Justice at Risk (5 page)

Graff knocked on the door of number six. We could hear a TV set droning inside, tuned in to the evening news, and see the muted glow of the screen through the raggedy curtains. A half minute later, Graff knocked again, louder, then called Callahan’s first name. I reached past him and tried the handle. The door opened.

There was enough light from the TV set and the fading sunset to show us the room had been turned upside down. I found a switch, and when the light came on, we saw how thorough the trashing had been. There wasn’t a drawer, door, or piece of luggage that wasn’t open, the contents strewn about. The mattress had been upended and sagged awkwardly against a wall, covering a rickety writing desk. Even shoeboxes had been flung into odd corners, as if they’d been searched and discarded.

I looked in the kitchen and bathroom. No Callahan. Then, as I pushed the soiled mattress back onto the bed to look behind it, I saw blood. Not a lot, but enough to indicate someone might have taken a good beating on that bed, maybe even been cut up a little.

“We’d better call the cops after all.”

“What do you think happened?”

Graff’s voice was anxious, frightened.

Welcome to L.A., Peter.

“Let’s not speculate just yet.” I handed him some coins. “Why don’t you call? I’ll look around a little more. You might call Cecile while you’re at it.”

When he was gone, I stood in the doorway, then systematically moved my eyes around the room, trying not to miss an inch. I touched nothing more, left no new fingerprints beyond those I’d already pressed into the door handle and light switch. There wasn’t much in the room except clothes, a few books, and personal items in the bathroom; the books were all gay titles, on the more literate side—James Baldwin, Edmund White, Felice Picano, Michael Cunningham, Dale Peck—but with a smattering of hardcore S&M fantasies among them, along with a few kinky tales by Anne Rice. I was about to move on to the kitchen when I spotted something familiar nestled in the cheap beige carpet near the nightstand. I knelt for a closer look.

It was an oval jade stone, encrusted in gold. An earring, exactly like the ones Cecile Chang had been wearing when I’d first met her earlier that day. I rose, thought for a moment about what I’d discovered, then went to stand on the porch of the old cottage and wait for the police to arrive.

I didn’t mention seeing Cecile Chang’s earring to the cops who answered the call at the Sunset Tiki Motel, or to anyone else.

I figured it was police business now, not mine. My business was getting my life back on track, earning a paycheck, and I didn’t need a stranger’s errant blood and unknown whereabouts distracting me.

The opportunity I’d been handed by Chang was like a gift from heaven, a dream job for a washed-up reporter like me. Out of nowhere, I suddenly had the chance to turn the corner, maybe develop a new skill and even a refurbished reputation that could lead somewhere. I didn’t like admitting the need for that, but I’d hit the big four-zero, and my perspective had shifted. I wanted self-sufficiency again, and nobody’s pity. It was as simple as that, and I wasn’t going to blow it by sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.

That night, after driving Graff back to his Venice apartment, I sat up studying the show bible Chang had given me for the bareback sex segment, reading by a table lamp in the living room of the little house on Norma Place. My elderly landlords, Maurice and Fred, were on a second honeymoon in Europe, financed by an inheritance Maurice had received unexpectedly that fall from the modest estate of an older sister, who had been his last surviving relative when she passed. It was Maurice’s idea to cruise down the Rhine with Fred, feeding him cheese and wine and pointing out the magnificent German castles on the hilltops, before the water got too low for passage. They would then continue touring by rented car, until they ended up in France in time to spend April in Paris, where Maurice intended to have his picture taken kissing Fred atop the Eiffel Tower—something he had wanted to do, he’d told me, for more than forty years.

For another month, possibly longer, I was to stay in their house instead of my usual place in the small apartment over the garage out back and care for the pets. It felt unusual, living in homey comfort, a place with a sense of permanence, after so many years without an anchor. As I sank into the deep couch with the two cats beside me and the dog nearby on the braided carpet, my slippered feet propped up on the divan, I had to concede that it didn’t feel half bad. There would be some who would say I was going soft, losing my edge, selling out to the conforming notion that there was no place like hearth and home. But I’d sown my wild oats, taken my walk on the wild side, been as much a libertine as any of them; I’d also seen and experienced my share of heartbreak and senseless death along the way, and I’d had enough. Now I was ready for something different, more careful choices, something—something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, couldn’t quite name, but that I wanted nonetheless.

That notion—making careful choices, leading a safer, saner life—was at the heart of the bareback sex issue I’d just been hired to write about. On one side were those men who proclaimed bareback sex with multiple partners to be an individual right in a free society and a bold stand against puritan forces determined to oppress gay sexuality. On the other side were those who felt strongly that in the age of a deadly virus like AIDS, unprotected sex with multiple partners was irresponsible beyond description, destructive not just to individuals but to an entire community, particularly the young, who had so much to lose but were often without the foresight to see it. That was the basic schism, at least as I understood it, with countless related issues to be considered. How I was going to explore it, tell the story, remained to be worked out.

I sipped coffee in the lamplight, studying the sample scripts Chang had given me to get an idea how such things were put together and what specifically would be expected of me, line by line, page by page. Then I leafed through the three-ring binder, making notes along the way. Most of the research was already in place and meticulously organized by Peter Graff. Tommy Callahan had assembled an impressive list of visual elements to illustrate the piece. Yet, as I read the first draft Callahan had written, it wasn’t difficult to see why Chang had been so desperate to bring in someone with a stronger writing background—Callahan’s structure was awkward and unwieldy, his writing rhythms ragged and unpolished, his wordcraft barely serviceable.

By dawn, as the birds began to make their noise outside and the animals around me began to stir, I had a reasonably clear vision of how I wanted to tell the story, and what my viewpoint was. I caught a few hours’ sleep, then called Chang at ten sharp and accepted the job. We spoke only briefly about the trashed room Graff and I had discovered at the Sunset Tiki Motel and the mysterious absence of Tommy Callahan. Not surprisingly, she said she hoped Callahan would be found safe and sound. I concurred, and neither of us spoke on the subject beyond that.

During the next three days, as my contract was prepared, I worked diligently on my outline, using the sample scripts as a guide for format and structure. The script outline proved to be considerably different from the general outline of the material in the segment bible, and thoroughly frustrating, as Chang had warned me. I soon realized, as I tried to fit everything I wanted to cover into a single hour of air time—less several minutes for the opening titles, host’s introduction and closing, and end credits—that in television, you had to leave out much more than you put in. I typed up my outline on the new PC Maurice had installed in the den just before his departure for Europe, a purchase he’d explained away with some nonsense about a memoir he’d always wanted to write. He might as well have said it with a wink because we both knew the truth. He was hoping I’d begin using it in his absence, hurrying along my return to the writing game, which is exactly how things were turning out.

On Thursday afternoon, just seventy-two hours after I’d first shaken hands with Cecile Chang, I was back in her office, handing in my outline. I’d spoken briefly to Peter Graff beforehand, and there was still no word about Callahan’s whereabouts. Graff was clearly troubled by it, but I kept my focus on my new writing assignment, determined not to be derailed by my feelings for Graff, or by the chance discovery of a stray earring on a tacky motel room floor.

Chang shut the door, asked Denise to hold her calls, and took fifteen minutes looking over my outline and asking me questions. She had a few comments about the structure and pacing that made sense, warning me in particular to avoid going off on tangents, but otherwise, she told me, it looked sound. The important thing, she said, was to get started on a first draft as soon as possible, and to plan on lots of revisions.

“That’s it? I’m now a working television writer?”

She smiled.

“That’s it, Ben. Welcome aboard.”

“I’ve always heard things move quickly in television.”

“You’ve seen nothing yet. The pace tends to accelerate exponentially. With all the money that’s tied up in production, staying on schedule is crucial. Which brings us to the next step. Your deadlines.”

She handed across a sheet of paper detailing exactly when each draft was to be completed, handed in, returned for revision, and so on, all the way to the final off-line edit.

“Given the time we’ve already lost, we’re looking at three months at the outside. That may seem like a long time now, but after you’ve spent a couple hundred hours viewing and selecting footage and sound bites, you’ll see it differently.” She stood and escorted me to the door. “Denise has your contract. Please look it over. If you have any questions, just call. By the way, Peter has confirmed your first interview—Oree Joffrien.”

“Oree?”

“I thought it would be good if you cut your teeth interviewing Oree, since the two of you are already acquainted.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“To be honest, I offered this segment to Oree first, when it became clear Tommy Callahan was in over his head. Oree has a related book in the works, which should be out by the time our series airs on PBS in the fall, so he was an obvious choice. Unfortunately, he’s got too much on his plate at the moment, and turned me down. But he recommended you.”

“For which I’m more than a little grateful.”

“If you get the kind of quality sound bites from Oree that I believe you can, you may not have to interview more than one or two others to round out those we’ve already done. You’ll find him as articulate as he is knowledgeable, and he should look good on camera.”

“He’s an attractive man.”

“He caught your eye, then?”

“More than just my eye.”

She looked bemused, maybe a little pleased.

“You’ll be seeing him again tomorrow, just after lunch. The taping is set in his office at UCLA. Peter has all the details.”

Suddenly, my stomach was fluttering.

“We’re taping tomorrow? That’s pretty fast.”

“Peter’s good with a camera crew. He’ll lead you through it.”

“He’s barely out of college.”

“You’d be surprised how many bright young people there are at entry level in this business who know their way around. They’re the underpaid workhorses we producers depend on—tomorrow’s producers. Just to be safe, I’d like to see a list of interview questions first thing in the morning, to make sure you’re on the right track.”

We faced each other at the door, and I thanked her again for the opportunity she’d given me. I noticed she was wearing a different set of jewelry today, floating opals rather than jade. I kept my mouth shut on the subject, which wasn’t easy.

“It’s mutual, Ben. It’s not easy finding writers with your experience willing to work for what we pay. Especially on such short notice.”

Her hand was on the door, hurrying me along.

“It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to talk to Callahan about the material before I start writing. Given the signs of violence in his motel room.”

“No.” Her smile was rigid, appropriately sad. “No, I suppose we have to move forward without Tommy, don’t we?”

With the exception of a quick drug fix, or a trip to Disneyland, there may be no faster way to leave the real world behind than to take a stroll on a lovely spring day across a university campus, as I did early Friday afternoon on my way to interview Oree Joffrien.

I parked in Lot Three, on UCLA’s northern boundary near Sunset Boulevard, and wound my way through the fantastic shapes and myriad concepts of the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden toward the heart of the campus. After a season of generous rains, the grounds were as green as I’d ever seen them, and the jacarandas were full and fluttery with lavender blossoms; squirrels were everywhere, scampering across the lush lawns and up and down the trees, which were thick with foliage, while the edges of the landscape were bunched with ferns and
Agapanthus
—Lily of the Nile—about to bloom like purple fireworks exploding. Hundreds of students in summery clothes made their way to lunch, or to their next class, their faces ranging from deeply studious to blissfully carefree, but all of them basking in the last blush of youthful freedom before facing the reality of having to earn a living and pay their way in the world, or else try to survive on its desolate fringes, as I had done in recent years. A decade or more had passed since my last visit here, when I’d appeared as a guest lecturer in an evening class offered by the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, at a time when my career was in its final ascent before the big crash. The only change I could see was more Asian students than ever, and fewer students with dark skin—a sign that the affirmative action programs of another era had been dismantled, and, for those beginning life with less, harsh reality was becoming that much harsher.

Joffrien’s office was on the third floor of Haines Hall, one of about forty Italian Romanesque buildings in red brick and terracotta designed in the 1920s, part of a cluster set on a hilltop in the manner of a northern Italian village, overlooking the picturesque slopes of the western campus. Inside Haines, I passed endless and confusing room numbers, along with bulletin boards and display cases devoted to the subject of anthropology, which told me I’d at least found the right department. Posted on a wall was a dictionary definition someone had photocopied and blown up to poster size.

an thro polo gy,
n
.
1.
the science dealing with the origins, physical and cultural development, racial characteristics, and social customs and beliefs of the human race.
2.
the study of man’s similarity to and difference from other animals.
3.
the science of man and his works.
4.
the study of the nature and essence of man (also known as
philosophical anthropology
).

As I neared Joffrien’s office, I met him coming out. Graff was right behind him, and I shook hands with both of them, feeling lumpy and nondescript between two such gorgeous men, who couldn’t have looked more different or appealed to me in such different ways. Graff and his camera crew had decided Joffrien’s office was too small for comfortable shooting, and had relocated their equipment to one of the open-air loggias of nearby Royce Hall, where the arches and shadows seemed suitable for the serious subject matter at hand.

Graff led the way, not wasting a moment.

“They’re already setting up the lighting. We should be ready to tape in about fifteen minutes.”

He led us out of Haines to a concrete and brick pathway that was one of several crisscrossing Dickson Plaza, where students sauntered along the walkways or napped on the broad lawns in between. It struck me that Graff would not have been out of place among them, perhaps as a tanned and golden member of the swim or water polo teams, yet he led the way to our taping with the confidence of someone far removed in time and experience from the peaceful isolation of a university never-never land.

I recognized Royce Hall the moment I saw it. Renovated and retrofitted since the devastating Northridge earthquake of ninety-three, the stately domed structure, inspired by a number of northern Italian cathedrals, was probably the most filmed college building in the country. There was some irony in Graff’s choice for our backdrop: We’d be discussing a topic the patriarchs of the Catholic Church would no doubt consider unholy, something to be locked away in the deep vaults of denial, like the subject of priests who engage in pedophilia, or seduce the devout who come to them for counsel, or simply depend on booze to get them through their night’s despair. Yet, disregarding its churchliness, the building’s solid stonework and architectural stature seemed ideal for our needs, and the choice left me more impressed than ever with Graff’s maturity.

The camera and lights were set up in a corner of the broad loggia on the building’s southern side, with two chairs facing each other. The camera was behind and just to the left of one of the chairs. Graff asked Joffrien to take the other one, a position that allowed him to be framed nicely in the background by a brick arch, with muted light beyond. Graff fussed about Joffrien, straightening his collar and tie, while the lighting man took numerous measurements with a meter near Joffrien’s face, making allowances, I was told, for the extra absorption of light that was a natural consequence of Joffrien’s darker skin. Graff then placed me in the chair nearest the camera, and I felt his hands on my arms and shoulders as he adjusted my body to keep me just outside the camera’s lens.

“Be sure not to lean to the left, Ben, or you’ll be in frame. Mr. Joffrien, try to maintain eye contact with Ben, and talk to him as if you’re having a normal conversation. Be as animated and spontaneous as you want. Gesture with your hands, if it feels comfortable. Just don’t move from your basic sitting position, or we’ll lose you in the frame and have to refocus.”

Graff knelt, with both hands resting on my thigh.

“Remember to ask your questions in a way that elicits open-ended responses—a complete answer, rather than just a yes or no.”

“Gotcha.”

I took a deep breath, feeling almost as if I were the one facing the camera. Graff must have picked up on it, because his voice became more soothing, reassuring.

“Don’t worry about how you sound. Your questions will be edited out. We’ll only use Mr. Joffrien’s responses. The important thing is to listen carefully, and lead him naturally into the next question without interrupting a good sound bite.”

“Got it, boss.”

He grinned, squeezed my leg, then went to check the microphone clipped to Joffrien’s shirt, just below camera range.

“If you can, Mr. Joffrien, try to begin each answer by restating the question in some way, so we get a complete sound bite.”

Joffrien smiled, as calm and composed as the night I’d first met him.

“I’ve done this a few times, Peter. I know the procedure.”

“I guess we’re ready then.” Graff took his place behind the camera. “Whenever you are, Ben.”

I glanced at the notebook in my lap, and my list of questions, then took a deep breath.

“Anytime, guys.”

The tape rolled, then immediately was stopped as the sound man picked up the buzz of an overhead plane in his earphones. A minute later, as it passed and we were about to start again, a car alarm began blaring in nearby Lot Five. When it finally stopped, we resumed. I asked my first question, which was actually a request.

“Explain for us, if you will, what is meant by ‘riding bareback,’ or ‘bareback sex.’”

Before Joffrien opened his mouth to reply, Graff interrupted.

“I’m sorry, Ben. Have him give us his name and his exact title, slowly spelling out his first and last names. For logging and research purposes. You always do that at the beginning of an interview.”

Joffrien complied, without my saying a word. Nearly half an hour had passed since I first sat down in my chair, and the interview had yet to get underway. I was beginning to feel like the least important person on the shoot.

“We’re rolling, Ben.”

I cleared my throat and started again.

“Please explain what is meant by ‘riding bareback,’ or ‘bareback sex.’”

“The term ‘riding bareback,’ or ‘bareback sex,’ refers to the activity of people who are apparently willing to put themselves in danger of becoming infected with HIV, or infecting or reinfecting others, by engaging in high-risk sexual intercourse without using condoms.”

“Is this strictly a homosexual problem?” I stopped. “I’m sorry, that sets up a yes or no answer, doesn’t it.”

“It’s all right,” Peter said. “Keep going.”

I repeated the question, and Joffrien responded.

“Although many people, both straight and gay, are obviously having unprotected sex, there is one group of gay males in particular who deliberately, almost defiantly, continue to engage in unprotected anal intercourse, regardless of the risk. Gay writers and others originally coined the term ‘riding bareback’ or ‘bareback sex,’ to describe this phenomenon within a small gay subculture, which has generated a great deal of controversy in the midst of the continuing AIDS epidemic.”

“Knowing how many have died of AIDS, and how horrible a disease it is, why would anyone willingly engage in bareback sex?”

“Why anyone would willingly put themselves at risk in this way is a complex question. It cuts through a number of issues the gay community has been facing in the 1990s, and even earlier. These include a sense of doom on the part of many gay men, low self-esteem, questions of consensuality and responsibility in sexual coupling, the fiercely held belief by some that sexuality must remain as natural and unfettered an experience as possible, no matter what the consequences, and so on. There are also questions about the impact of drugs on sexual activity, the unique commercialization of sex and sex-and-drug activity that simply does not exist in any other subculture in quite the same way. Also, the issue of enslavement to the so-called muscle culture, which puts such high value on youth and looks, and seems to devalue the old or less attractive. All of these issues come out of a deeper matrix of medical, political, and spiritual questions that are currently the subject of heated debate within the gay community and among AIDS activists and others.”

I left my list of questions for the moment.

“Is that how you personally see the issue, Oree? Or were you speaking as an academic and social observer?”

“I was speaking analytically, as an academic. Personally, as a part of the queer community, I view bareback sex at this point in our history as either murder or suicide. I see it as a grotesque symptom of a subculture within a subculture twisted by society’s oppression, but also by its own self-hatred and sexual compulsion. These traits are not exclusive to gay men by any means, but given the context of the AIDS crisis, they take on a darker meaning, at least in my view.”

“Yet, with the advances in treatment, AIDS is no longer considered the automatic death sentence it once was.”

“The epidemic isn’t over, it’s just that the color has changed. People are still dying, especially those who can’t afford treatment, or whom education and prevention have not reached. The African American and Hispanic communities are being decimated by this disease while a lot of gay men, mostly Caucasian, argue the pros and cons of slipping on a condom. In the meantime, the plague is exploding in third world countries, beyond all previous expectations. Knowing that, to deliberately expose another to HIV infection borders on evil, and to turn one’s back on the continuing catastrophe is almost as bad. I see it as callous, elitist, even racist.”

Joffrien paused, then smiled.

“Is that what you were looking for?”

“That’ll do nicely, thank you.”

As I continued to move down my list of questions, sometimes jumping ahead if it felt right, or revisiting a question I felt needed more exploration, time seemed to stand still, and for the most part, I forgot the camera that was looking over my shoulder. Joffrien and I discussed the new sexual conservatism espoused by a vocal segment of the gay community, the moral issue of sex clubs and commercial sex-and-drugs events, such as the gay circuit parties that brought together thousands of gay men in a celebration of sensuality, the importance of the erotic impulse to gay self-identity, and on and on. From time to time, Peter Graff interrupted because of more audio interference, or when lighting or camera adjustments were needed, or the camera operator needed to change tapes. Several times, he broke in with a suggestion for reframing a question, or to ask Joffrien to repeat himself, emphasizing some aspect of his response, or articulating it more clearly. Once, as his throat grew dry, Joffrien asked for a glass of water, which Graff had ready for him. Then, after two hours that felt more like two minutes, we were finished.

Graff had manipulated everything behind the camera with an unobtrusive touch. Joffrien had given me a stream of quotable material that might provide me with the narrative thread I felt I needed for the piece. Together, they had pulled me through my first interview, and I felt closer to both of them for the experience. Yet, in my gut, I knew whom I would have preferred to be with when the day was done: the knowledgeable professor, the jazz lover, the seasoned gay man close to my own age, my intellectual superior, perhaps, who might challenge me in that respect, but with whom I felt so at ease, with a special kinship that seemed deep and real.

As I gazed across at him, doing my best to thank him with my eyes, I felt Graff’s fingers busy at my shirt front, as he unclipped my microphone.