Plastic Jesus (6 page)

They were only there a little while before the glut of fans and media got so thick that they had to leave for their own safety. But in this case, a little while was enough.

They'd left London that very night, arrived in New York the next morning, slept all afternoon at the St. Regis, then gone down to the Village. The rioting was over, the bar closed for the moment, but people were still congregating in front of the Stonewall Inn. The summer evening was clear and blue, the smell of sweat intoxicating. This had become a pilgrimage spot, no less to Seth and Peyton than any of the others.

They stood on the sidewalk talking to people, their arms slung casually round each other like so many other pairs of young men on this hot summer evening. “Aren't you Seth Grealy and Peyton Masters?” someone finally asked, half-embarrassed—New Yorkers were supposed to be so cool about celebrities—and they said yes.

Someone else asked the question that would become a cliché: “Are you two, uh,
together?
"

Everyone laughed—perhaps it was already a cliché—and they could have dodged the question that time. But they just said yes again, and the love that engulfed them from this crowd seemed much more genuine than anything they'd ever felt on a stage.

What would become, arguably, their most famous interview was captured on tape by a reporter who'd been drinking down the street at the Lion's Head. Someone in the crowd filmed them with a small movie camera as they spoke. The reporter and the cameraman would later pair up, sell their footage for a small fortune, and spend the next decade traveling through Asia.

REPORTER: So what brings the Kydds to the Village?

SETH: It's just us two. We came because of Stonewall. We saw it on TV and thought, you know, we have to come. Because of our relationship.

REPORTER: What relationship?

SETH (unable to resist batting his eyes a bit): He's my boyfriend.

REPORTER: Peyton?

PEYTON: “Boyfriend” isn't the word I would choose, but yes, we've been together for two years, and it's only our own prejudices that have caused us to lie about it. What's happened here gave us courage we should have had sooner.

(He is nearly drowned out by raucous cheering from the crowd.)

REPORTER: What will your fans think? Aren't you afraid of the effect this will have on your career?

SETH: Personally I don't give a fuck. Anyway we've got less to lose than most of the people who rioted here.

PEYTON: You can't live your whole life being afraid of the effect things will have...

SETH: You bleedin' well can! Most people do! Our manager did, you know, and they killed him for it. But not us. Not any more. Peyton's always been my musical partner. Now he's my life partner. Your country's at war—call this our contribution to peace.

(More noise from the crowd.)

REPORTER: Are the Kydds still a band?

PEYTON: We'll find out when we get home, won't we?

* * * *

But they did not go home yet. Their New York visit stretched out to days, then weeks. Occasionally someone would say something nasty to them on the streets, but this happened less often than they had expected. More frequently they got grins, thumbs-up, power salutes. They could not believe that their mere presence had changed the tenor of feelings about Stonewall, but given the public reaction, they could not discount that possibility either.

Their first interview as a couple had been impromptu. After that, they chose their outlets carefully. They were not afraid to argue their case, but they knew from experience how words and even film clips could be twisted to fit an agenda.

Seth was still taking a lot of drugs, but he was also getting out, exploring the city, talking to people. Maybe it was just freedom from the burden of a secret, but the New York Seth seemed more fully alive than the man Peyton had known in London. He wondered if politics might be a galvanizing force for Seth, a less destructive catalyst than heroin.

At the end of their first month in New York they accepted an invitation to appear on the cover of
Newsweek
. The accompanying story was favorable, if a bit mystified in tone: the female reporter who interviewed them could not imagine how two rich and famous musicians who had women practically crawling through their windows could choose to be with each other instead. Seth's explanation that it was not so much choice as destiny seemed to have gone right over her head. But, the article went on, if two such beloved public figures had decided to go public with their homosexuality in the wake of the Stonewall riots, then perhaps it was time to consider homosexuality in a different light.

“That's the sentence that makes the rest of the crap worthwhile,” Seth told Peyton, pointing to the page in the magazine. “That's the kind of thing that can change people's thinking. If it's going to be all about celebrity worship, we have to take advantage of that."

Peyton noticed that Seth was cutting back on the drugs, sometimes going a day or more without doing a line of heroin and almost giving up the LSD altogether. The spate of nasty reader mail
Newsweek
published in its next issue didn't faze him. Nor did reports from the Bible Belt that Kydds records and paraphernalia were being banned on radio, returned by stores, and thrown onto enormous bonfires organized by fundamentalist church groups. It was a heady time when nothing seemed to matter much, until the telegram arrived from London.

WHY NOT CONSULT US BEFORE GOING PUBLIC? WE SUPPORTED YOU IN THIS, NOW YOU ABANDON US. SUPPOSED TO BE IN STUDIO BUT HALF OUR BAND IS MISSING. MAYBE KYDDS ARE NO LONGER A VIABLE REALITY. MARK AND DENNIS.

Peyton's first reaction was guilt. For the first time in the history of the Kydds, he had failed to acknowledge the democracy of the band, creating a situation that couldn't be finessed or smoothed over. He knew they should have warned Mark and Dennis that they were going public, but it had been such a spur-of-the-moment, gut-reaction thing that he honestly hadn't thought of it. He knew that he and Seth should be back in London by now, back in the studio recording the next album, but they had become so happy in New York that they hadn't wanted to deal with the idea of going home.

The next week, they flew back to London to see whether the mess could be dealt with. But Seth refused to admit any wrong, and soon he wasn't speaking to Mark and Dennis at all. Instead he returned to bed, redoubled his drug use, and swore that he would never again be known as a Kydd.

Peyton was left to meet with Mark, Dennis, and various representatives of the record company. They had never hired a new manager after Harold died, and even if they had, Peyton doubted if any manager could have helped much. He pulled out diplomatic stops he'd never known he had, but nothing seemed to matter. Eventually he came to believe that Mark and Dennis' resentment was a visceral matter that had little to do with business or even music.

“It's all very well for you two,” Mark summed up during one bitter argument. “When fans think of the Kydds, they think of you. You'll be able to go off and do whatever you like. We'll just be a washed-up rhythm section who are probably a couple of queers."

“Why would you care so much if people thought that?” Peyton asked, realizing only after he spoke that Seth had posed much the same question to him two years ago. But Mark could not explain, and Dennis didn't care to try either. Probably they didn't even know.

Slowly, amidst countless disputes that pretended to be about money but were really about something much sadder, the band was dissolved. It remained Peyton's only real regret from that time: if the Kydds could not have gone on forever, he wished they might have been allowed to die a decent death instead of an ugly and protracted lynching.

As soon as it was done, he and Seth returned to New York. They both knew they would never live in England again.

* * * *

They stayed in Greenwich Village for a year, until wanderlust seized them again. Their tours of Europe with the Kydds had been much like their first trip to New York: except for Seth's trip to Amsterdam with Harold, they hadn't seen much save the insides of hotels and stadia. Now they would see it all. As well, there was a rumor Seth had heard and wanted to investigate: in Holland, though the ceremony was not legally binding elsewhere, there was a renegade excommunicated priest who would marry two people of the same sex. It turned out to be true, and handily enough, the ex-priest also ran one of Amsterdam's newly legal cannabis coffeeshops.

“That was the kiss heard round the world,” said Peyton afterward. The ceremony in the coffeeshop was private, with a small enclave of friends that conspicuously did not include Mark and Dennis, but reporters gathered outside to snap pictures as they emerged. The photo most printed, of course, was of Seth and Peyton kissing on the stone steps of the three-hundred-year-old building; the most prevalent headline, “THEY DO!"

Not content to honeymoon, they began recording a new album in a Paris studio. They would never really have a proper band again—they would always be just Grealy and Masters, with whatever session players they needed for the few instruments they couldn't play between them. It had been too painful losing the Kydds. They didn't ever want to break up another band.

For five years they shuttled back and forth between Europe and New York, making music and doing benefit concerts, stopping in England occasionally but never for long. At last, though, the craziness of their time with the Kydds seemed to catch up with them and they needed calm. It wouldn't have been the obvious choice for most people, but for them, calmness and peace of mind were in New York City. They applied for permanent U.S. residence, bought a huge apartment in a Gothic horror of a building on the Upper West Side, and moved in for good.

ix

The story had come full circle. Peyton sat curled in Dr. Jonathan Pumphrey's big leather chair, his knees drawn up to his chest. His eyelashes appeared wet, but he had not used any of the Kleenex.

“And how long ago was that—that you moved to New York?” Jonathan asked.

“Ten years. You know what we've been doing since then, I suppose. We kept recording for a while, but eventually we felt we'd done all we could in the public eye. We could hear our influence in new music, and that was enough. So we retired."

“But you never stopped playing music."

“Oh, God, no. That was as much a part of our lives as making love—well, for us, it was a kind of making love. Seth had gotten really good on the piano and I was doing some classical guitar stuff. We'd even talked about recording again. Just for fun—nothing that was going to change the world."

“You and Seth already changed it,” Jonathan reminded.

“Yes, he disliked hearing it, but I think we did. Let me tell you something, though, Dr. Pumphrey: I'd trade it all to have him back again."

Jonathan could think of no suitable reply to this.

“I'll leave you soon. I just have one more question for you. I feel soft, asking such a thing, but I honestly don't know any more. Do you think he was ever really happy?"

“Yes. These past years with you, here in New York, I think he was."

“Then I want one thing from you."

“Of course; anything I can do—"

“This isn't a normal request, Doctor. I told you I didn't know why I'd come here. I was lying. I wanted to meet you, get an idea who you were, and see what you thought about Seth. Then, if it seemed all right, I planned to ask you for one thing. Well, I'm asking. I want you to get me close to Ray Brinker."

Jonathan opened his mouth, then shut it again. He had no idea what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't this.

“I'm Seth's official heir and the executor of his estate. As such, I'm entitled to mount a case against Brinker, aid the prosecution, even sue him for wrongful death if it comes to that. I've already discussed this with my lawyers. I can hire a psychiatrist to examine him for the purpose of determining his mental state. I want to hire you, and I want to go with you when you examine him."

“Peyton—I—no. This just can't work."

“Why not?"

“Well, if it's some kind of vendetta you have in mind, there's no way you could even get a weapon past security—"

Peyton spread his hands, widened his eyes. “No vendetta. I just want to talk to him. I want to know why."

“He told the media why. Wasn't that ugly enough? Do you want to hear him say it again?"

“Yes. I want to hear him say it to me."

“And the conflict of interest—me examining Blinker after being Seth's therapist for five years—"

“Could you at least get in?"

“I don't know. Maybe."

“If you can, will you take me?"

Jonathan looked at Peyton. Those big brown eyes widened further, protesting innocence, seeming to glitter with unshed tears. This man had loved Seth deeply and truly. Of that, Jonathan had no doubt.

“All right,” he said finally. “
If
I can get in, I'll take you with me."

“You can get in. You can examine him tomorrow. It's already arranged. And of course we'll need to discuss your fee.” Peyton named a sum that would pay the rent on Jonathan's midtown office for a year.

As Peyton let himself out, Jonathan sat with his head in his hands. He felt poleaxed. Every day he passed people living on the street in refrigerator boxes, for Christ's sake; he'd always thought of himself as well off. Now, for the first time, the curtain had been drawn aside and he had seen the smooth machinations of what real money could do.

* * * *

It was another weird kind of dissonance for Jonathan, riding across the bridge to Riker's Island in Peyton's limousine. It wasn't a
stretch
limo or anything, but it was a hell of a lot nicer than any other car Jonathan had ever ridden in. Along for the ride was one of Peyton's lawyers, a pit bull of a man in a merino wool suit.

Jonathan had to keep his emotions on a tight rein while examining Ray Brinker. The doughy-faced killer neither protested his innocence nor admitted any remorse for his actions. Quite the contrary, he seemed to think he had done humanity a favor. “Nothing wrong with one less fag in the world” was a common refrain. Jonathan emerged from the interview convinced that the man was legally sane and prepared to testify so in court.