Like People in History (35 page)

"I really should call in to the base," Matt said.

"What's keeping you?!" Calvin pushed him out of the chair. "Oh, don't be disgusting," he said, as I reached for Matt's hand to touch before he left the room. "He's not going to Zanzibar!"

"Well?" I said, when Matt was gone. "What do you think?"

"Rog, pussikins. You're obviously in love with the man. Why ask? If you were just meeting him or just breaking up with him, I'd be bone-crunchingly honest."

"Meanwhile...?" I prodded.

Calvin shook his head. "Miss What's-Her-Name-in-the-Sky sure can get it together every once in a while for the looks department."

"Next time bring Bernard."

"They wouldn't let him through that door. And / wouldn't blame them."

"You and Antria becoming sisters?"

"She'd like exactly that, but..."

Calvin stopped and stared ahead. "Well, you weren't pulling your old Aunt Calvina's tail after all."

I turned to follow his gaze—to Alistair, with a tall, slender, really quite lovely young woman. She had that long, straight, five-alternating-shades-of-natural-blond English hair that just drops in sheets, and a perfect oval face with huge blue eyes, button nose, and pouty mouth. Her clothing was so very simple you might almost have believed it hadn't cost a fortune. They were shown to a table across the largish room. He sat, and she excused herself to go powder her nose.

"Doriot Spearington," I said.

"My dear! Your cousin doesn't fool around when he decides to become a breeder, does he? But then he never did fool around, did he?"

"What are you talking about?"

"He's spotted us. He's coming over."

"Calvin, what do you know about Alistair?"

Alistair arrived at that minute, ending any possible explanation. I had to
¹
admit he dressed the part. He was wearing gray slacks with knife-edged creases, penny loafers, tan socks, a blue blazer with fawn leather buttons, and to my utter astonishment, a pale-blue mock turtle-neck. One could only wonder—had he all that preppy drag in his closets at home, or did he rush out to Bashford and buy it especially for the occasion?

"I might have known you two would not only know about this place but know it so well you get the best table," Alistair said, genially. "May I?" he asked, seating himself in Matt's chair. "Now,
this
is the advertised view!"

"Baseball! Beer in a can! Pussy!" Calvin said in his gruffest voice.

I wanted to slap him.

Alistair ignored him. "Too bad you didn't join the three of us last night. We ended up taking the Spearingtons' sailboat out from the yacht club." He pointed to it as though we didn't know where it was.

"All the way out under the bridge. Turns out all of us are pretty good sailors. We sailed all evening in the most tremendous easterly."

"RBI's. ERA's. Vaginal douche!" Calvin went on.

Just then Matt arrived back at the table. There was a bit of awkwardness as Alistair noticed him arrive, got up, and shook hands. "I believe we've met."

Matt made me love him even more: "Sorry, I don't recall."

Matt sat down and Alistair stayed up.

"White Sox! Chicago Bears! Muff diving!" Calvin said.

"The Bears are a football team!" Alistair corrected. "Keep away from the cocktails here," he warned me and Matt, "or you'll all end up babbling like him. Come meet Doriot," he said, pulling me up by the shoulder.

As we crossed the room, he said, "Your new friend sort, of reminds me of my mother's gardener. Remember him?"

"Matt does? Really?"

"Same color eyes!" Alistair said. "Same... Ah, she's back. Doriot Spearington! My second cousin and childhood friend Roger Sansarc! Sit a second." He offered me his chair and searched out another.

Doriot had a model's face, also a kind and intelligent face.

"Sorry you couldn't come last night. We had a great time on the boat,"

"I'm not a great sailor," I said. "The mind says yes, the tummy no."

"Well, maybe it's better," she said. "It was a bit rough."

"Roger manages Pozzuoli!" Alistair told her, then explained, "Except for the gallery. Doriot's agreed to help us put together the little do for Wunderlich! Don't tell me Pierluigi didn't tell you about our coup! Wunderlich has agreed to let us do his first exhibit outside Europe. You're coming, of course," he said to me. "Bring Matt, if he's still around. Calvin, too. In fact, why not let me have his work address? I'd like his employer to come."

As he spoke, I found myself alternately watching him and Doriot and trying to put my finger on something that seemed the tiniest bit off-kilter. She watched him and reacted as folly and intently to what he was saying as any young woman interested in a man: looking surprised, making a moue, all of it completely natural. And he played to her—and a bit to me. No surprise, really. I'd never really gotten over how in love with him Judy had been, how much he'd counted on that love, and what a price in integrity Judy had paid for it at that charade of a trial.

It was something Alistair was doing—No!—saying.

His speech was a little less colorful than usual, but not by much. He'd never been as openly queenie as, say, Calvin could be, or for that matter, as I myself could be talking back to Calvin. Camp had never been Alistair's métier: he'd gone in for a higher-handed wit spiced with irony, and based on sarcasm. But it was more than cleverness. Alistair had always possessed a uniquely slanted view of life and, more important, a well-justified view of himself as someone so beyond normal conventions that he couldn't help but let that come through in his conversation. In recent years, however, he'd come more to control his speech, relentlessly eliminating the wild arrogations and pretensions of his youth. At first, I'd thought that a sign of his maturity. But that business with the Selective Service several years before had taught me otherwise. No, Alistair remained as egotistical and arrogant as ever: he'd just learned to hide it better. In the months since I'd re-encountered him here in California, he'd become noticeably more reserved in his speech, almost taciturn. As though if he did let go and begin to say what he really meant, he'd unloose some demonic, unstoppable logorrhea. Yet here he was, with me and Doriot, being what I'd never dreamed he could be—a little ironic, a bit funny, desirous of pleasing, wanting to push his little projects but not that much, unwilling to offend. In short, just like anyone else!

With this realization, a dull horror gripped me, although I smiled and half laughed, and made all the appropriate responses.

By the time I finally felt free to get away, Calvin had dragged Matt over to the bar to meet the bartender, and I sat alone at our table, staring out at the
l'heure bleue
view, sipping tepid coffee, and wondering how someone as remarkable as Alistair could have become so drearily normal. Or was I being oversensitive?

"Well! It's official!" Calvin said, as he returned. He was attempting to enfold his sweatered pulchritude within Matt's longer, leaner expanse. "You're dumped and we're the item!"

I was checking out Matt's eyes, which I thought I knew pretty well by now. They didn't at all resemble the gardener's. Those had been gray with darker streaks in them, almost green. Flatter. These...

"Bad joke, huh?" Calvin said, noticing my distraction and misinterpreting it. He quickly sat down. "C'mon! It wasn't
that
bad."

"It's not the joke, Calvin. Why does Alistair hate you?"

"He doesn't. I hate him."

"Why? What did he do to you?"

"Nothing to me. To a friend. A once dear friend. But this is hardly the time or place for that discussion."

"We're going to have it
some
time."

"Nag. Nag. You're worse than Bernard's wife," Calvin said. "This is on me," he said, reaching for the check. "I insist. Expecially as I get a substantial discount. Drinks free. I think that bartender is interested. He's a bit paleface. But sweet. Named Luis. Reads the mag cover to cover. Knows the libretti to all of Mozart's operas, including
L'Oca del Cairo
! You know, of course, the game being played in every gay bar in town?" Calvin looked at me.

"How old's your Kotex?"

"How vee rude!"

"Hepatitis A or B? Which do I have?" I tried.

"Aren't we being Mr. Mean-Jeans tonight? Give up? Which Nixon asshole would you do it with? You know, Ehrlichman, Haldeman, et cetera."

"And I thought Polish jokes were bad."

"Brownie's honor." Calvin did something with his fingers supposedly indicative of swearing. "You know what Bernard said when I asked him? Charles Colson! Isn't it perfect?"

"Isn't he in jail?" Matt asked.

"Didn't he find Jesus?" I asked.

"I don't see where either would automatically disqualify him," Calvin said. "Well, come on. You choose."

"Does Sam Ervin count?" Matt asked.

"The rules are clear: only those under indictment or about to be. By the way, you are one sick bunny. Sam Ervin!"

"How about Stu Erwin?" Matt tried.

"They're all so slimy," I protested. "Obviously the gung-ho break-in guys are out. Haldeman is the one with the square head and crew cut, right? Oh, I don't know! John Dean? But it would have to be S and M. With me as master and him dressed like Ronnie Spector. You know, that quilted black leather skirt she wore with a slit up to her waist."

"Bangle earrings the size of coffee cups!" Calvin put in.

"And boots made for walking that'll walk all over you!" Matt added.

"Perfect!" we agreed.

"For makeup... Mary Quant white lipstick and enormous fake lashes," Calvin suggested.

"With his hair grown out, swept up, and shellacked into a Lynda Bird special," I put in.

"Crotchless lace panties," Matt said. "From Frederick's."

"Where did you ever see those?" Calvin asked.

"In a catalog." Matt began to blush. "One of the guys on board had it."

"Bernard chose Colson?" I asked. "Doesn't this say something to you?"

"No more than John Dean in a bouffant and crotchless undies does."

"I take it back," I said. "I'm sticking with Haldeman. From a sexual point. I heard that he was..."

"...one hundred percent prick!" Calvin joined me.

"Oh, why?" He turned to Matt and slid a cupped hand under his chin. "Why couldn't your ancestors have come from Benin instead of Bari?"

"Remember what we were talking about at dinner?" Matt asked. "Doing it with Haldeman?"

"No! I meant when I told Calvin that I'd been bad. I
have
been bad." We were in bed—naturally! Virtually all our conversations in the two weeks since we'd met had either been precoital or postcoital.

"I'm glad you and Calvin liked each other," I said. "You did like him, didn't you?"

Matt was busily playing the left-hand part of the Rachmaninoff Second Sonata on my chest. "Didn't you?" I tried again.

"Of course I did. Are you going to address my statement or avoid it?" "Avoid it," I admitted weakly, stopping his hand. "I don't want to know anything bad about you."

"You know that telephone call I made today to the base?" Matt seemed to be changing the subject. "I have to go away a few days. Maybe longer."

I sat up. "Don't punish me. I'll listen to the bad things."

"I'm not punishing you! I really do have to go away."

"Where?" I demanded, hearing—and hating!—the pout in my voice.

"To San Diego. The base," and when he noticed my eyes widening, he added, "the VA hospital. It'll be all right. Just tests on some bugs I picked up there."

I knew he was lying, shielding me from the truth. Part of me said it was his leg, that's why he was going. But another part of me said,
No, it's far worse: cancer, leukemia—he'll be dead in a year.

"C'mon, Rog. Don't be like that."

"Like what?" I asked. "Horrified?"

"I told you it'll be all right."

I grasped at him as though he were being pulled out of my grip by a fierce wind. "You're coming back, right? Staying here with me?"

"Of course I'm coming back," he said. "As for staying here... well, that's up to them. The brass. Not me."

I thought: I'm going to lose him. And there's not a thing I can do.

"You're fantasizing it all out of proportion!" Matt said.

"Am I?"

"Are you going to let me tell you about the bad things I've done?"

"It's not some atrocity, is it? I don't want to hear atrocities."

"Lie down and listen," Matt said.

I did as he said. He'd not let go of me, and that made me feel calmer. His voice did the rest.

"This happened in Saigon. I'd been there on leave a few times, but I never went crazy like the other guys did. And it's not what you're thinking."

"What am I thinking?" I asked.

"You know, about being with guys instead of girls."

"Was there any of that there?"

"You kidding?" Matt laughed. "Plenty! Not that I did much. Really, I didn't! But there are places you could go. Certain hotels, where you could buy a six-pack or a bottle of Scotch, maybe some opium or grass, and party. They call them homesteads. Don't know why. Then there are the guys who double up with a chick. They pay her and send her away. Not too many guys go after native boys. If they like Asians, they usually wait till they can swing a longer leave and a plane ride to Bangkok. The boys are cleaner and prettier and more experienced there.

"There are some gay bars in Saigon. There used to be one that had a back room just like some of the bars here. For servicemen only! No gooks! Sorry, but that's how you say it. I went there a few times, but I only looked in the back. Most of these gay bars are just like ordinary servicemen bars except without girls. If you came in off the street without knowing, you might never know.

"It was in one of these bars that I came to meet this fly-by. That's what the gays in Nam call Air Force jet pilots, 'fly-bys,' because that's what they usually do the next time you see them, fly right by you without even saying hello."

"This fly-by's name was Todd Griffes, and he was an army brat. Family originally came from the Panhandle of Florida, but he'd grown up on bases all over the world, mostly in the East, as his father had been a marine. Well, Todd took me to a homestead and we did it a few times, which was okay, though nothing special. But he never flew by me. He always stopped and would try to get me in the sack again. Which was sort of nice.