Like People in History (15 page)

Well, I didn't freeze so much as not know what to say. In front of me, several of the chained-together kneelers and sitters had somehow or other recognized me. I heard my name being said by several to others, "Sssanssssarc!" I was wondering how in the hell they knew me—the book hadn't sold that many copies or been that widely reviewed—when Junior prodded me from behind, urgently whispering, "Say the name, will ya!"

So I said the first name that came into my mind, "Matt Loguidice. Poet. Nineteen fifty to nineteen eighty-five."

And then I allowed Junior to shove me aside.

The look on Wally's face told me what I'd just done. As it registered and I began to move toward him, Wally turned away and vanished into the crowd. In my efforts to get past the bunch of them to Wally, I almost knocked over Reinhold's distant relation, who'd just gotten to the microphone.

I spent the next fifteen minutes looking for Wally, thinking if I could just lay hands on him, stop him, I'd be able to explain that it was his own doing—he'd brought up Matt earlier—that I'd said Matt's name.

This was nonsense and I knew it. As I'd stood on line awaiting my turn and hearing all those names and dates, I'd begun to feel that this was in some weird way like the children's religious instruction legend about appearing before St. Peter at the Gates of Heaven and saying the one word, remembering the single good deed, that would force those pearly gates to swing open. The truth had to be told: if saying one name, remembering and honoring one person in my life, could bring me celestial peace never ending, Matt's was the name.

At last I gave up my search and wandered over to where Junior, Niebuhr, and someone new had taken a break from their own search.

"Did you find him?"

"He's not here anywhere!" James assured me.

"What did you do to him?" Junior Obregon asked.

"Nothing."

"You must have said or done something," he argued.

Evidently, Junior's was that type of personality, not uncommon among homosexuals, called "an injustice collector"; except that, altruistically, he seemed to collect injustices for others as well as for himself.

"It's none of your business," I said, the "fuck yourself' silent.

Ever-fickle Fate chose that moment of my desperation for a reporter from one of the networks to decide that I and only I could possibly be his on-air spokesman for the event.

"Excuse me, Dr. Sansarc." The newscaster pushed Junior and the others aside with blond aplomb and shoved a microphone at me.

"I'm not a doctor," I retorted, surprised by his sudden appearance with two cameramen, light meter people, and a sound woman, who asked me to repeat myself.

Now, I'd seen this character before. In fact, Wally and I used to speculate on the sexual proclivities of this young semi-Adonis while watching "The Eleven O'Clock News," making up outrageous perversions that only someone so straight-looking could get away with—bestial anilingus, forced infant fellatio, etc. From this close, he was smaller, better looking, blonder, and altogether so ineffably clean-cut I now doubted whether he'd ever touched himself while urinating, never mind done anything as gross and vulgar as masturbating.

Undaunted by my unfriendly tone of voice, he told someone on his staff, "We can erase that." He blocked me, faced the camera, and said in an announcerish voice, "We're at the huge AIDS demonstration which erupted at Gracie Mansion. We're speaking to the noted author and social historian Roger Sansarc, who's a participant." As I wondered where he'd gotten all that from (Ron? An uncharacteristically spiteful Wally?), the newscaster spun toward me, shoving the microphone under my chin. "Tell us, Professor Sansarc, what set off this extraordinary outburst on a night calculated to embarrass the mayor?"

With all these faggots, why me? I thought. Behind me I heard Junior Obregon whisper, "Go, man! You're empowered!" So I figured, why the hell not?

This is what I said: "Two million six hundred thousand dollars of money specifically earmarked this past year for nondenominational hospice and hostel care units for AIDS patients has not been used by the city. We're here demanding to know why not, where those funds have gone to, and if and when those funds will be released so our sick and dying can receive adequate care."

That was it. He thanked me, still calling me Professor, which was a Fig Newton of his imagination, and took off at a trot toward his truck, yelling orders and questions simultaneously to his sight and sound crew. I took it I'd been successful and would be used later on the news.

Where I got that particular money figure from I'll never know. I guess I'd heard it bandied about during the Monday night meeting at the Community Center, as well as the various rumors about it. Even then, at the moment I'd been saying it, I had the queasy feeling that— like naming Matt Loguidice—this would come back to haunt me.

Not immediately, however.

"You were abso-fucking-lutely great!" Junior was jumping up and down, hugging me. Reinhold's distant relation stood there agape, then seemed to come to and said, "You know, I thought you were bullshitting about having done all this before."

Even Ron Taskin arrived to pat my shoulder and thank me for the good job—he'd been outside the truck's open door when I'd suddenly appeared on their video monitors being taped.

Sure I was pleased. But this was light shit. I still had to find Wally and attempt to explain what I would never in a million years be able to explain. I still had to get to Alistair's and stop him from taking those sixty-four Tuinals. And somehow or other I had to tell someone about Cleve Atchinson. Why me? I was thinking as the group around me continued its congratulations.

I was vaguely aware that Junior was trying to persuade the others to do something. He must have succeeded, because I was suddenly pulled out of the crowd to a less populous section of the fence, where two chained martyrs were being spoon-fed what looked like shrimp ramen by a volunteer.

"I told them we don't need Wally. You'll help us do it," Junior said very soberly indeed. "Now don't say you won't."

"Do what?"

Junior moved aside to reveal what the third guy was also covering. It looked like another banner.

"This is Paul Sonderling," Junior introduced us.

"Sure, I'll help. Where do you want to hang it?"

"There." Junior pointed to Gracie Mansion. "On the roof, hanging down."

"Why not hang it from the mayor's dick?" I asked

"No, really!" Junior said. "We've got it all planned out. Except that Wally was supposed to help."

"Was he?" Funny, I'd heard nothing about it.

"Paul here knows someone who already set it up for us," Junior said.

"This guy I met at the Jacks," Paul said, naming a noted club for mutual masturbators that met once a week, "has been working for the company that's been redoing the roof here. When I told him what we wanted to do, he said he'd help,"

"The Homintern," I mumbled.

"What?" Junior and Paul asked.

"Homintern!" I repeated. "International Conspiracy of Homos. That's what Auden called us because we are everywhere and anywhere and only reveal ourselves when we choose to."

"Right on!" Junior enthused.

"Well, anyway," Paul went on, "my buddy installed hooks up there. Eight of them for us to hang the banner from. See!" He showed me how metal rings had been sewn into the top of the cloth. "So all we have to do is get it up there."

"All?"

"He also left a rope coiled for us to climb."

"Ninja Faggot Activists," I said with a sneer.

They took that in a better way than I'd intended it. Junior and Paul slapped hands high in the air, saying, "
That's
what we'll call ourselves."

"'Did he tell you how we get in?" I asked.

"He left a company truck parked around the corner." Paul showed me the keys. "The security guards here are used to seeing company trucks come and go. Once we've hung the banner, we'll drive it out."

"If we're not shot first."

"I told you he wouldn't go for it," James said.

"Was Wally really supposed to do it?" I had to know.

"You kidding? He helped plan it. And we need four people!"

"Four dedicated, committed people who won't rat on each other," Junior said, but I dismissed that as claptrap. I was beginning to think something far more dangerous.

"We'll be off the roof by the time it's unfurled," Paul said. "We'll be back in the truck by the time anyone notices it."

What I was thinking was that by joining them, helping them, stepping in for Wally, I would be reaffirming his commitment—and our commitment to each other. I knew this was false reasoning, specious logic, yet I also knew I owed Wally for saying Matt's name. Maybe, just maybe, doing this semi-sophomoric deed would blast that away before it took hold in his mind and really imperiled what we had together.

As though reading my mind, Reinhold's distant relation said, "Wally'll be pissed off if this doesn't come off. He was the brains behind it."

The brains, huh?

But the idea of draping an entire side of Gracie Mansion with our banner, and having all these self-important politicians come out and see it, did have its attractions. It would certainly cheer up this crowd and give everyone something to talk about for the next week. And since I'd already usurped the position of spokesperson for the TV camera, why shouldn't that false position be solidified by action?

"I'm in," I said, and raised my hand for a high slap.

The truck was where Paul had said it would be. Even better, it had one of those double-seat cabs for James and Junior to hide down in. Naturally, we were halted as we turned into the closed street, but Paul handled it easily.

"Jeez! Look at all the fags!" he said cheekily to the cop on duty.

The policeman attempted a wan smile. But it was evident that something at the demonstration—maybe the guy being driven off in an EMS unit—had reached him. "Keep that talk to yourself, okay?" Then he added as though his statement required an explanation, "Captain don't want any trouble here."

"Okay! Okay," Paul defended himself. "We just gotta drop off this crap." He nodded back to the truck's partly laden flatbed. "Boss wants it before he arrives tomorrow. Otherwise I gotta get up at three
A.M."

For a half a minute, it looked as though the cop on duty was going to have to go higher up for permission.

"We'll be in and out in ten minutes!" Paul tried. "Fifteen tops!"

"Okay! Go!" the harassed policeman said.

As Paul had said, the mayoral security knew the truck and waved us in. We swung around the parking lot filled with stretch Mercedes and Lincolns, the mostly Third World chauffeurs of the various mayors sleeping at the wheel or reading in dimly lighted front seats. Three were standing atop the roof of one limo, trying to get a better look at the demonstration.

"We're in!" Paul cried exultantly to Junior and James, huddled in back.

He parked as close to the building as he could get, then turned so as to keep one side blind to any observers among the chauffeurs. We all slid out of the car, Junior holding the banner, all of us trying to remain cool. I recalled something Goethe had written in
Dichtung und Wahrheit
about seeing three men talking hurriedly and moving furtively at night and how that always meant some mischief was about to be done. As usual Goethe was right.

No one stopped us as we approached the building. I was surprised by how large it was. I'd hoped to hear the multilingual sounds of the sixteen mayors chatting inside, but everything in the immediate area was silent. The names being read by demonstrators were clear enough from here, as was the more generalized mass chanting of various slogans. But I was sure no one inside could hear them, since every window appeared to be locked. Only when the mayors had finished dinner and begun to drive out would they know the size and extent of the demonstration.

"Here!" Paul whispered. He'd found the way up to the roof. A shaky structure of hastily nailed together two-by-fours had been wedged into a corner of the edifice, but as the roofing work had already been completed, this construction had been half-dismantled and no longer reached the top. Paul was first to ascend, and the boards shook under him as he gave Junior a hand up. I lifted the banner up to them and followed, with James behind.

They'd found the coiled rope, and I could barely make out their bodies as each shimmied to the eaves. Next to me on the scaffolding, James seemed to be shaking, or was it the two-by-fours shaking? It sure wasn't me. Having already thrown my destiny to the gods, I was completely calm. A minute later I began to thank my own sense of vanity for twenty years of upper body exercises: although older than any two of my co-mischief makers put together, I ascended as easily and half somersaulted over the projecting eaves to find myself on the surprisingly wide lip of the roof.

"Where's James?" Junior whispered.

I looked down. He was still clutching at the scaffolding. I was about to urge him to move his ass, when two policeman sauntered by chatting not a yard from where Reinhold's distant relation was trying to make himself invisible. I could hear their conversation: a slightly older cop telling his junior what he should never say to pick up a woman officer.

Once they were out of sight, James clambered up to the roof, rather awkwardly I thought. But then I'd taken him for an athlete, which he wasn't. The hand I took to pull him over the edge was large, cold, and clammy.

Paul had already reached the far end of the roof. He'd gotten the banner unrolled lengthwise, but it was still folded, so just the top of the message was visible upon the slanted roof, readable only by literate insomniac birds and passing helicopter pilots. We would have to turn it over, attach it to the roof edge by fitting its metal eyes into the hooks left there by Paul's masturbation buddy, then lower it—still folded— over the eaves and down the side. Only then could we ourselves drop to the ground and, using a pull-cord on each side, completely unfurl it.

Naturally the metal eyes didn't exactly fit the hooks, despite infinite previous calculations. Then Junior Obregon discovered or just decided to admit to us that he suffered from severe acrophobia. He became so dizzy he had to lie down on the roof while James tried to help us and at the same time comfort him, until Paul said, "You guys better go. We'll finish this."