Monday, March 04, 2002

Liaisons

While I am by no means an expert in the finer points of arranging liaisons with similarly inclined young men in public spaces, I think it is fair to say that discretion and common sense have a role to play.

For example, should you be browsing in the appliance department of a major American department store and find yourself suddenly, potently attracted to the gentleman demonstrating the features and benefits of a dishwasher, you must first ascertain whether the clerk in question shares both your affectional and/or sexual orientation and also clearly establish whether a mutual interest exists.

Assuming, further, that neither of you is particularly charmed by the notion of allowing any time to pass before acting on this information, you must choose the locale of your assignation carefully. Public restrooms are to be avoided, really. That they are cliché and fundamentally tacky we shall leave aside for the moment, since the practical reality is far more daunting: now equipped with baby changing stations, they are likely to be frequented by young fathers swaddling infants and nothing kills tumescence like the proximity of a squawling, stinky suburban spawn.

So too should you steer clear of fitting rooms on the upper floors. While these may seem perfectly logical destinations for a retail quickie, the combination of half-height doors with often inoperable latches on the changing cubicles and the area's generally high traffic of shoppers laden with several pairs of trousers in waist sizes ranging from 28 to 36 ("It depends on the cut," they will disclaim emphatically, although they clearly need the 38) make them unsuitable for any twosome seeking even a modicum of privacy.

You might think that the small space inside the round racks of hanging coats, marked 40 percent off in light of the unseasonably warm winter we've been having, would provide suitable shelter but here also you'd be mistaken. As sure as Meg Ryan was horribly miscast as Jim Morrison's smack-addicted girlfriend in The Doors, you'll adjourn to these cramped, dim confines only to discover mid-maneuver that your boy's a moaner and, brother, discount leather does nothing in the way of acoustic muffling.

No, friend, I'm afraid there really is no suitable locale within the walls of the modern major retailer that affords both seclusion and comfort for purposes of a few minutes' passion. Caveat fellator, as they say. You are best advised to temper your ardor, exchange telephone numbers with the lad and agree to meet another time anywhere but his place of employ.

On a wholly unrelated note, over French fries and Coke at the food court yesterday afternoon, Erik informed me that he is, apparently, officially no longer welcome Where America Shops. "So much," he snorted, "for their 'softer side'."

Thursday, February 28, 2002

The name game

It's nearly 2 a.m. on Saturday night and I'm standing by the railing overlooking the dance floor at The Complex, fervently hoping that the roof will collapse, a beam from the support structure will strike me on the head and kill me instantly.

I do not ordinarily have a death wish, but it's simply that when you've been forced to stand in more or less the same position for three and a half hours listening to Jeff recite his recent sexual résumé and offer a detailed dossier on every dancer who removes his shirt, you begin to pray for a swift release.

I decide that I am not even particularly picky about the afterlife, since I believe that heaven is, as Libby Gelman-Waxner said, a place where everything fits perfectly without alterations, and that hell is very likely the only place left where it is socially permissible to smoke.

I haven't really been listening to Jeff for the past half hour or so, though. I've been too busy watching this guy on the dance floor — his name is "Paul", Jeff says -- the most recent to shuck his shirt. It wasn't even a shirt in the way we mortals are accustomed to thinking about club wear. No, this was merely a diaphanous, swirling suggestion of a shirt, containing just enough material to muck up my view of his chest, comprising pecs the size of a sectional sofa and a stomach you could use to slow down runaway trucks on mountainous roads.

So, yes, I'm glad the shirt is gone. I don't even see or much care where it has disappeared to; unlike most of the guys who go topless on the dance floor, "Paul" has not tucked his top into a belt or back pocket. It has vanished or, perhaps, evaporated like the mist it appeared to be.

I consider briefly suggesting to Jeff that he might want such a garment for himself since, based on his recitation of his latest conquests, he seems to go for things that are small, white and insubstantial.

Just then I notice that the DJ is playing what sounds very much like a dance mix of the theme song from The Price is Right and this realization, combined with the diverting dichotomy of hearing a woman's voice sing "Come on down" through a nearly visible miasma of inhalant stimulants, detaches me from my awareness of Jeff altogether.

I am now focused almost entirely on watching "Paul", mesmerized by his movement, graceful for his size. His name is not "Paul", I know, or at least it wasn't. When we were introduced five years ago at a friend's pool party, his name was "John" and he was a shy but charming conversationalist, the boyfriend of a local doctor and on his way to a nursing degree.

Sometime later, when the relationship ended and he — obviously — hit the gym, I happened across his personal ad on a local website where the attached photographs indicated he had shed both most of his inhibitions and the name "John". He was "David" by then.

Jeff is aware that I have tuned him out and touches my arm to gain my attention. He's leaving and I say I'll be sticking around, probably until closing time. "Paul" has captured my attention, and I want to study him a bit longer. Jeff makes a wiseacre remark about the man's body, the same one I would have made were I not contemplating very seriously whether he is playacting, lying or actually reinventing himself.

For the next half hour or so, "Paul" has my full attention and seems to know it, although our eyes never meet and I make no effort to attract his. I stand there and wonder if I am capable of doing what he has done, of changing my life so radically, of altering my appearance, personality, behavior — my very perceptions and others' perceptions of me — in the way that he has.

I wonder, too, what my name would be if I did.

Tuesday, February 26, 2002

A Conversation From the Bar Scene

Brad: No one pays any attention to small talk in bars. I swear, that's the reason I practically stopped going out a few years ago. I couldn't bear having the same conversation with the same 20 people every fucking night.

Danny: The same conversation?

Brad: "Hey. Hey. How are you? Fine. How are you? Fine. Cool. Yeah, cool. Well, see ya around."

Danny: What if you're not fine?

Brad: Everyone says "fine," even if they have a sucking chest wound. It doesn't matter, though. You could say "I have a sucking chest wound" and they wouldn't miss a beat.

At that moment...

Random Club Kid With Whom I Have, At Best, A Nodding Acquaintance: Hey buddy! Haven't seen you in a while. How are ya?

Brad: I'm good looking, I'm incredibly funny, I am obscenely rich, I got a perfect score on the SAT verbal and I have a 9-1/2 inch cock, so I'm pretty fabulous. How are you?

RCKWWIH,AB,ANA: I'm fine. Well, good to see ya! (leaves)

Brad (to Danny): I rest my case.

Danny: Your world must be beautiful and frightening.

Wednesday, February 20, 2002

A hope

I sincerely hope that if Disney ever opens a drag cabaret, they call it the Mulan Rouge.

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

A Conversation From the Bar Scene

Jeff: Those 'Pitcher' and 'Catcher' t-shirts really crack me up.

Rick: I don't think I could wear one of those.

Brad: Why not?

Rick: I doubt they make one that says 'bench warmer'.

Jeff: I think the one you're wearing says that pretty clearly.

Monday, February 18, 2002

Regarding Davey…

Julie dropped back into my life last Tuesday, quite unexpectedly as is her way. (I once came home from work to find her asleep on my couch with her boyfriend. In my locked apartment. In a secure, doorman building. I still have no idea how she managed it.)

As deadlines hovered menacingly over my head, we sat for two hours reliving college days and catching up on news of old friends. We're coming up on what our alma mater calls a "landmark reunion," which is a euphemism for a period ending in either zero or five seen as an excuse to ask for a larger alumni fund contribution. Anyway, it's been a few years since our last rundown of the old gang and, surprisingly, there were few surprises. The constant seems to be that none of us is using our degree in the way it was originally intended. Good for us.

Eventually, we got around to talking about Dave, sweet little Davey who everybody loved. Davey died a couple of years after we graduated although, in fact, none of us can remember if he actually did graduate. It doesn't matter, though. I'm not sure I ever met anyone who learned more eagerly from what life offered to him, in a classroom or not. Davey was never without a friend or a smile or a good word for anyone, even the burnouts and cheaters and assholes everyone else despised.

Davey never said "no" because, deep down, Davey was afraid if he did, he might not be asked again.

He admitted that, once, and then denied it -- when pressed on rare occasions -- with the same vigor with which he consumed all the rest of his days.

Well, those were the 80s, kids. I could have been Davey, easily. We shared more or less parallel paths for a while anyway. But I turned at the fork in the road marked "guardedly optimistic" and Davey continued blithely down the stretch labelled "sunny and cynicism-free".

Davey believed in romance, in adventure, in doing a thing simply because he hadn't done it before. Davey took spontaneous road trips, sampled all manner of food and drink and held my head over a toilet once or twice. I often gave him a hard time and kidded him and got as close to him as anyone was allowed. I never took the leap of faith it would have required for me to try to get closer. Well, those were the 80s, kids.

I wish I could say I thought of Davey often but the truth is, until Julie materialized in my office and dragged me down memory lane, his stubbly face and sweet smile and sparkling eyes and dry laughter hadn't crossed my mind in two years or more.

We promise to do it, to keep in touch. We say we'll write and get together after graduation, and we seldom do. At the wake or the funeral, we vow to remember, to make the lost a permanent part of us, but that's harder still and they go out of sight, out of mind, deep in heart.

Davey and I went to The Upside, a lot. To Faces and City Center and Angles. We never went together, but he was always there, and we'd fall upon each other and laugh and drink and dance until the sun came up.

I thought about that Saturday night, when I was introduced to Davey again. It wasn't him, of course, but an astonishingly faithful facsimile. A new friend, of a friend. Young and lean and with a smile that seems to make up about half his body, although the other half has merits of its own. He's bright and funny and so very optimistic but a little scared too.

He and Davey have something else in common but, fortunately, these aren't the 80s anymore.

Thursday, February 14, 2002

I remember…

A day or two ago.

It was very good Scotch whiskey, old and smooth and finely blended. But I don't drink Scotch any longer.

He poured out the double shots anyway, and we toasted and drank them together and he laughed and I flirted and he tipped the bottle again and I remembered.

Eight years ago.

A southside barroom, and a moment of perfect clarity. I was emboldened by the burn in my belly and the sweetness on my tongue, but even without, I was confident of my mind and my heart.

I made a call. We met at ten. I put my thoughts in order, my cards on the table and my hand on the back of his neck. Our lips met, my heart soared, the moment passed. And the only man I've ever really, truly loved walked away.

Still, it was very good Scotch whiskey. And I will love again. But I don't drink Scotch any longer.

Monday, February 11, 2002

Parody I Have No Time to Write

Lie-a-netics by N. Ron Hubbard. Or maybe John Travolta as Layl in some sort of Battlefield Earth ape.

Friday, February 08, 2002

Falling in love with a poor man

I have been given only one piece of advice about love, but it has been repeated often enough to become a mantra: "It is just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is to fall in love with a poor man."

This philosophy has been variously ascribed to a Jewish mother, a Methodist grandmother and a truckstop waitress. It has always been imparted to me by someone of my own age and, on one occasion, with the belief that it was so ancient as to have been the key phrase on the Rosetta Stone.

Or was it that Rosetta Stone was a Jewish grandmother? Honestly, I was probably drinking each time this "advice" tumbled from someone's lips and I am therefore hazy on both the dogma and the details. The source of this wisdom was lost in the cosmic game of telephone that had brought it to me, and didn't matter anyway.

For all that it meant in flip philosophy, it omitted an essential, relative truth (a corollary, an exception proving the rule): Falling in love isn't easy at all.

Thursday, February 07, 2002

Another excerpt from the discarded first-draft of The Novel

I am essentially an optimist and a romantic, and I am gay. It therefore probably goes without saying that my record collection is heavily weighted with original Broadway cast albums, collections of torchy ballads and the obligatory chart hits and disco. It is music predisposed toward cheerfulness, sunny attitudes about love, moon, June and boys with bodacious pecs.

But I also own a small assortment of compact discs which I loosely categorize as "Music I Play to Torture Myself."

You probably know the sort of song I'm talking about. You may have a similar shelf next to your stereo. The way the world is going, it is likely only a matter of time before this genre joins album rock and adult contemporary as a hot radio format.

It is the music I play when an affair reaches its inevitable end, and I find myself burrowed beneath the bed sheets, a variety of comfort food and tissue boxes arrayed at my side. It is my-man-done-done-me-wrong ditties. It is here-I-go-making-the-same-mistake-again harmony.

It is music to mope by.

"The Man Who Got Away". "The Man I Love". "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning".

"I thought I'd found the man of my dreams, now it seems this is how the story ends, he's gonna turn me down and say 'can't we be friends?'."

But when it comes to love, and love unrequited, and love-just-not-quite-quited, nobody but nobody beats Rodgers and Hart:

If they asked me, I could write a book
About the way you walk and whisper and look.
I could write a preface on how we met
So the world would never forget.
And the simple secret of the plot
Is just to tell you that I love you a lot.
And the world discovers, as my book ends,
How to make two lovers of friends.

Nobody asked me, but this is the book I wrote.

Wednesday, February 06, 2002

Ten More Actual Titles of Gay Adult Videos

Be careful when wandering into unfamiliar sections of the video store, or you may end up coming home with something altogether different than you intended. As a helpful consumer guide, here are Ten More Actual Titles of Gay Adult Videos:

• Raiders of the Lost Arse: The Mummy's Hand


• Do Me, Ray! and A Few of His Favorite Things


• Dawson's Crack


• Going Down and Putting Out in Beverly Hills


• I Dream of Weenie


• Star Track: Voyeur


• Star Track: Deep Nine Inches


• The Best Little Whorehouse in TEX-ASS


• Terms of Endowment


• I Know Who You Did Last Summer

Tuesday, February 05, 2002

Overheard

At the Clinique counter at Famous-Barr today, a woman turned to her friend and said, "I've been thinking of going over to the Lancôme system." Her inflection implied it was an actual place she intended to visit. I immediately pictured a scene from Star Trek, with Captain Picard ordering, "Mr. Crusher, plot a course to the Lancôme system, warp factor three. Take us through the Chanel Nebula. Engage." (originally published June 24, 2000)

Monday, February 04, 2002

Little Known Fact

In later years, Joseph Heller left the literary world and took a job with the Chicago City Street Repairs Division as a sign painter.

Tuesday, January 29, 2002

The first night

The clock on the wall of my bedroom ticks.

There is very little water pressure in the shower.

In the twilight, shadows fall on the vase on the top shelf along the dining room wall, making it look very much like a face with an evil rictus for a mouth and two enormous eyes.

These are three things I forget but almost instantly recall every time I come here, one hundred miles and 16 years away from the place I now call home, to a place I am from but no longer of.

This is the first night I have spent alone in this house in 33 years.

Eight miles away, resting as comfortably as is possible under the circumstances, she is spending the night alone in a hospital for the first time in 33 years.

The clock on the wall of my bedroom ticks.

Monday, January 28, 2002

Leftovers

It has been said that most of the 60s actually happened in the 70s. I can only hope that's a temporal principle on which we can rely, as it neatly explains the past 10 hours or so as a leftover from the fundamentally shitty 2001 and not part of the much better year I had optimistically expected — and so far experienced — 2002 to be.

All will be much better in another day, when I am beside the ones I love and can hold them tight and assure them — and myself — that we are not replaying 2001 or, worse, 1999. For the moment, however, I'm feeling a little scared and although surrounded by friends, very weak and alone.

Friday, January 25, 2002

Earworm

I have the song "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music stuck in my head. It has been there since Tuesday, playing over and over. Another 24 hours and it will drive me mad. If Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were not already conveniently dead, I would be favorably inclined to find them and kill them with my bare hands just now.

Thursday, January 24, 2002

A Conversation From the Bar Scene

Patrick: Are you still dating that doctor? From St. Peters?

Brad: The ophthalmologist.

Patrick: Right.

Brad: No, I'm not seeing him anymore.

Patrick: So I guess he's not a very good ophthalmologist.

Wednesday, January 23, 2002

New Year’s Eve, Covent Garden, London

Sometimes the universe sends us signs. And, sometimes, the universe sends us to them.

Tuesday, January 22, 2002

A Conversation From the Bar Scene

Kyle: (stares longingly at Eric)

Eric: (stares lustily at Kyle)

20 minutes of inconsequential small talk

Kyle: (stares hopefully at Eric)

Eric: (stares dumbly at Kyle)

Kyle: Well, I guess I'd better get home and...

Brad: Have another drink.

Kyle: No, I really ought to head out. Good to see you guys.

Brad: Bye.

Kyle: Bye.

Eric: Bye.

Brad: (slaps Eric on the back of the head)

Eric: Ow! What the hell was that for?!

Brad: For skipping every single opportunity in the past hour to ask him out. He's totally cute and if he was any more into you, he'd be violating the laws of physics. And you sat there like a stump.

Eric: I'll ask him out. I was just laying the groundwork.

Brad: Laying the groundwork.

Eric: Yes.

Brad: Yes. And very little else, I should imagine, if you keep that up.

Waiting for the money shot

My bank, presumably as a cost-efficiency measure, recently installed a phalanx of automatic teller machines adjacent to the lobby and in all but one of the drive-through lanes. These new marvels of banking techology will never be used, however, because my bank has made a fatal mistake.

They hired Kent, the Cute Teller.

I just learned his name because today, two months after he began stamping deposit slips and cashing checks, the bank finally installed the black plastic engraved nameplate on his carrel. Actually, to describe Kent as cute is an understatement; he is, in fact, the muscular, tow-headed Lucky Vanous of financial services. Inasmuch as it is possible for a youthful blond with an easy smile and bee-stung, pouting lips, he smoulders. He is MTV sex personified.

Because of Kent, I have resigned from Direct Deposit.

Last week, I changed $300 into pounds sterling although I am not soon planning another trip to England.

Today, I reordered checks although I have six books of carbonless duplicate drafts sitting on my desk.

The woman ahead of me in line was using her text pager to inform a co-worker that today would be good time to purchase traveler's checks for her Caribbean vacation in May. She looked only slightly abashed when she noticed me watching her frantically punch buttons on her Blackberry. "We have a sort of 'alert network'," she said, "to let each other know when he's working."

In the 20 years or so I've been using FDIC-insured institutions, Kent is the first teller I've wanted to tip. He flirts with everyone. He's awfully good at it.

"Would you like big bills?" he asks me when I cash my paycheck. "I have some very big bills back here."

I shudder and briefly consider asking for a couple hundred dollars in nickels or Sacagawea coins, just so he'll take a few extra minutes to count them out.

When his hand brushes mine as he hands me a receipt, I nearly blurt out a very indelicate suggestion containing the phrases "hard currency" and "substantial penalty for early withdrawal."

I don't, however, and as I turn to leave, I notice that the line behind me has grown to include 14 housewives and a local florist who appears to be clutching an enormous jar filled with unrolled coins.

Dismal economic forecasts be damned. Interest rates, in Kent at least, are way up at my bank.

Wednesday, January 16, 2002

A Seemingly Unlikely Cover Story for Scuba Diving Magazine

Tuesday, January 15, 2002

Good news and bad news

The good news: My nose has stopped running and the cough is all but gone. The bad news: My body feels as though every bone has been just slightly bent in the middle and my throat is so sore it hurts to swallow.

When we remodel the kitchen, I wonder if it will be possible to install a tap for hot running tomato soup.

Monday, January 14, 2002

My favorite part

What I used to love about flying into New York was the last ten minutes or so before landing at LaGuardia Airport.

For almost a decade, I made the trip three or four times each year, long weekends or more packed with theatre, shopping and giddy walks in Central Park with native friends and newfound lovers. Every time, I looked forward to my first glimpse of the city by air, to picking out familiar landmarks and trying to mentally trace a route from the Battery as far uptown as I could see before the aircraft banked and began its landing approach.

In recent years, I've come to New York far less frequently. No reason, really. I took a break when Jess moved to Los Angeles and I couldn't justify an expensive three-hour flight without romance on the other end. And then I began having trouble justifying romance at all, and New York City became a temporarily unnecessary notion.

I came to New York last October, my first visit in nearly a year and a half. Too long. But after the World Trade Center towers fell in September, I needed to be there, to see and, more importantly, to hold some friends about whom I had been urgently worried.

As the plane tilted and turned on that crisp autumn, the pilot announced from the cockpit that our approach would take us along the river and "you should have a good view of downtown from the right side of the cabin." (This is pilot-speak for "We're passing over the place Where It Happened.") This was the signal for nearly everyone on the half-empty flight to unbuckle their seatbelts and hunch down across the aisle, pressing their faces against the windows to see Where It Happened. A guy from St. Louis who I know but don't much like glanced back to notice I remained seated. "Don't you want to see Ground Zero?" he asked.

No, I said. No, I don't care to.

Actually, I did want to see the area but certainly not from the air. Not from an altitude at which it would call to mind devastating descriptors to go along with the ominous "Ground Zero" name it has been assigned: phrases such as "blast radius", "collateral damage", "mounting casualties".

I did not care to go to the right of the plane. I did not care to see that. Most of all, I did not care for the name "Ground Zero". I don't know where I first heard it or how it was justified as a shorthand for the place where the World Trade towers used to be. What I do know is that I almost instantly refused the think in the terms "Ground Zero" brought to mind.

"Ground Zero" to me, and to thousands from my generation who saw The Day After at an impressionable age or were otherwise traumatized by cold war propaganda, is the place where a nuclear bomb lands. It is a place where all life ceases to exist. It is a once fertile area that will be uninhabitable for generations. It is the starting point of a journey that leads to something soothingly called "mutually assured destuction."

I needed to believe that there was still life and the possibility of it in downtown New York. I needed to believe that loved ones I'd hold close were healed or healing. I wanted to hope that the destruction, mutually assured or otherwise, was over. And what I really wanted was my favorite view of the city back.

Four months have passed and this time, when the pilot announces we'll have "a great view of the financial district" (Pilot-speak for "Ground Zero") on our approach, I press my nose to the glass and don't look away until we land. I can see familiar buildings, pick out major thoroughfares and, yes, I can see Where It Happened.

In these four months, "It" has become something of an abstraction here, not entirely by any stretch, but the memories and emotions of my friends who experienced it seem to have softened a bit. In October, it was practically all we could talk about as we comforted each other; today, I can count only two conversations during my visit that even touched on the attacks or the consequences of September 11, 2001.

So too have the edges of the site where the towers used to stand softened and begun to blend with their surroundings. From several thousand feet above, the site looks more like a scar than a wound. How long before the scar becomes a blemish, and then fades to become almost imperceptable?

I don't care how long it takes, but I look forward to the day when my favorite part of flying into New York is again the last ten minutes or so before landing at LaGuardia Airport.

Thursday, January 10, 2002

Buh

The head cold that I developed as a souvenir of my holiday trip to London persists, despite the fact that I awake each morning feeling twenty times refreshed. I have come to think of it as the disease equivalent of those trick birthday cake candles, the sort you blow out only to have reignite a moment later.

The past week has followed more or less the same pattern. I get out of bed, assure myself that I can breathe freely and that my cough has subsided to a mere tickling in the throat. An hour or two later, I'm at the office with a hacking that sounds like a garbage disposal with a pitchfork jammed into it and a case of post-nasal drip that might be more accurately described as "post-modern drip", since it doe little more than call attention to itself without really amounting to anything. By noon, my body aches so badly that I move around the theatre with the alacrity of an arthritic African elephant.

At various co-workers' suggestions, I have ingested zinc, Vitamin C, echinacea and Tylenol Cold caplets on a regular basis. Tonight, I am considering the possibility of mainlining Nyquil before I go to bed.

If I should die before I wake, I would like to posthumously place in nomination the person who invented the process of putting lotion in tissues for a MacArthur "genius grant". Those remarkable paper products, along with Hostess chocolate cupcakes and saucy conversations with sassy boys, are the only things to have made the last couple of days at all bearable.

Tuesday, January 08, 2002

The Reason I Spit Mountain Dew All Over My Desk Today

Advertisement from Ladue News, January 4, 2002 edition