But none of that explains tonight’s new fear.
Did it begin when the man paid him? It has happened so often, and this time was no different; as always, the money felt warm and beautiful in his hand, not like money. Later, then. When he came? His fists bunched, and he felt closer this time to pushing them out in fury, but he did not, and so that was not different. Earlier. When he saw the men sliding for sex into the warehouses on the piers? He has seen that too often, even looks for it.
The screaming faces in the speeding car. Yes. When it rushed by, and bottles flew in his direction—but not at me, he insists, not at me–and the scream of “Faggots!” was tossed out—but not at me, not at me—he felt the tension spill. And then—. . . He pulls back.
Years ago, Tim hustled the area of the porno theaters, freaky stores, peep shows. Although he is just into his 20s, he has been pushed out by youngmen, boys, much younger than himself; they and the junky zombies and the amazonic bright-painted transvestites and women have taken over this turf. As if to locate an anger buried deeper than tonight, he walks that broken street, lights a smashed spectrum of colors. He sees the hustling teenage boys, and he feels old.
He traverses the city to the hustling bar he often frequents. Only hustlers there and those who buy them. Outside, other youngmen lurk almost to the edge of the river. But Tim doesn’t enter the bar. He feels pulled back to the area of the Rushes tonight, as if it—or what occurred there—has magnetized him.
But he pauses outside the hustling bar. A flashy, not-yet-drunk man approaches him. “I know you’re selling it, but where can I go for just love?”
The question enrages Tim further. “I dunno!” he yells.
At the corner, he descends the concrete stairs into the subterranean city. The roar of the trains is ominous thunder. The walls along the slanted walk are scrawled with wordless curses. It is late, the hours of fear. People hurry close to the walls, as if for shelter from those who prowl the violated maze. One man clings to the wall as if pinioned by an invisible betrayer. The urine-scented tunnel pulls ahead of Tim. He concentrates on the sound of his feet. He is returning to the area of the Rushes. Astonished, he realizes he has a hardon.
In the train, he sits in the uremic light. The train crawls through the cadaver of the city. He does not blink as the lights from each station—and he’s counting stops—shoot like bursts of lightning into his eyes.
He changes trains. Menace clings to the yellowing foul tunnels. Inside another car, he touches his groin, the hardon has not relented. He toughens his look. Fourteen stations—and he’s back almost to the waterfront.
The men he comes to despise are out in hordes tonight-some in jackets and leather, others shirtless and in shorts, variously courting the weather which is in limbo. The genitals of some are outlined by tight pants, or even exposed under cutoffs. Without moving his eyes, Tim continues along the street. Clusters of men appraise him, admiring.
The mist from the subterranean trains emerges through iron holes into the street, as if from a hell seething below. The heat shakes off a gust of wind. It scatters trash and old leaves against the edges- of a small park, shoving angry green grass against the grime.
The hot-cool air fans Tim’s body; his sweat turns cool, evaporating, then hot, sticking.
Against the gray night-sky, the abandoned warehouses along the piers cut ugly black patches. Tim will take the long way to the Rushes, telling himself the watered breeze will cool him further. But his eyes attempt to penetrate the darkness, to pull into his vision the sexhunting forms within the rotted gut of the piers. Still, the smeared rage finds no clear form within the marred landscape.
Near skeletal buildings, plastic bags overflow with packed trash. He kicks at a bag, to push it away into the watery curb, which is smoothed by debris. He pulls back in horror. He almost stepped on an old, tattered tramp lying on the street, a discarded heap.
Tim stares at it—him—watching for its breathing. Is it dead or drunk? The man’s chest rises and falls. Tim feels like crying, but his anger chokes the tears. He begins to run, slows, stops; swaggers.
Near the meat trucks, two men kiss, naked cocks crossed like weapons, hard against each other. Tim inhales the bunched anger. He opens his mouth to taste it. As he approaches the Rushes, he realizes he is panting.
Faggots! Queers! The echoing words badger his mind. It wasn’t at him the men in the speeding car were yelling; they were yelling at the older guy he was talking to; they could tell he himself was a hustler, maybe even one of them—not a queer. Or maybe they were yelling at the goodlooking guy nearby.
The memory is shaken. To shelter himself from the shower of glass, he shoved his body against the wall of the Rushes, and it touched the other man’s by accident. Anger rushed like an orgasm. When the man moved away, it was as if he had snatched a part of him, severed it brutally away. Soon after that, he met the man he went home with. He poured orgasmic rage into his mouth.
He recreates the scene: Pressed against the wall to avoid the crashing bottle, he had to thrust himself next to the handsome man he saw earlier. They looked at each other as they both faced the wall. Was it then that tonight’s new tension grew?—to be so close to one of the men he comes here to despise; the goodlooking arrogant sexhunters he hates in a way very different from the way he hates those who pay him. When he shot earlier into the mouth of the man who paid him, he poured his anger at the sudden memory of the man who had stood next to him against the wall.
Tim has found the source of the pressurized fury.
He stands on the street looking into the Rushes. At the open door, a middleaged man stares into the street. Tim knows: That man can’t make out in that bar. Thumbs hooked into them, Tim pushes his pants lower on his hips, exposing more of his lean torso. The eyes of the middleaged man drill into him.
Then the man turns away from Tim and back toward the Rushes.
9
Cause us to be numbered in the flock You have chosen.
AS OFTEN as he comes to the Rushes, Bill is still amazed that the unexpected remains possible. Now the unexpected is not in the transmogrification of the early-night macho into the late evening “queen”; certainly it is no longer in the recurrent presence of the haughty ballet dancer in full leather regalia—“a flaming masochist”; that causes no stir. A movie star, a rock star, a politician—they elicit only cursory interest now. The permutations of possibilities—whom one finally goes with after all the ambushes and surprises–become the norm.
The presence of Lyndy qualifies, yes, but even that was pure only during the suspenseful moments before her entering; men here might have seen her only an hour earlier at a sparkling disco or in an exclusive restaurant—might even have been in her court; and so while hating her presence here, they “accept” her. With the entrance of the transvestite and the black prostitute, the unexpected has occurred. Its sustained acknowledgment is a low simmering of rage; one degree may cause it to stir again. The paradox is that Lyndy’s accepted presence may be its primary control—that, and that youngman’s curious extending toward them.
Bill has never been threatened by transvestites, and certainly not by women. His enjoyment in assaulting the rigid macho posturing asserts that by implication. But the dark light of the Rushes has a strange capacity to illumine a more secret dark.
Oh, he wishes they weren’t here—he faced that—and especially now, now when the Rushes is about to become a total world with its own rules. Before Last Call, a collective intensity charges through, uniting enemies and lovers in a brutal, but mutually condoned, code. When the time comes to connect, or die a sexual death, all else, and everyone else, will be tossed aside. Cruelty is allowed, friendship abdicates to sex. Joy, disaster, triumph are all defined in terms of “making out.” Last night’s success has no reality. If the earlier moments of this night have been a purgatory, not making out will turn it into a hell.
Bill stands in the midst of the churning. He has just dismissed two unattractive men—he m
arvels that one is relentlessly pursued by those one doesn’t want. Tonight the memory of Luke has wafted his thoughts; Endore’s words have bruised those remembrances. He has stopped his strict lineup of prospects; they’ve scattered about the bar, and he’s forgotten which of two cowboys—or was it a construction worker?—did not work out. Some of his good prospects have faded into the darkness in back. I will not go there. Bill promises himself again.
But he allows his look to brush the dark area–and slide away. As he often does, he lets his eyes wander toward the figures drawn on the walls. Where is a favored panel in which men kneel before the erect naked figure—. . .? He’s annoyed that, instead, his eyes fell on one he dislikes—a beautiful man is kneeling—crouching—before others, one man is flogging him. Where is the panel he’s looking for? It’s not here! God. the memory of Luke has suffused his thoughts tonight-the drawing he’s looking for was one he pointed out to Luke as particularly sexy—. . . But where was it? No. wait, the panel he’s looking for is in the Rushes. There. The muscular nude figure, the barest trace of pubic hair visible through the torn shorts, the flushed genitals an outline—. . . Oh, is that Chas standing at the top of the stairs at the back of the bar? –he seems to be staring down intently at—. . . More bodies joining the shadows block Bill’s view.
The Rushes has been changing, and he is not sure he welcomes that. Still the best cruising bar—men meet, kiss or not. grope or not. and go home—it has become for some, not all. a proscribed sacred territory: a sexual rite begins and ends here. It used to be only a few adventurers who huddled in the back shadows, and then only on flesh-crammed nights. Now the numbers, and the activity, in the back part of the bar are growing.
God. look at that tall man!—he’s stripped down to a leather jock strap and boots, and he’s heading for the vortex of shadows at the back. Others will be shedding clothes later to similar abbreviations-usually black leather. So “artificial.” Bill dismisses the tall man. . .. Is that Endore on the stairs now? He’s—. . . Bill’s attention is yanked away by a man walking by wearing a ripped shirt. Bill’s eyes follow him back to—. . . No. impossible, it can’t be Endore at the top of the stairs, the man there is kissing—. . . Again Bill’s eyes are grasped by the man in the ripped shirt. Bill follows him until he determines he’s not really interested. Now Bill sees Don at the entrance. Is he about to leave? Or to pull back, tugged by the power of the bar.
I hate you! Don yells in silence at the youngman outside. But he waits at the door. Damn him, so sure of his attractiveness—he even assumed a cocky pose for me, goddamn him if he thinks I have to pay!
Poor Don. Who is he looking at outside? Bill wonders. The space about the transvestite and the woman is still empty: animosity still quivers at the edges of the hollow. I should go to them and show all those machos. That kid did. But what the hell are those two doing here? They know they’re not wanted. His resentment shoves into anger.
Again he flings his gaze toward the panels on the wall. Lucky! His eyes fell on his favorite panel–the lone figure in ecstasy or asleep. The lower portion is undrawn. Sometimes Bill imagines a head burrowed between the man’s legs, imagines the angle of the oval thighs, calves rounded at the crook of the leg. the cock dormant ready to be aroused—. . . Other times he imagines someone just watching the dormant figure. Sometimes there seems to be the suggestion of another man bending as if to raise the prone body from deep sleep. Bill lets his eyes glide away dreamily. Don’s still at the door.
But maybe he’s not a hustler, Don thinks, maybe he really likes a mature man who—. . . He’s been out there so long. Does he get rejected too? Maybe he’s not a hustler. So attractive. Don faces the youngman again.
Bill looks away from Don. So strange tonight, the way he keeps his head lowered when they talk to him. Is his face puffy? he tries to remember an earlier fleeting impression. Where did he go. those past days, or however long he was gone: did he say?
Harsh voices rise from the back of the bar.
That is Chas standing at the top of the steps. And Endore? It is Endore. Has the tension between them finally erupted? Bill’s line of vision is obscured. Is the man in total leather there too? The muscular back of the man in the white tank top blocks Bill’s view. The man removes his shirt, and Bill’s cock stirs. He’ll just watch the broad flexing back for a few moments. He’d like to move the man just a little to the right, better highlights. His hand floats to his own groin. He feels himself nudged. The kid—Robert? was that his name?—is pushing his way out of the bar. When Bill looks again, the exposed muscular back has moved away. Damn! But a new cowboy has maneuvered next to him.
“Hi, Tex,” Bill is hopeful.
“Howarya?”
Pretty good tone. “Just in the city?”
“Yes—just drove my truck.”
In a cab. Bad fake, quickly apparent. Waving, Bill glides away. There’s the bared muscular back again. And the raised voices from the back: “. . .—made me believe—. . .”
“You sonofabitch! You made me believe you wouldn’t interfere!” Chas shouts at Endore. They stand on the top step. Like a dark sentinel, the leatherman waits below
Beyond the two men and the trapezoid of soiled light over one pool table, bodies coagulate in the smoky arteries. Red lights darken like drying blood. Its outlet the retral part of the bar, electric sex sizzles beyond the shadowed scrim, pulling others in.
“I said I wasn’t playing your ugly games. But you weren’t playing,” Endore says.
“What did you say to the kid?” Chas demands.
Endore walks down. For the first time he’s aware that the leatherman has remained standing there.
Following. Chas reaches out as if to force Endore around. His hand stops just before it touches his shoulder, pauses there, then drops. “You wanted to humiliate me.” He’s aware—as he has been throughout—of the black-gloved waiting presence. So near.
Endore faces Chas: “You wanted to humiliate him.”
“To bring him out,” Chas says.
“Down,” Endore says.
“It’s what he wanted,” Chas insists.
“It’s what you wanted,” Endore says.
What I wanted! The words strike, ricochet, strike again. Chas’s fists clench. The reverberating words clarify; he misunderstood–Endore meant what he, Chas, wanted from the kid, not from–. . .
The moments of intense attention about the two men are passing. Others listen only cursorily. As the sexual tension in the bar crackles, these altercations are not rare. All attention is sacrificed to the sexual ferocity to connect.
“Shit–you, so proud of not approaching anyone!” Chas hurls at Endore.
“You said yourself that’s nothing to be proud of. Now I agree.” Endore pulls his hand away to avoid the touch of the leatherman’s glove.
Even the men whose interest in the altercation has waned are shoved in again by Chas’s yelled words: “What the fuck did you say to him?”
“I offered him what he wanted—not what you wanted,” Endore lowers his voice.
“And what do you want, Endore? Huh?” Chas pauses. He lets his hands fall—to invite the touch of the leatherman’s glove again. It comes. It feels rough. “Yet the kid ran away from you, Endore!” he shouts.
Over the strange softened shouts of the music. Chas’s forced laughter pursues Endore. No, it’s not laughter—it’s the sound of rage like laughter. Endore is startled by the discovery: In that sound of anger, there is that similar break. He has never heard it until now in Chas.
Chas allows the gloved touch to continue; his knuckles and the cold black leather fuse. His eyes connect with the leatherman’s. The two face each other. The smooth blackness of the leatherman’s uniform is solid in contrast to Chas’s, broken by patches of exposed flesh, the miniature pyramidal studs, the metallic network of cycle chain-links on his waist, about his cap. The dark glove warms on Chas’s hand. To preserve the feeling, he eases his hand away.
Eyes clamped on the le
atherman’s, Chas touches his keys–on his left side. The leatherman nods. Confirming the exploratory invitation, Chas touches his keys again and nods back. Now he has to move away from the man—for now—because too much is unfinished between him and Endore which will mar every connection. He has to know what he said to Robert.
That knowledge may bandage the deep wound rent by the mysterious rejection. As he stood looking up at him, Robert was dazzled by male sexual power—Chas was sure of that. Baptism! the word pulsated in Chas’s mind as he waited, boots spread, at the top of the stairs. The leatherman remained there, a goading witness. Baptism! My warm piss will soak his pants, and then pounding fists will—. . . No, that memory belongs to another night; the two are united ineluctably now. Tonight, it was him and the leatherman, no, the leatherman and Robert, no, Robert and him. And Endore. Suddenly Endore was there speaking to Robert—but Chas saw only the moving lips. He felt encased in black glass drowning the words and trapping echoes. Robert moved away with Endore, flesh blocked Chas’s view, he stood alone, the leatherman judged him, then Robert ran out.
In the midst of the bar, Chas inhales, devouring the odor of male flesh and leather. A hand gropes his groin. He gropes back, a rough squeeze, the suggestion of pain, to purify the act of “sissy-love.” He has to know what happened between Endore and Robert. Or will it remain one of so many unsolved mysteries buried with so many others in the Rushes?
Chas shakes away the heavy mood. His knuckles feel cold now. He sees Endore winding ahead through the crammed bodies.
Hands grope, bodies grind as Endore nears the bar. Michael is sitting there. Endore begins to move toward him. Did he see me with Robert? Many bodies separated them. I can’t go to him now. He does this: He orders three beers. Now he enters the forbidden circle about Elaine and Roxy, and he presents each with a beer. In astonished gratitude. Elaine and Roxy thank him. He feels hostile stares from the men nearby. He thinks of Robert’s earlier brave act. Endore waits for moments with the two female figures. Then nodding at them, he moves away. He has broken the contagious circle. Slowly, other men begin filling the gap.