feel funny, having my own kid dressing me down."

Frank's father was smiling, but he was probably serious, too.

"Yeah, I'm sorry."

"Son—"

"You're not supposed to call me that."

"I'd better get back to your mother." At the door, he said, "Maybe think it over about whether there's anything you could throw at me that I couldn't catch. Your old man's done right by you so far, hasn't he?"

Frank nodded.

"Good night, now."

Alone again, Frank kept going over the choices he had, choices of many kinds. He kept wondering what he was, kept rephrasing the answer. But he knew what he was.

He was the bait on the quicksand.

Frank was usually off on Saturdays, but after a few hours of fitful sleep he went in and told Lieutenant Peterson about the arrest. Frank glossed over Jack's blatant disregard of procedure, pretending that his partner misheard the conversation and made the grab too soon. Frank also pretended that he himself had been unsure about what had been said, and naturally had felt inclined to side with his partner. But now, Frank told the Lieutenant, he was certain that the crook had been entrapped, however accidentally, and Frank would be letting the force down if he didn't speak up.