The Passionate Attention of an Interesting Man (23 page)

“He’s a Heavy Father. One of the last of the kind, perhaps.” At Cosgrove’s wondering expression, I went on, “From the days of melodrama. Tall as a rule, and somewhere between matinée idol and villain. Stylish and courtly but with a dangerous undertext.”

“Who is he the father of?”

“Usually an unmarried young mother during a blizzard. He’s the guy at the door pointing at the weather and crying, ‘Thou art no daughter of mine, thou rebellious and sinful jade! Go—and never darken my doorway again!”

“Yes,” Cosgrove agreed, “with that authority physique.” He cut and washed a stalk of celery for Dino Croc, who likes to top off his meal with roughage. Starting on the dinner dishes as the dog tucked in, Cosgrove asked, “How come he lives in a crazy house and doesn’t have a romance with someone regular instead of
Donniemarie’s daddy?”

“
Darielle. But Alex has romances. He just isn’t clear on his role yet.”

He sure was clear on those polenta sticks, though. Nothing would serve but that Neil abandon the grilled chicken and take up the cooking of polenta sticks. Cosgrove was happy to share the recipe—“unlike certain neighbors I could mention,” he added darkly, looking up in the direction of Dennis Savage’s apartment. But, we soon learned, Neil claimed they were too hard to master, and then he got even by making
chile with hot Mexican ingesta and made Alex match him spoon for spoon. And Neil, Alex told us, can eat anything.

It was such a baffling tale, though, with more holes in the plot than
Heaven’s Gate
. Every time Alex visited, I found myself playing editor. “Why,” I began, on one of these occasions—but Alex waved me off with “He was shirtless in suspenders and…” Then he made a resigned gesture. Why? Gay life is why.

“But isn’t he bald?” I asked.

Exasperated, Alex replied, “God said, ‘I’m going to take your hair away, but first I’m going to give you the biggest dick in history, even flaccid. You want clipped or unclipped?’”

“Did the lady eat the hot
chile?” Cosgrove asked.

“
Darielle
, everybody, and no. She’s on the model’s diet. Coffee and cigarettes three times a day.”

It has become a rule, on Alex’s now frequent visits, that Cosgrove give him a doggie bag of polenta sticks, complete with a little plastic pod of mushroom sauce. Alex told us he has to sneak them in and hide them or Neil would gobble them up.

And Neil this and Neil that. Isn’t it odd how guys like Alex never realize how utterly
gone
they get? How confessional? One time, he reported, Darielle left on another trip, and, a mere ten minutes later, Neil grabbed Alex and said, “I need my back rubbed nice, and if you cooperate instead of giving me guff I won’t rough you tonight.”

“Are you complaining,” I asked, “or bragging?”

“Why is your dog looking at me like that?”

I sighed. “I could explain how he wants you in the other chair so he can teethe on your shoelaces and pull them open, but I don’t want any distraction from the driveline. Which is: are you glad about Neil or sad about Neil?”

“I’m collecting material on Neil. Think you’re the only writer-a-go-go around here? Always fancied getting out my own story or two. I’m going to exploit Neil’s Farmer Haystack rap. ‘I’ll straighten out your antennas.’ Or when he won’t let me sleep the night with him, he disdains it with ‘With your head on my chest? That’s the womenfolk’s delight.’ Cosgrove has invited me to his next improv class. As guest artiste. Do you think? I’m inclined to, frankly.”

“That’ll make a nice episode,” I said. “So far this whole story has been nothing but a living room.”

He nodded and then drained his sparkling in a final sort of way.

The rules governing Cosgrove’s improv class are Byzantine, and they keep changing. When Davey-Boy joined, he persuaded the others to elect a “director” to oversee the doings—a violation of the very meaning of improvisation. Further, although it was Davey-Boy’s intention to be elected director-for-life, like a third-world despot, the job rotates from meeting to meeting.

On the day Alex came to class, Tom-Tom was the director, and, to Davey-Boy’s annoyance, Tom-Tom kept consulting with me before each act (or whatever they should be called). I never take part in the proceedings, but I pay for the pizzas we order at the start of the session, so everybody likes me.

A typical evening: sketches on the latest romantic snafu, the “in-laws” (meaning your boy friend’s social circle, which as a rule hates you and seeks always to turn him against you), miseries on the job. Volunteers play the other characters, but, because they’re all making it up as they go, events can take unexpected turns. For example, Cosgrove was supposed to be somebody’s devious attorney, but instead he turned into an old vaudevillian reviving his art, which consisted entirely of a performance of the old hit-parade number “If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake.”

Then Alex took a turn. When he asked for one assistant to play opposite, a storm of hands went up; word had got out that Alex is officially single. The chosen one was
Korby, a nice-looking kid who always smiles at the pizza slices but noshes on his own black sushi tray. Tom-Tom set the two players on chairs about five feet from each other, warning them not to rise until “the key moment,” whatever that turned out to be. Then Davey-Boy, next to me in the back row, piped up with a reminder that newbies have to enact a scenario dictated by the group. It’s like improv cabarets of the 1970s, when the comics would let audience members choose the program—
Pinocchio
, say, presented in segments in the styles of Shakespeare, Chekhof, and Rodgers and Hammerstein. Yes, they had to make up the songs, too.

Tom-Tom rejected all suggestions as banal till Davey-Boy called out, “Let the big guy be a New York City police detective. He’s going to arrest
Korby for soliciting, though they never spoke about money.”

“Then I’m innocent,”
Korby snapped back, carefully addressing Tom-Tom. Everyone’s afraid of Davey-Boy.

“Yeah, you’re innocent,” snarled Alex, in a heavy working-class New York accent. “
Bust you for that gay stuff, and I’m even queerer than the rest. I could go for a lad like you, after we terminate that music playing at night, which disturbs my rest.”

“What music?” asked
Korby, confused.

Davey-Boy said, “Just go with it.”

Catching on, sort of, Korby said, “My parents let us play CDs for lullabies in bed.”

“You’re not doing little folks’ sleepy time now, though,” said Alex, tugging on his tie, opening it, pulling off. “Are you, youngster?”

Korby looked at Alex for a moment, then turned to Tom-Tom. “Where is this, though?” Korby asked. “And do I get an accent, too?”

The baffled Tom-Tom started to answer, but Alex, losing the New
Yorkese, cut in with “I told you how it is with Darielle and me. She pays the bills, is it? But how is she in charge when I’m the one with the dick?”

Opening his shirt cuffs in silence, Alex now got topless, and
Korby suddenly stood up.

“No standing yet,” Tom-Tom reminded him.

“The one with the dick,” Alex repeated, as Korby sat back down. “And since you’re always serving me up helpings of guff, looks like I got to give you an attitude adjustment. You’ll see who’s in charge right about now, I’d say.”

I have to admit, the class definitely seemed to prefer this segment to Cosgrove’s séances and Tom-Tom’s office melodramas. The pizza munching that habitually punctuated the entertainment had come to a halt.

“There’s but one way to reform a busy little glamour boy,” Alex went on, still seated but now turned to face Korby. “And that’s with cock up the ass, rough as she goes.”

Alex suddenly yanked his belt back, opened his pants, pulled out Thumper, and started working himself.

His eyes wide, Korby asked, of anyone, “Is that the rules?”

Next to me, Davey-Boy murmured, “Head for the hills, young
Korby.”

Hard as stone in little more than the time it takes to sneeze, Alex got out of his shoes and socks with the practice of the pro that he is, edged his trousers and shorts down, and then abandoned the chair for, yes, the key moment. You know how they speak of somebody’s jaw dropping? You haven’t seen what that looks like, but I have, and it was
Korby just then.

“Come to daddy,” Alex told him.

Korby didn’t move, and Alex went for him, inspiring Korby to leap to his feet and get behind his chair. I got up, too, for I was Alex’s sponsor and I felt responsible. But Davey-Boy rose with me and put a hand on my shoulder, saying,  “Don’t worry.” Oh, yeah? How does he know not to worry? Alex lazily thrust Korby’s chair away and took the boy in his arms, running a hand through Korby’s hair. I heard gasps from the audience, I think. Then Alex turned Korby around to hold him from behind, and you could tell that Korby was hard, too.

“See?” said Davey-Boy, as we sat. “
Korby likes it crazy.”

“And you know that how?” I asked, getting as response one of Davey-Boy’s bland “Why should I tell you?” looks.

“Going to teach you respect,” Alex was saying as his fingers traced the contours of Korby’s face. “When I’m through laying you, I’ll feed you my spunk fresh from the cock. And you will take it to the last drop if you know what’s good for you.”

“I won’t,”
Korby replied, though I dare say his tone lacked resolve.

“My, but yes,” Alex insisted, his voice growing soft with, I guess, his own worried recollection. “You got to, now, or didn’t we both know sparks were flying between us from the first minute?” Alex was running his right hand over
Korby, feeling him through his clothes, pulling at them, the shirt up above the beltline now to press skin, holding the boy close with his left hand. It was the perfect actors’ scene: no director needed. Even the audience was superfluous.

“And didn’t you tantalize me,” Alex went on, as
Korby kept moving his head around to gaze up at him, “with that all-day tick-tock of being so nice to look at and talk to, ekcetera? A tasty dish like you? Huh? Didn’t you? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?,” grabbing Korby ever more tightly at each
Huh
till their heads were at even height and Alex, out of words, swayed with the boy on the verge of something, like a drunk captivated with the memory of once having been coherent.

“Come to daddy,” whispered Davey-Boy, next to me. He seemed as captivated as everyone else in the class. The truest top man is the one who can pronounce those words with confidence, don’t you think? That’s what I call
acting
.

Then Alex straightened up and looked at us all, and
Korby turned, put his arms around Alex, and held on. Korby doesn’t care—or know—what this is about. He hasn’t heard of the demanding older guy in Alex’s apartment, of the bartending and unemployment lines that interfere with your living, of the roles Alex plays. Korby just likes Alex; everybody does. A handsome man will save you from ekcetera.

“It’s a role in your life,” Alex suddenly announced, absently stroking
Korby’s hair. “And he can’t take anything away from you.”

“As the lights fade on that touching scene,” cried Tom-Tom, jumping up to start the applause. It was the biggest I ever heard in the class, almost an ovation. “
Merci, vachement
, to guest Alex and the faithful Korby, though I wonder what happened to the police detective doing an arrest. Now, who else wants to improv?”

Nobody moved, perhaps especially the two actors on stage.
Korby clung to Alex, occasionally perfecting his grip as if trying to climb inside him.

“I’ll give him credit for the fancy rap,” Davey-Boy told me. “But what an exhibitionist.”

“Look who’s talking,” I replied. Davey-Boy was in a stoker’s white mesh top and jeans with most of the buttons missing.

The stillness of the scene was finally broken when Alex gently disengaged himself from
Korby saying, “Thank you for your support.” You know, as in Best Supporting Boyhunk. Korby hovered as Alex picked up his clothes and then came down to Davey-Boy and me. Those in the audience turned to their neighbors to launch the ritual gay critique of the performance while reengaging with their pizza slices. Some remembered to hand their crusts to Tom-Tom, who regards them as a delicacy.

Cosgrove came over, too, to pat Alex on the head, a strangely endearing gesture, especially as Alex has a good six inches over Cosgrove in height.

“Aren’t you going to get dressed?” Cosgrove asked Alex.

He wasn’t, it seemed. Sinking into a chair, he concentrated on looking drained and distant.

“At least put on a sombrero,” I suggested.

In reply, Alex winked. Not the most secure or reassuring of winks, however. Not a facetious wink.

Cosgrove murmured, “‘Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.’”

Now
Korby drifted up to tell us how awesome it had been, and Alex started putting his clothes on, slowly, then faster, then fast enough to challenge time travel. This is what comes of those quick changes behind the scenes.