How's Your Romance?: Concluding the "Buddies" Cycle (23 page)

“No,” said Ken.

“No what?”

“No everything.”

We lost him in the foot traffic for a bit, but he came ramrodding back with the threat of disorderly conduct in his body language. But ho!: just ahead of us were two cops with cop looks on their faces. They hate New York, they hate gay guys, and they’re ready to arrest. Ken and I walked specifically toward them, and the Ken guy faded into the scenery.

“They get mad because I just drop them,” Ken explained. “But why confront? They’ll only argue with you. When it’s over, goodbye.”

After a half block or so he added, “I’m tired of needy guys. They punish you with stress if you don’t give them every single thing they want. They argue when you thwart their will. That’s why guys value you, cousin. You don’t argue.”

“I thought they value me because I’m smart and I explain their lives to them.”

“That, too,” he said, in the tone you use when Trent Lott asks if he’s pretty and you reply, “Of course.”

It was very Chelsea that day, very cruisy and competitive. With everyone young and cute and fit, what are the grounds for rejection? A hangnail? I suddenly put into words an idea that had been haunting me for a bit of time: “I wonder if it would be better if you could choose between having Looks Control but taking a chance on what fate selects for you, and—on the other hand—having ordinary looks and perfect health till you die in your sleep in your eighties. You know, my college roommate, Harry Anderson, is dead. The girl I dated at the time, Deborah Fahnestock, is dead. And my closest woman friend from just after college, Alice Williford, is dead. You can’t help but notice that you aren’t twenty-two any more. That you are in a kind of mysterious peril. Maybe they should put a new clause in the gay contract.”

We walked in silence for a while. Then I asked him where he was recruited.

“In the Wilkes-Barre Kmart,” he answered. “Some guy in housewares.”

Which amazed me because, you know, he has no sense of humor and never cracks a joke. We continued to his building in more silence. As we shook hands, he smiled and said, “You dated a woman?”

*   *   *

M
EANWHILE, BACK AT THE
ranch, I found Cosgrove running a listening room for Red and Tom-Tom. The subject was
Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks,
which Cosgrove regards as his biography, and the two guests were sitting opposite each other, their eyes locked. I got busy with various put-aways and such in the bedroom and did not come out till the music was over.

“You play host for a while,” said Cosgrove, reboxing and shelving the CD with his usual collector’s care.

“I hope you’re in a sweetheart mood today, Tom-Tom,” I said.

“We’re all in a nice mood from the music,” said Red, getting up to move around and show off, “and Tom’s my great new buddy.”

“That guy called some more,” said Tom-Tom. “The one who’s mad at you.”

“Doesn’t it make you jumpy, him doing that?” Red asked.

I replied by distributing refills of the sparkling water, and asked Red what’s new. Before he could answer, we were distracted by the sight of Cosgrove setting on its end the big cardboard box that our new television had come in; he had been saving it for no apparent reason. Now he placed upon it three playing cards, moving them about in occult patterns with a sly expression. Then he paused as Fleabiscuit stretched up with his paws on the edge of the box and nosed one of the cards. Cosgrove picked it up; beneath where it had been lay a dime. Is that what they use on the street?

“And we have a winner,” Cosgrove announced. Generally, he asked, “Try your luck?”

“You have your own three-card monte stand,” said Red, genuinely impressed. “This place’s got everything.” He went over to watch the play of cards.

“Don’t be appreciative,” I warned. “It only encourages him.”

“I always wondered how it works,” said Red. “How much is a bet?”

“This is Shirley Temple monte,” said Cosgrove. “We play for fun.”

Red turned around to grin at us.

“All right, that’s it,” I said, getting up and quoting a line I’d been waiting years to use: ‘Don’t come around here with your vaudeville tricks!’”
*

Cosgrove giggled, grabbed the cards and box, and ran off, Fleabiscuit scampering after him.

“Sometimes you kid around with friends,” Red observed. “And sometimes you help their pain.”

“Red’s giving me advice on my work troubles,” said Tom-Tom.

“The kid here’s got a wedding chick on his tail,” Red told me. “The ring, the dress, deposit on the hall.”

“Red,” I asked, “did you ever consider becoming a firefighter?”

He had a habit, when surprised by a non sequitur question, of “opening up” his facial lines: his eyebrows would slide toward the hairline, his nostrils would take in air and expand, and his mouth would relax in a half-smile. I liked to see it happen.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because you’d look great in the clothes.”

And then he just smiled. He isn’t used to praise, which is why he sticks close to Tom-Tom, who flatters him as one pets a lovably clumsy dog rescued from abuse.

“Red says I have to get tough,” said Tom-Tom. “So there’s no confusion.”

“You got to draw a line,” Red added. “One way or the other, see? Or they create smokescreens.”

Red demonstrated, imitating the antagonist disguised as a friend: “‘It was the anniversary of my divorce,’” with his head leaning to the right. Then: “‘Well, who wiped himself on the drapes?’” with his head to the left. “They make lying excuses,” he concluded.

The phone rang.

I said, “Let that be Dennis Savage, any of several Michaels, Ken, cousin Ken, Erick, Matthew, the twins, Peter, Lionel, Clint, Scott, Jim, the other Jim, Kern, Ian, Gordon, or my agent.”

It was Stanley, raising hell. The other two listened without looking at me, and before the taping ended I started in on what in classic French drama is known as
la tirade:

“This is what happens when someone who gets no respect from anyone establishes a telephone relationship with me. Eleven o’clock of a weekday, news and views on theatre and music. No one else gives him that attention, but I’m lazy at that time, vulnerable to distraction. And hearing myself map out my positions means I don’t have to take notes for the next book, see? I get work relief and the freak on the other end gets ego affirmation. Everyone else in that particular social loop just tolerates him. I give him welcome. He needs it, and then he needs more—and that’s what’s happening to you now, Tom-Tom. You
can’t
draw a line, because they’ll just argue with you. That’s all a freak does—he hurls words at you till the end of time, the uncountable lies of the ego war. And mark me, Tom-Tom, they’ll keep on coming at you, like that girl in your office, because they know how much you hate it. That … aggression is how they know they’re alive. They don’t fight with each other. They fight with you, crossing line after line. Draw a thousand of them, make it clear as Day of Judgment, carry a loaded pistol with the fanatic intention of blowing their fucking heads off if they cross the line, and by the gods and their gay little planet
they will cross the line!
And you know why, Tom-Tom? Because you give good hurt. When they impose their will on you, they want it harming you so much that they can lick it up for snacks. They can’t do it to Ken, because he’s blunt and fierce and powerful. You can’t hurt Ken; Ken can hurt you. They can’t do it to Davey-Boy, because he’s tricksy. Yes, my precious. Everybody wants Davey-Boy, which means that everyone needs his respect. So they won’t trouble Davey-Boy. Remember that brunch last summer? In honor of Sebastian’s … or who cares what it was. Davey-Boy showed up in the pants and open vest of a suit with no shirt. I’d never seen that look except on a stage. And Davey-Boy has that insanely tight little waist and the oddly pumped yet flat chest with an absolutely horizontal line of definition along the bottom. At the sight of him, Colt models retire in despair. Ty Fox quit his gym. Yet nobody dares take Davey-Boy’s hand, because what he’ll do to them in response will not be an egosyntonic experience. But you, Tom-Tom, are tender. You are their meal. And all your life, or at least till you lose your looks, which I hope is never, they will be coming at you to play you and irritate you and—”

“Dude,” said Red quietly, standing next to me in the middle of the room. When did I get here? I looked at Tom-Tom, whose face was awash with tears, and as he jumped up to hide in the bathroom, Red intercepted him and the two held each other. I backed away to sit on the couch. Tom-Tom was blatantly feeling the upper portions of Red’s torso while Red murmured, “That’s okay” and “Come on, now” and “Be righteous, dude.”

Soon enough, Tom-Tom broke the embrace and said through his tears, “How much do you like me, dude? This much?” He held Red’s hands about eight inches apart. “Or this much?” Fifteen inches.

Realizing that a lot depended on his answer but surely having no idea what penalty or reward was promised, Red temporized with “Well, how much do you want?”

Hesitating for perhaps two seconds, Tom-Tom yanked Red’s pants open and got on his knees to pull them down, saying, “Don’t be cruel or surprised, Red, because you are my favorite guy of all, even when I’m crying.”

And with that, Tom-Tom started swinging on dick. And I sat there. And Red put his hands in his pockets—no, that won’t work. So he crossed his arms, and felt funny that way, too. Then, obeying some primitive instinct, he held Tom-Tom’s head and massaged his ears. Feeling he should say something, Red thought for a bit, turned to me, and came up with “Dude’s pretty flirtatious, huh?”

Dude was also an excellent cocksucker, bold and nuanced. Tom-Tom’s all set for Davey-Boy’s porn company; that much we now know.

Cosgrove and Fleabiscuit came back in from whatever they were doing in the bedroom, and they, too, just stopped to watch.

Red obviously thought he should pass a remark to Cosgrove, if only to normalize the bizarre.

“This ever happen to you?” Red asked him.

7

T
HE
P
ORN
S
TORY

C
OSGROVE WAS SERIOUS ABOUT
going into the catering business. Notably, for the first time in his many professional undertakings (which is another way of referring to the various loony schemes he has been involved with over the years), J. was not to be Cosgrove’s partner. There were no partners this time. Cosgrove was the sole proprietor of Catering R Us, though Carlo and Nesto had signed on as waiters.

The concept was simple. If you wanted to give an Important Dinner Party without undergoing the grunt work, Cosgrove and company would prepare and cook the meal, serve it, then clean up after, for one hundred dollars a guest. Liquor of any kind was extra; Cosgrove figured that folks into serious entertaining are also serious about the table wine and the operation of the bar and would just as soon handle that themselves.

Bemused by Cosgrove’s business acumen, I listened appreciatively as he fielded phone inquiries. (“We put word out on the street,” Cosgrove informed me. He also dropped an ad into
HX.
) There was a choice of three menus—French, Italian, and one described as “decorating your table in designer shades of lightning, keyboard, and parade.” Most of the inquiries were just that: one hundred dollars a setting is a major investment, even for one’s fortieth birthday, say, or to celebrate you and your lover’s first anniversary (that is: after one week). Finally, someone turned up who wanted the French dinner for six on New Year’s Eve. Cosgrove was so joyful that he danced whenever he spoke of it, and Fleabiscuit dreamed of a golden collar to call his own.

Meanwhile, the Thursday meals with J. had dwindled into the occasional afternoon visit. Life with Vince meant no day job, yes. But according to the traditional working-class attitudes that Vince was raised in and adhered to as unquestioningly as a Carmelite, there was no such thing as the husband comes home from work and the spouse is not there.

J. didn’t mind, he said. He liked the structure, he liked being depended on, and most of all he liked Vince. Love? “The love thing is for movies,” said J. with a shrug. “I don’t want to be in love,” he explained. “I want to be happy.”

Maybe he was, because he showed little curiosity about Catering R Us, and seemed unconcerned that Cosgrove was doing something interesting without him. Marriage can create that: some people simply cease to notice what occurs outside the nest. Besides, the now ever bustling Cosgrove persuaded J. to collaborate in finishing one of their porn stories, and I offered to buy and publish it if maybe.

“Which one is this?” I asked, as Cosgrove presented me with pages in a plastic Staples folder. J. was quietly sipping cocoa in his London Underground mug, which he has parked with us for these occasions.

“You haven’t seen this one yet,” Cosgrove told me.

“It was originally three stories,” said J. “Cos thought they were…” He turned to Cosgrove.

“A unit,” said Cosgrove.

I read out the title: “‘Pajammy and Corndogger Meet the Slutty Professor.’”

“It was going to be ‘Dangerous Sexpigs of Psycho City,’” Cosgrove explained. “Followed by ‘Escape from Psycho City,’ then—”

“‘Return to Psycho City,’” I guessed.

J. said, “I wanted to call it ‘Who’s in the Pay Toilet?’ Rather piquant, wouldn’t you say?”

“Let’s read,” I suggested, and I did, aloud:

Pajammy and Corndogger were on the loose. Armed with only their faithful seltzer bottle, plus their mysterious secret weapon, the Acme Patented Cockalizer, they roamed the Old West from Bedmess Junction to the Big Junk Corral. But how could they know that Psycho City was where Sheriff Slade was at war with the Smooth Boys Gang? He swore to drive those rustlers out of the territory. The sheriff and his deputies were hairy-chested rufftuffs, so loving and brutal. When a stranger came to town, they would crowd around him in the saloon to find out if he was a Smooth Boy. How could they know? They would loosen the stranger’s clothes, play doctor, taste his parts. The rumor was that you could get high on Smooth Boy shoot cream. It was the only way to get stoned in the Old West.