Allan Stein (15 page)

"
Quelle vitesse?
" he shouted, heaving for breath as we all slowed, pulling close to the curb.

"Forty-five," Denis reported. "
Pas mal
." Sweat dripped from the round of the boy's jaw, making a delicate line down his throat. The artery there was pulsing rapidly, flat and exposed, and I watched him swallow, then spit.

"Cool." He said it like a French word with an exhalation at its end. "I'm sorry, but I must hurry where I go." Still he fidgeted in place, leaning against my door. "My best on the track is sixty, but the real street is more difficult."

"Cool. Tonight you go to the swimming pool with me."

"We hurry too," Denis announced, revving the motor.

"Tonight? The swimming pools are not open in the night." I produced the blue info sheet and pointed to the
ouverture spéciale
. This was met by a grim puckered
pfft
. Evidently, not cool. "I must ask my father."

"Eight P.M.," I barked to Stéphane , as my willful driver, already bored by the exchange, began to pull away from the curb. "And we must get a bathing suit, the small kind they require." The boy stayed put, astride his still bicycle, and stuffed the blue sheet in his pocket, then waved and rode off to his sports.

The car seat hummed with our acceleration, and I settled back into it. "We're certainly in a hurry."

"I don't enjoy this street," Denis shouted amiably, above the increasing wind. "We go to a very nice bar. I know you will like it." He pressed a tape into the glowing mouth of his car stereo, and great twin thumping bass lines, entwined like dancers, came booming from behind us. Denis showed terrific skill anticipating "hazards" (including all traffic lights; veering sharply away from one red, he explained, "There is a hazard, I will detour"). He kept us on a continuous unraveling path across a great expanse of the city. I'm not very good with directions, but we crossed the river three times, pursuing the driver's pleasure, which was not economy but speed and motion, and ended up on the right bank. The streets were extremely narrow here. Many a fur or leather, with dog, strolled past. Denis maneuvered the car at a stylish crawl, then swooned with joy (honestly, tears welled up) when a car the exact image of ours pulled away from the curb in front of us.
We parked, and Denis lifted the car's cloth top into place and locked it.

"What part of town are we in?"

"You will forgive me for being so boring, but it is the Marais, the Fourth, which you must already be tired of. There is a bar here I like." The Fourth. Where Herbert had forbade me to visit.

"Just don't introduce me to anyone."

"Of course, Herbert, we'll just 'window-shop,' I think is a right phrase."

"Mmm."

The bar was a café with stools around a high U-shaped counter filling its tiny front room. Tables in the back were full, and the few sidewalk chairs were too, but this counter was a perfect place to sit. The barman stood in the middle and talked to everyone, while outside the traffic drifted past. We snagged two stools, shook hands with the barman, and Denis ordered Armagnac.

"You don't really know my work, do you?" I asked, with the first sip. "I mean, that was just you being friendly the other night, wasn't it?" Denis smiled as he drank, probably glad to get this out of the way.

"I know enough, but of course I've never been to your museum."

"That's a great relief."

"It is in California?"

"North from there." Denis lit a cigarette, and I took one from him but simply let it burn as I held it. "Not to be a prig, but you should know that any flirting will be hopeless. I'm practically married back home."

"I will enjoy it without hope." Denis smiled. "Who is your companion?"

"A Turk; he plays soccer and is really quite talented. I can't tell you his name because of the taboo in athletics, you know. He
won't tell anyone, but we've been together—oh, it seems like forever—since he was fifteen actually."

"A 'long-time companion'?"

"Mmm." The smoke in this place was thick and pleasant, like local weather, a whole different season from the breezy spring that continued outdoors. It went well with the fiery Armagnac. The barman was so affable and attentive I thought everyone must treasure him, but Denis let on that he was considered to be an oaf and quite stupid. I suppose the language had dazzled me. A Frenchman in Shackles might think the portly assistant manager charming, unless he understood a little English.

"Do you live with him?"

"No, no, he wouldn't think of it. He has his make-believe girlfriends and all that. I am a secret pleasure. Are you dating?"

"Oh, everywhere." He finished his drink. The barman had set the bottle within reach, and Denis splashed some in our glasses.

"You have a boyfriend?"

"Many, many. When I want to meet a new man I go to the dance. Boy is very exciting, and Le Palace. It's very easy in Paris to find the kind you want, if you know which place has him. Almost like New York. I will take you for the dancing on Sunday."

"What a treat. Really?"

Herbert had taken me to a dozen gay bars back home, disastrous little trips chasing after men he'd met and then chitchatted to the verge of exhaustion, trying to discover their haunts. These men never ever seemed to be in the places they named. No matter, there were always other men, all of them "hideous," and Herbert always swore we'd never do this again. The resolution usually stuck for a few weeks, and then he'd meet someone else. Typically, these bars stank of beer and floor cleanser and were nearly empty at nine or ten when we arrived. I don't know why conservative, drunk ex-
husbands in tract houses watching TV news exposes are so easily convinced the gay demimonde is sex-saturated and glamorous. In fact it is just as tacky and crass as the worst G. I. Shenanigans bar in the most sexless highway strip mall of the most forlorn suburban development where they go, and if the terrific gains of gay liberation continue apace we'll soon be joining these straight potbellied swingles on the margins of those twelve-lane highways that seem to go on forever and ever into a false dusk of sodium-vapor lights and revolving billboards, that permanent orange glow of America's well-armed nighttime, with its televised cops coursing across their grid of streets blurring the videotaped faces of prostitutes and kids who get stuck out there with straight men wanting dates, all of them clueless about love except for their conviction that it's magical and someone else has it. Gay men have got exactly the same bars, except ours are in enviable high-rent districts of the city, where you can actually see the guy who pulls a gun on you rather than being picked off by the high-powered rifle of a night-goggled sniper. As the Enlightenment proceeds, however, to its final and totalizing end, the bright light of sexual liberation will shine out of the cities to reach the towns and sprawl, and everything will shift so that perversity will be allowed to thrive in that purgatory too, where we can join our brothers, the drunk ex-husbands, at R. U. O'Bliterated Ale House, BlandeWoode Towne Centre branch, 250550 Blande Parkway (old Highway 3). In the meantime, we can drink and get sick at the gay bar downtown.

"Thank you Denis, you're too kind."

"I enjoy it." Denis caught the eye of a man directly across from us and got up, excusing himself to the toilet. He stopped beside this man, kissed, and they walked through to the back together. I took some olives from a shallow bowl placed near the drink and asked the barman for some bread. The café was packed, with many more
standing around the tiny bar than there were sitting on the stools. Men and women, mostly young, bombastic, and wildly various in their styles, created such a noise and cloud of smoke I easily forgot that it was only seven or so and the sky still light out. Denis returned with his new friend, who wedged in beside us with a dirty glass he poured full of Armagnac.

"George Humphry," Denis began, "Herbert Widener, the American curator I spoke of to you."

I shook hands with this pleasant-enough, very drunk man and leaned close to Denis's ear. "Denis, I really must insist that you do not introduce me to anyone else. This is a matter of some importance to me." I whispered it clearly and with some force, and, as Denis pulled away, he tilted his head, rather impressed.

"Well, of course I will comply with this, Herbert." He was contrite. "But this man you will have to meet in any case for the work you have proposed; I've already told him about you." Now his smile grew at the rim of his glass while he sipped, staring at me. He clapped George on one unsteady shoulder. "Herbert is concerned that we do not reveal his identity, George, so you will please say to no one that he is Herbert."

"I'm having trouble remembering
who
the fuck he is, Denny." George was British.

"Don't remind him," I whispered.

"Have we met?" George tried being civil. "Were you with Denny at that shithole? What was that bar, Denny, the Piano Zinc?"

"You met at a piano bar?" Denis scooted closer to me, paying little attention now to George.

"The Piano Zinc is a very nice bar near here, Herbert. Late at night it is very crowded. I met George there a few nights ago, and then again after I had been with you at Serge's."

"After our dinner?"

"The Piano Zinc only becomes lively around one or two. In any case, I was very restless so I could not sleep well. George looked very hot in these leather pants that he is not wearing now; and of course the light is terrible there." George was now enjoying his drink as he looked around the room.

"How romantic."

"Yes, it was. The night was so beautiful. It was very late and the air was magnificent, ice cold. And you know he is a good fuck." Denis excused himself to use the telephone. I smiled at George, who raised his glass warmly. We neither spoke nor made eye contact while Denis was away.

"Business or pleasure?" I asked when he returned.

"Business—your business, in fact." Denis looked at his watch. "Are you hungry, Herbert? I know a magnificent café near here. I'm sure I can get us a table."

"What time is it?"

"It is half-past seven. If you are not hungry we can simply stay here for a while, but the food is very poor here."

"I told Stéphane to be ready at eight, and I'm sure it'll take us at least a half hour to get back there."

Denis smiled and squeezed my arm gently."Herbert, the boy won't be going to the children's playtime at the pool; he is not interested in that."

"It is the children's playtime?"

" 'I must ask my father' is the way Stéphane has of saying he is not interested in a thing. I've heard it very many times. This water playtime is not 'cool' with the teenagers because they have loved it so much only a few years before. It embarrasses them to be seen enjoying it still." Denis's point made sense, but in its clear, simple light a creeping new worry grew: Stéphane would sit at
home, judging my absence as harshly as he had judged the despicable "playtime." I would become, in the boy's eyes, both stupid and unreliable.

"I should phone, at least." I patted my pockets for coins.

Denis pointed me toward the rear of the café and offered a battered metal slug required for the pay phone's operation. "And then shall we have dinner?"

"Yes. Yes, of course."

No one answered (thirty-five rings), and I took all my anxieties with me to the restaurant, which was, indeed, a very nice place, tucked into the passageway of an old arcade that took up a great block of land in the middle of the densely built Marais. Clay elements wired into the stone pavings gave heat to the courtyard and we dined out there, under the clear night sky—all three of us. George, a little sobered by the air, became quite chatty. His French was impeccable, and the fact that we'd brought a "good fuck" meant the last spot on Denis's implacable dance card was filled. George occupied a vacancy that otherwise might have loomed over me all evening like some kind of black hole, a motive force I would imagine shadowing Denis's every kindness. In fact, Denis was simply kind and enjoyed flirting without hope or purpose, as he had promised. George got bathed in a steady, serious gaze, while ornate compliments, warmly held glances, and light massagings of the arm came drifting my way like stray droplets, the pleasant mist nearby plants receive while the gardener is busy overwatering the huge root he means to pluck and devour.

It is redundant to tell you how drunk I was (it can be presumed throughout the rest of the evening). Magnified by the warm Armagnac, thirty-five hollow, unanswered rings echoed and rolled dolefully in the great bath of my consciousness, a toll of sad afflic
tions. Denis and George bantered the sommelier about like a mouse before settling on a C
ô
tes-du-Rh
ô
ne that he promised would support everything from tongue to pork medaillons. I just sat and watched, not because I was ignorant (though I was) but brooding felt good, like repose to a wounded priest, a Franciscan, for example, shot by thugs while interceding in a crime against children. It drew me into its sweet gravity like a nap.

"Herbert is frequently in New York," Denis told George, trying to engage me in their mirth. "He does not like Hellfire and will not tell me the secret clubs he goes to." I smiled, wan, still expiring from my wounds.

"Christ, Denny, that Hellfire is an awful place, a wet wick for disease. You might as well fuck your way through a morgue."

"You enjoy the bright light for sex, I remember this."

"I like to see a man's face."

"I think Herbert also prefers the more social clubs?" It was a question. I shrugged, still resisting. "And conversation." Denis was being so sweet to me, I'd have to be an awful heel to ruin the meal brooding.

"Mmm. I do prefer social activities, and a younger crowd." A tendril of cold snuck down from the black evening, embracing me; then it shifted away.

"Oh?"

"Yes." Denis raised his eyebrows and smiled. Something about him was so encouraging. "Much younger. Like junior-high school. I'd prefer a junior-high pool party to the Hellfire any day." This admission, even after many years of giving it, raised a shiver in me.