---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Queer-e Vol. 1 no. 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Tom Epps [Tom_J._Epps@ucsi.com] __________________________________________________ Copyright (c) 1995 by Author, all rights reserved. This text may be freely shared among individuals, but it may not be republished in any medium without express written consent from the authors and advance notification of the editors of Queer-e . ------------------------------------------------------ Whitehalle: A Short Story That summer's light wasn't golden. The humidity and haze rendered it pale, although the sky refused to rain. The heat was so wet that occasionally droplets would sweat directly from the air to the skin. The only way to endure was to keep moving or to stay inside. Our indoors was an abandoned club in an old townhouse. In the 70's, guys lined up from its third-floor disco to its first-floor bar and out the door, to halfway down the block. During the 80's a transvestite promoted the place. Sales plunged along with the necklines. Drag queens might fill the expectations of the straight world, but not what most gay boys want in jerk-off dreams. The 90's saw a male strip sideshow take the tourists and turn tricks. Then some john got stabbed in the toilet downstairs. The place closed that winter. Next, some heavy money set it up as an after-hours club, unrestricted, unlicensed, and popular as hell. I got a job there. With one red light and a hyperactive heater, the top floor became "the hot room." The rest of the building was dark except for the street lights. We only opened after hours. My job was to collect a $2 admission. Customers got all the beer they could drink and all the ass they could eat. I poured the beer. Everywhere were men. Mostly tired drunks or nighthawks, groping and grunting. Sometimes, some, with shit-eating chagrin, would ask me to say they were good. I assured them. No one ever asked for the john. Three weeks into the job, I still couldn't figure out what these upstanding members did with all that beer. That night I was ready to burst from my own share as most of pipes had done already. The house did have bathtubs left over from when it had been a home about a hundred years before. As I went searching for relief, I hoped the tub plumbing was still intact. I walked back through the action in the red room, then felt my way around into the room by the back stairs. I edged up in the dimness to the porcelain lip and unzipped. From the barely lit gloom of the tub, a hand reached up and I well, talk about piss your pants with fright. I couldn't stop the flow by then. Instead, I wrote my name with it. When the the club got too popular, the mob shut it down for good. I didn't miss it much. I kept the keys and we got our hideout. Tonight, we were creeping into our little hidey hole, because tonight was the execution. Earlier that summer, a 24-year-old secretary had been raped and then beaten to death. The police arrested William Whitehalle. He became an icon for the urban devil dog that politicians bite to make the 10 o'clock news. His public defender pointed out that Whitehalle was not likely to rape a woman. At the time of the crime his client's mouth had been full in the backroom of a dirty bookstore. Too bad the defense could procure neither witnesses nor Whitehalle's public admission to being homo. Maybe Whitehalle thought murder the lesser evil. Maybe he couldn't think clearly. Maybe he'd known nothing but prisons. Whatever his convictions, Whitehalle chose to risk his life at trial rather than say he sucked cock. The judge sentenced Whitehalle to die. Local gay activists split between those whose irony melted in outrage and those who delayed solidarity for consensus on the color of ribbon to wear. Unfortunately, every color the latter considered seemed to clash with their other agendas. My friends and I had our own agenda on the justice that called us a crime. Our preferred spree was to violate section 23 of the penal code. We had no choice. The breeders did, they'd exluded themselves. We were evening things up. The laws we broke were not about too testy glands or too few days with dad. If the law had its way, it would break us, for choosing not to stretch our skins to fit some others' bones. Whitehalle had stretched his skin taut as a target. All of his life, he had wanted to die rather than be a cocksucker. He was dying to fit into his little cell, where lies were legal but choices weren't. None of us were big on jobs that required too much lying to fit in, just something that paid and was out of the sun. Except Riley, he was a bike courier. With nightfall, and some relief from the heat, we came to life. With only so many locales allowed and mostly the same habits, we usually found ourselves together. From crinoline to leather, everyone around us seemed to be talking about Whitehalle. Why not? Nothing on TV was as lurid and even the hate wave of the AIDS backlash wasn't as scary. We'd rehashed Whitehalle ourselves until I was sick of it. Whitehalle was a rapist. Whitehalle was bi. Whitehalle was getting raped. Who cared? The important thing was whether a homo by choice or by chance--or whether Whitehalle was one at all--without his right to choose, he was dead. Whitehalle's appeal had not gone very far. The political climate had been hot enough to fry a deviate on the sidewalk. The last two days' news showed the people who wanted him dead and the people who didn't, hitting each other with placards and selling T-shirts. Tonight at twelve he would die, protesters and protestations aside. The media held watch, too, ghoulish children watching an ant smoke under a magnifying glass, solemn pretenders to knowledge. Maybe coincidence was getting us together or maybe the instinct that tells a badger when to go to ground. I got there first hoping Tim might show up early, and I'd get to spend some time with him. I like Tim. I like his fingers on my neck when he's rubbing it, like he sometimes does. Hell, five minutes of that and the pre-cum's on like a faucet. But he can have anybody he wants. He does it for a living. He's a whore. I mean, he hustles. Sometimes, I think it's going to be like in the movies, I'm going to pull him close and kiss his mouth until he won't ever want anyone else. Then I'll take good care of him and love him, man, just love him. Except that the movies have scripts and you already know who's going to say what and fall in love. I don't know the script for Tim. I don't even want to know. Life isn't like the movies. I've been in the ground a long, long time, and I'm staying. Then Riley came in with a small bag of ice. He's one of those dark, hairy guys who doesn't have to say much. Handsome, he was built solid with round muscles all over, including a big one in his crotch. Word had gotten around that he could never settle down. That made him especially attractive to those guys who dream of spreading wide for some serious fantasy. He helped me carry up the beer from its hiding place downstairs. In the empty, still heat, our sweat trickled down intimate clefts of muscle. When we finished, we sat down for a smoke. Riley likes cigars. After a while, Jimmie comes up the stairs carrying his boombox. Cute little Jimmy hiding under whatever eurotrash outfit cost the most that week and long shaggy hair on steroid mousse. Jimmie is also mile-a-minute bullshit, a puppy with two rubber balls. Tonight, though, he was doing his little doggy lost, which meant he'd need more petting than usual. Next, Tim finally showed up and my best buddy, the Spudster. The setting sun, enormous now through the windows, made their bodies vivid with an alien red. Tim telling a story about one of the massages he gives to visiting salesman who don't want to leave their expense-account rooms for a handjob. Tim usually doesn't talk that much. He's quiet, almost like he's sad. You'd never notice him unless you knew him. Spud does data entry, even though he's really smart and makes good jokes. I used to have the hots for him, except that he gets severely serious when you're having sex, and I like him better when he's making jokes. Jimmie was getting excited about some deal. "Is it all right if Cooper comes tonight? He wants to take some pictures of us all together for _Comrades in Arms_ magazine." "In the all together?" Spud's never one to leave any pun interred. "It's not pornography, it's art." I mimicked Cooper's snooty drawl. "They're not naked men. They're nudes." "Quick, what's the difference between pornography and art?" demanded Spud. "Faggot can't get the real thing," Riley grumbled. "What'd you invite that little queer for?" "He only wanted to get some pictures of us," Jimmie wheedled. "I bet he doesn't even expect them naked." "About four inches." Spud's rimshot punctuated the argument. "Always hot to get our snapshots," said Tim. "Wanted me for his 'Sensual Shadows' show. Turned him down." Wiping away sweat, he smeared dust in its place. "Don't even think he's gay. Just wants to piss his old man off pretending." Riley was smiling that smile. "Maybe he'll want to play with us. We could play nice with the nice pretty boy. Just stick a gym sock in his mouth to shut him up first." "He's just gay because it's cool in the clubs," I said. 'If he was a woman he'd be a faghag." "I'm sorry. He wanted a group for this. I didn't think you guys would mind." Bow-wow, Jimmy. "I bet he'd be all right." "When we want your opinion...," Riley began. "...we'll give it to you," Tim finished. "Don't worry about it, Jimmie. It's okay," Tim was trying to reassure him, but he didn't sound certain himself. Iwwondered if something was wrong, but I wasn't going to ask. I hear all about that co-dependent stuff and it's supposed to be worse than trying to be in love. Spud suggested that we might end up taking his photo. "Let's put him in the bathtub." Riley's smile got wider. Jimmie, knowing he'd won, wagged his tail and went for the bone, "I can tell Cooper not to come." "Fine. We'll make him some pictures," I announced. "As if I'm getting a boner just thinking about it." "You wish," said Spud. "No. You wish." "Don't have to wish. I got mine." "No. You wish you had mine." We'd hung around with each other for a long time. At some time or another, most of us had made it with each other as well. In the heat of that summer we'd gotten used to stripping off our t-shirts and our jeans, if they weren't shorts. This led to a little grab-ass now and then. One night, Jimmie stripped all the way after a few beers, and Riley coaxed him into beating off while he held him in his lap. After that, we'd sometimes declare a strip night where everything came off including, and especially, Spud's boxer shorts. Then we'd get into wrestling. Whatever. Some J.O. With all the dust and the beer and the sweat, we'd emerge from the building next morning dirty as miners fresh from the shaft. Right now, Spud was playing his lounge act. He turned on the radio and grabbed an imaginary microphone. "Gerbils and laddies, tonight will come Cooper's amazing camera, and maybe Cooper, too. In honor, I declare our all-you-can-eat special, Get Naked Night." Sweat tickled absently at the hollow of my throat and the small of my back. "Sweet," said Jimmie, already starting to slide out of his slacks. "We'll be all ready for Cooper." "Then what's the hurry if we're going to do it anyway." Riley sat back against the wall. "If we've got to do it"--"If we're going to do it," Riley interrupted--"If we're going to do it," Tim continued, "might as well get done." "C'mon, Riley, let's see that bubble butt of yours," Spud cheered gaily, egging us on. "Better than that whale blubber butt you got." Riley bent his knee and started pulling at the laces on his boots. The space between his baggy shorts and beefy thigh was a dark cavern to the top of his leg. Damp blots there and beneath his pits promised pungency. After a moment, Tim began opening the buttons on his shirt. Spud was in the middle of the room, red and sweaty, with his boxers and Bermudas around his ankles, laughing like some porno Pagliacci. Jimmie hopped around next to him trying to get his pants off over his shoes. Underwear always feels too tight to me, so I don't wear it unless the pants I've got on are too loose to keep my balls from flopping. I'd previously dispensed with my shoes and jeans and now pulled off my socks. Just as I started pulling my shirt over my head, we heard someone coming up the stairs. "Uh, hello gentlemen." His long hair was brillo that he'd bullied into blonde. Wet beads sat along his hairline. It was Cooper, wearing long jeans, long sleeves, long boots, all black. Only chics and junkies dressed like Cooper in a summer hot as that. "Cooper." "Hi." "Hear you're going to take some snapshots." "You know everybody, don't you, Cooper," offered Jimmie. Cooper ignored him. "I thought we might do some group shots of you gentlemen. You know, a visual vigil, to really document the gay community as a protest to the Whitehalle thing." Some quaver in his voice delivered this bullshit with less righteousness than usual. "Yeah, we're protesting Whitehalle all right," I said, bored with the glad-handing. "Have a beer," Tim offered Spud wouldn't stand for boredom. "I'll bet you didn't know your photos would be oh-so photogenic." "What?" Cooper asked, kind of like all really blase you know. Tim explained, very slowly, "Us. No clothes. Your snapshots." "You're getting the super-duper special tonight," Spud continued. "Do you want a beer?" Jimmie asked Cooper. Then, to us, "We have cold beer. Is it all right if he has a beer?" "Get me one, too," Riley ordered. "Get everybody one." Dust danced in the washed-out drapes of retiring light. The day diminished. Left behind was only its torpor, bruised and thick as a magnolia. We drank our beers while Cooper set up his camera and the battery packs then helped him set up the lights. He concentrated on each little detail, never looking up. I tried to decide whether he was being careful or was stricken shy by so much swinging meat. Was that what I'd heard in his voice earlier? Cooper embarrassed by what he wanted? Jimmie popped new beers for himself and for Riley and me. Then Mr. DeMille was ready for our close-ups. "Tim, could you take off your watch? It's inappropriate for the shots. James, why don't you stand with your back to Riley. And put the beer can down." Jimmie looked put out, then shrugged, chugged his beer, and tossed the can into darkness. In the hot flood of spotlights we sweltered, limned in gleaming sweat by their glare. Tim was so white. Smooth. Not what I usually went after. I wanted to be in the shots with him. He looked so tired. "Riley, would you lean in a little closer and put your leg up on the box? Denny, could you turn your left hip toward me?" Cooper was intent now, the quiver gone. I admired his control. We posed him a couple of group pictures. Art crap black-and-whites, function fucking form, so the audience can pretend it's looking at flowers. We took a break. The beers weren't so cold anymore, but they were still wet. I stood next to Tim while we rested. I still wanted to talk to him. Riley came over and put his arms around Tim from behind. Tim tensed. Sometimes I hated Riley. "Leave him alone, Riley. It's too hot for that shit." "What'd you do, make him your punk?" Riley snarled. He grabbed Tim's hips and lunged into a sweaty grind. "It's okay, Denny." TIm said this while he looked right into my eyes and untangled himself from Riley. Maybe he was trying to tell me something and maybe he wasn't, but it wasn't okay, and right then I hated Tim, too. It should have been my arms around him. "What I'd like to also do, if you gentlemen will help me," suddenly I could hear Cooper droning, "is a series of tableaux." "Blow what?" Riley asked with a snort. "Some shots I have in mind," Cooper explained, clearly out of patience. "with more intimate themes." "You mean vig-uals for the Whitezit vigil thing," Jimmie was getting slurry. "Yes, that's it exactly, James. I think they will help establish a powerful resonance for the overall political impact." Cooper was out of patience but clearly still hungry. "Don't know about that if you want porno. Who's going to see this stuff?" Tim wasn't exactly into this part. Funny, I mean, considering his job and all. "I don't do pornography." Cooper huffed. Riley was into it. "Relax, he don't want your face, just your tired old cock." "Four inches," Spud laughed. Who else? "Cooper means he wants some grope photos instead of some group photos." Spud's very helpful with the explanations, too. "Yeah, I got it." Tim grimaced, or maybe it was just the light. "Just like the agency. Head shots, not headshots." Tim and I were up first. Slippery and gritty, I held him, lifted him, carried him. Kissed him. Touched him everywhere. He touched me. Cooper loved it. I know while we mocked intimacy that Tim was just going through the paces like he must do all the time for all those tricks he turns. I hated that he treated himself like meat on a spit. I wanted to pull him into me, to keep him safe in that hole in my chest. I tried to show him while we were posing that he was special; but it was lousy timing, in a lousy place. I decided to hell with Tim, and with Riley, too. Outside was hell, and if inside here was hell, too, well, it was where I was. You can't make people feel things. They either do or they don't. Just mind your own business. Don't think about it and don't let them make you feel things that don't do you any good because they're not going to happen anyway. Just keep your hole shut and have a good time. So we all posed a whole lot more. For one of them, Riley kept trying to get Jimmie's legs up over his shoulders to fuck him, but Jimmie kept farting on him. "God, that was rank." "I can't help it," Jimmie was giggling. Spud kept egging him on. "Way to go, Jimmie. See if you can play 'God Save the Queen' in beer flat." We were all getting rowdy. Hanging hard. Although Tim didn't seem to be either. So what? Jimmie made up for him. He'd conked out with his face in Riley's crotch. We were all as silly. From being tired as much as from the beer. Every shot had taken at least ten minutes, posing and lighting. It's exhausting after a while. Cooper clicked off the last floodlight. "Well, gentlemen," he looked at his watch. "I want to thank you all. I think we have some very good work here. Please, my regards to James for inviting me. I must get downtown to an appointment before the bars close." "How late is it?" asked Tim. "It's almost two." "We missed Whitehalle." I said. "Thought the bastard might finally s peak up. Tell us whatever he is. Tell us nobody can tell him he's not." Jimmie woke up. "We missed it? Why didn't you tell us?" He rolled away from Riley, brushing sleep from his face. "Wasn't this supposed to be all about Whitehalle?" I accused Cooper. "Look, I was concentrating on the camera." "Yeah, concentrating it on our cocks." That was Riley. "This protest gay enough for you," he said, grabbing himself. "Riley, your protest is so glamorous," said Spud, trying to smooth things over, "that I'm ready to do some shooting myself." "Pictures at an Execution's not what's running at your mag this month?' I asked Cooper. "Pictures of exhibitionists is more like it," continued Spud, shaking his dick like some demented satyr. I'd had it. "Get the fuck out of here before we tell your father that you're actually straight." "Yeah," Riley snarled, "I want your shit out of here, or else on the end of my cock." "Here, I'll help you carry your stuff down," offered Spud. They got going. I scooted over to Riley. His beer can was in his crotch, cooling off his balls. "What's up?" he asked. "You see that pig bitch run?" Blue twisted into white in the light from the street as Riley's cigar smoke lent a bass note to the sharp stink of hops and sweat. "Just thinking about this empty old place and all the time we've spent in it." "Yeah? Good times. Right?" "Sure, but I hate going home by myself tonight," I said. "Yeah, my meat's achin' too. You'll find somebody," was his answer. I got up to find the bathtub. The swollen heat stuck to me with ardor. "I'm going to take a leak." "Don't hurry.' I wandered down the hall. Back stairs. Feeling my way through the shadows. The dark burned inside me. Quickened the dead heat of the gloom beyond. This place, and all the time I'd spent in it, hurt now. I walked over to the window. Outside, the parking lot and its dumpsters burned orange under one of those sodium megalamps. The ache of all those years recalled my old girlfriend Kay next to her best friend Angie, who had died of a long ago overdose. Angie was so sad, and Kay had her arm around her. My fist clenched and I slammed the casement. The vision faded gently; then mine got blurry as I started to cry. "Denny?" Startled, I looked around. It was Tim. "What's wrong?" "Nothing." "What's wrong?" he asked me again. "It's not the meat that aches." Wordlessly he put his arms around me, comforting a child in tears. "Tim?" "I got you" "I don't want to be..." "It's okay. Okay?" We slid down to the floor and I leaned up against him, grimy with weary grief. I let out a sigh, and took a deep breath. "It's the motion, Tim." "If you gotta get movin', get movin'. You say motion or emotion?" I think I surprised him then. I know I surprised myself when I pulled his face down to mine and kissed him, tears and sweat and dust and us all one. I kissed him harder, until I felt my heart beating, so hard my whole chest filled to bursting. Here he was holding me, instead of me holding him. Soothing me with soft murmurs, his hand on my heart. After a long while--maybe I slept--he asked if I was okay. I nodded. "Was sick of all the bullshit." "I know, man. Cooper tonight, taking pictures." "That's not it." "Is for me. Cooper bugs his dad claiming to be gay. Cooper's dad could bug him worse." "Guilt trip?" "Sort of. Keep a secret?" "Sure, if you trust me." "His dad's one of the guys I do. Ever sees Cooper's pictures, I'm screwed." "Why?" "He'll freak. Think we're going to tell someone." "Or worse," I laughed, "he'll love it." "Can always say I'm busy." We sat that way awhile, Tim just holding me. Finally, I got up, saying, "I really got to go pee." "Okay, man. See you back inside." As I inched my way up to the bathtub I thought of that hand, so long ago. Only this time, there was no one in the tub, just my hot urine splashing down the drain. Hot tears sting more than sweat. I rubbed my eyes. When I got back, Jimmie was trying to get into his clothes. I could see Spud's back standing, a dim white in the shadows of the far corner, his butt pumping strenuously. The hairy arms wrapped around his waist were Riley's. "Wasn't that cool tonight? We're going to be famous." Jimmie was wide awake now. "Cooper told me he'd make some prints for us." "It was cool, Jimmie." I meant it for his sake. "Tim gave this to me to give to you. He told me not to forget. I didn't forget." Jimmie handed me a note. Folded inside was a blue flower. One of those weeds that grows by the sidewalk. I took the note over to the front window to see what it said. Nothing on it, just a smear of green from where the flower had been. Outside, a cool rain fell through the early light.