Further Tales of the City Read online

  “I see.”

  “I thought you might, darling.” Victoria giggled conspiratorially. “God, isn’t it fabulous? We’ll get to donate our old gowns and everything. Plus Wolfgang can make marvelous paste imitations of your emeralds, and … well, I’m just positive we can raise the money in no time.”

  “Have you talked to Denise yet?”

  Victoria chuckled. “I’m way ahead of you, Prudy Sue. I think she’s good for fifty thousand, if we put her in the international wing. Ditto Ann Getty. That one may be a little tougher to pull off unless we stack the board of directors, but what-the-hell, we’ll stack the board of directors.”

  Prue finally managed a laugh. “You haven’t told Shugie Sussman, have you?”

  “God no! We hadn’t planned on a Chamber of Horrors, darling! On second thought, let’s do—have you seen Kitty Cipriani’s latest facelift?”

  Prue laughed even louder this time. Then she said: “Oh Vicky, thank you! I’ve needed to laugh more than anything. I’ve been so depressed over Vuitton.”

  “Over …? Oh, your dog.”

  “It’s been almost two weeks now. The Park & Rec people haven’t seen him anywhere. I don’t know what to do except …” Prue’s voice trailed off as the melancholy swept over her again.

  “Except what, Prudy Sue.”

  “Well … I thought I might go back to the park and … wait for him.”

  “That’s an awfully long shot, isn’t it. I mean, two weeks, Prudy Sue. It’s not very likely that he’s still …”

  “I know he’s there, Vicky. I can feel it in my bones. I know he’ll come back to me, if I give him the chance.”

  Even as she spoke, Prue knew how she sounded. She sounded like poor old Frannie Halcyon, still believing against preposterous odds that her long-lost daughter would return from the jungles of Guyana.

  But stranger things had happened.

  No Big Deal

  ON HIS WAY HOME FROM PERRY’S, BRIAN STOPPED AT a garage sale on Union Street and bought an antique Peter, Paul & Mary album for a quarter.

  Also available: two Shelley Berman albums, an early Limelighters album featuring Glenn Yarborough, and the soundtracks of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Mondo Cane, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

  Somebody’s youth, in other words.

  There was nothing like a stack of dog-eared record albums to remind you that the past was just so much dead weight, excess baggage to be cast overboard when the sailing got tougher. Or so Brian told himself.

  Nevertheless, he lit a joint upon returning to Barbary Lane and crooned along euphorically while PP&M sang “If I Had a Hammer,” “Five Hundred Miles” and “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

  Had it really been eighteen years—Christ, half his life!—since Nelson Schwab had cornered him during Hell Week at the Deke House to impart the privileged information that “Puff” was really an underground parable about—no shit!—smoking marijuana?

  Yep, it really had.

  He fell into a black funk, then snatched the record off the turntable and shattered it with the hammer he kept in the tool box under the kitchen sink. Inexcusable symbolism, but somehow richly satisfying.

  So much for the iron grip of the past.

  Now, what about the present?

  The Chronicle “help wanted” ads were so dismal that Brian postponed any immediate career decisions and trekked downstairs to help Mrs. Madrigal plan Mary Ann’s birthday party. He found the landlady installing a Roach Motel in a dark corner of her pantry.

  Looking up, she smiled defeatedly. “I told myself I would never buy one of these dreadful things. Those TV commercials seem so sadistic. Still, we can’t love absolutely all of God’s creatures, can we? They haven’t found their way up to your place, I hope?”

  Brian shook his head. “The altitude’s too much for ’em.”

  Mrs. Madrigal stood up, wiping her hands against each other as if they were sticky with blood. She cast a final glance at the grisly Motel, shuddered, and took Brian’s arm. “Let’s go sit in the sunshine, dear. I feel like Anthony Perkins waiting for Janet Leigh to check in.”

  Out in the courtyard, she ticked off a list of prospective delights for Mary Ann’s upcoming celebration: “A nice roast of some sort with those baby carrots that she likes … and some ice cream from Gelato, of course, to go with the birthday cake. And … well, I guess it’s about time for Barbara Stanwyck, isn’t it?”

  “A movie?” asked Brian.

  Mrs. Madrigal clucked her tongue at him. “Miss Stanwyck, my dear boy, is my heartiest specimen yet.” She pointed to the edge of the courtyard where a sensemilla plant as big as a Christmas tree was undulating softly in the warm spring breeze.

  Brian whistled in appreciation. “That stuff knocks your socks off.”

  The landlady smiled modestly. “I didn’t name her Barbara Stanwyck for nothing.”

  They previewed Miss Stanwyck. Then they wandered down the hill to Washington Square and sat on a bench in the sunshine, docile and groggy as a couple of aging house cats.

  After a long silence, Brian said: “Does she ever talk to you about me?”

  “Who? Mrs. Onassis?”

  Brian smiled languidly. “You know.”

  “Well …” Mrs. Madrigal chewed her lower lip. “Only about your extraordinary sexual prowess, that sort of thing … nothing really personal.”

  Brian laughed. “That’s a relief.”

  The landlady’s Wedgwood saucer eyes fixed on him lovingly. “She cares about you a great deal, young man.”

  Brian tore up a tuft of grass and began to shred it. “She told you that, huh?”

  “Well … not in so many words …”

  “It only takes three.” His voice was tinged with doubt, more than he wanted to show. “I don’t know,” he added hastily, “maybe it’s just her work or something. She’s so obsessed with becoming a reporter that nothing else seems to matter. I don’t know. Screw it. It’s no big deal.”

  Mrs. Madrigal smiled wistfully and brushed the hair off his forehead. “But it is, isn’t it? It’s an awfully big deal.”

  “It wasn’t before,” said Brian.

  The landlady’s eyes widened. “Oh, I know how that can be.”

  “I want this to work out, Mrs. Madrigal. I never wanted anything so bad.”

  “Then you shall have it,” said the landlady. “My children always get what they want.” She gave Brian’s knee a friendly shake.

  “But she’s one of your children,” said Brian. “What if it’s not what she wants?”

  “I expect it will be,” said Mrs. Madrigal, “but you must be patient with her. She’s just now learning how to fly.”

  Ah, Wilderness

  AT LEAST TWICE A YEAR THE SAN FRANCISCO GAY Men’s Chorus made a point of retreating to the wilds of Northern California for a weekend of intensive rehearsals and camping-around-the-campfire camaraderie.

  The “wilds” were always the same: Camp Eisenblatt, a summer camp for Jewish teenagers which leased its sylvan facilities to the one-hundred-fifty-member homosexual choir during the off-seasons. And this season was about as off as it could get.

  “What a pisser!” groaned Michael as he stared out at the driving rain. “I was gonna start on my tan line this weekend.”

  Ned laughed and clipped an olive drab jockstrap to the clothesline strung across one end of the baritones’ bunkhouse. “Cowboys don’t have tan lines,” he said.

  Since the theme of this year’s retreat was “Spring Roundup,” the western motif was in evidence everywhere. Even their name tags were affixed with swatches of cowboy bandannas: red for the first tenors, tan for the second tenors, dark blue for the baritones, dark brown for the basses and royal blue for the nonmusical “chorus widows” who had come along to make sure that their lovers didn’t have too much fun in the redwoods.

  “Just the same,” said Michael. “I liked it better last fall when we had the luau and the eighty-degree weather.”

  “And the sarongs,” added N
ed. “I thought we’d never get you out of that damn thing.”

  Michael inspected his fingernails blithely. “As I recall, there was a first tenor who succeeded.”

  “Well, shift fantasies,” suggested Ned. “Pretend you’re in a real bunkhouse. You’ve just come in from a long, hot cattle drive and the rain is cooling off the livestock.”

  “Right. And my ol’ sidekick Lonesome Ned is about to dry his jockstrap with a blowdryer. Listen, pardner, I don’t know how to break this to you gently, but real bunkhouses don’t have REBECCA is A FAT SLOB written in pink nailpolish on the bathroom wall.”

  Ned smiled lazily. “Jehovah moves in mysterious ways.”

  After a long morning of wrestling with Liszt’s Requiem and Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody, the chorus converged on the Camp Eisenblatt dining hall for a lunch of bologna sandwiches and Kool-Aid.

  Later, Michael and Ned and a dozen of their compatriots gossiped jovially around the fireplace. There were so many different plaids in the great room that it looked like a gathering of the clans.

  “Hey,” said Ned, as he warmed his butt in front of the gas-jet embers. “I almost forgot. I got a call from______this week.”

  “No kidding,” said Michael, his voice ringing with unabashed fandom. It was almost inconceivable that someone he knew got personal phone calls from movie stars. Even if Ned had been this movie star’s lover.

  “He’s royally bummed out,” said Ned. “They canceled the musical he was gonna tour with this summer.”

  “He sings?”

  Ned shrugged. “When you look like that, no one notices.”

  “Tell him to come with us,” offered Michael, meaning the chorus’s own nine city summer tour. “God, wouldn’t that knock ’em dead in Nebraska?”

  “I think he’ll survive,” said Ned. “He still gets two million a picture.”

  Michael whistled. “Where does he spend it?”

  “On his friends mostly. And the house. Wanna see it?”

  “Uh … pardon me?”

  “He invited me down for a weekend. Said to bring a friend. How about it?”

  Michael almost yelped. “Me? Are you serious? Lordy mercy, man! Me at______ ______’s house? Is this for real?”

  Ned nodded, beaming like a father who had just offered his eight-year-old a shot at Disneyland.

  They rode back to the city in Ned’s pickup, carrying six buddies and their bedrolls as cargo.

  The illusion presented was almost redneck—except for the telltale chartreuse crinolines from last night’s Andrews Sisters sketch. And, of course, the three identical auburn wigs on styrofoam stands.

  At a stop sign near the K-Mart in Saratoga, Ned pulled alongside a bronze Barracuda that was draped in pink toilet paper and spray-painted with this legend: JUST MARRIED—SHE GOT HIM TODAY—HE’LL GET HER TONIGHT.

  A whoop went up from the back of the truck.

  The bridegroom, resplendent in a powder blue tuxedo with matching ruffled shirt, cast a nervous glance in their direction, frowned and turned back to his bride. Michael saw the word “fags” form on his lips.

  Rolling the window down, he shouted across at the couple: “Hey!” They were moving again now, but Ned kept the truck even with the car.

  “Yeah?” said the bridegroom.

  “Congratulations!” yelled Michael.

  “Thanks!” shouted the bride, still holding tight to her husband’s free arm.

  “What’s your song?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your song. What is it?”

  The bride beamed. “ ‘We’ve Only Just Begun.’ ”

  Michael hollered to the guys in the back of the truck. “HIT IT, GIRLS!”

  The Andrews Sisters were never lovelier.

  Idol Chatter

  MICHAEL WAITED UNTIL THE FAMILY WAS ASSEMBLED for Mary Ann’s birthday dinner before breaking the news.

  Mary Ann was the most flabbergasted.

  “Now wait just a minute!”

  Michael held up his hand. “Scout’s honor, Babycakes. Ned invited me yesterday.”

  “I’m not questioning that,” said Mary Ann, “but, you mean _____ _____ is gay?”

  “As the proverbial goose,” said Michael. “Hell,” said Brian, sawing off a chunk of pot roast. “Even I knew that. Remember that story about his gay wedding to _______ _______ back about …?”

  “Well, of course I heard that, but …” Mary Ann was almost sputtering; she hated it when her Cleveland naiveté popped up like an overnight zit. “Well, I always thought it was just some sort of … bad joke.”

  “It was a bad joke,” said Michael. “A couple of tired queens in Hermosa Beach or some place sent out party invitations announcing a mock wedding and … the rumor just got started. ______ and ______ were never even lovers. Just friends. They couldn’t be seen in public together after that. It would only confirm the rumor.”

  “Do you always refer to him by his first name?” teased Mary Ann.

  Michael grinned. “Just practicing.”

  Mrs. Madrigal heaped more carrots onto Michael’s plate. “That’s a rather sad story, isn’t it?”

  Michael nodded. “It must’ve been a bitch, staying closeted all these years.”

  “Yeah,” said Brian, his mouth full of pot roast, “but two mil a movie must soften the blow.”

  Mary Ann giggled. “So to speak.”

  Michael’s eyes widened in pseudo-horror. “Well, look who’s getting smutty in her senior years.” Mary Ann stuck her tongue out daintily.

  Mrs. Madrigal stirred her coffee as she stared off into space.

  “_______ _______,” she murmured, intoning the matinee idol’s name as if it were one of Mona’s mantras. “Well, it makes perfect sense. He’s always been a stunning creature. Remember when he took off his shirt in ________?” The landlady heaved a prolonged sigh. “I was quite taken with him when I was a young … whatever.”

  Mrs. Madrigal’s tenants laughed at this playful reference to her veiled past. Then Michael lifted his glass: “Well, here’s to our birthday girl … who’s about to become an old whatever like the rest of us.”

  Mary Ann leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Prick,” she whispered.

  Then she turned to her other side and kissed Brian lightly on the mouth.

  Michael completed the circle by blowing a kiss to Brian.

  Smiling contentedly, Mrs. Madrigal watched the ritual like a doting matchmaker, hands clasped under her chin. “You know,” she said. “You three are my favorite couple.”

  After dinner, the landlady produced a Wedgwood plate of Barbara Stanwyck joints. Then came cake and ice cream and Mary Ann’s presents: a bottle of “Opium” from Brian, a cat-shaped deco pin from Michael, an antique teapot from Mrs. Madrigal.

  “And now,” announced the landlady, “if you gentlemen will kindly excuse us, I would like to do a Tarot reading for Mary Ann.”

  Mary Ann’s eyes danced. “I didn’t know you knew how to do that!”

  “I don’t,” replied Mrs. Madrigal, “but I make up wonderful things.”

  So Brian and Michael retired to the roof, where they watched the bay through the eyes of Miss Stanwyck.

  “You know what?” said Brian.

  “What?” said Michael.

  “She’s right. Mrs. Madrigal, I mean. The three of us do so much stuff together that we’re kinda like a couple.”

  “Yeah. I guess so. That bother you?”

  Brian thought for a moment. “Nah. You’re my friend, Michael. And she’s your friend, and … hell, I don’t know.”

  Michael handed the joint back to Brian. “Lots of people do things in threes here. Check out the audience the next time we go to a play.”

  Brian laughed. “Trisexuals. Isn’t that what you called them?”

  “For want of a better term.”

  Brian laid his arm across Michael’s shoulder. “You know what’s bugging me, Michael?”

  Michael waited.

  “It just bugs the hell ou
t of me that I’ll never be everything she needs.”

  Michael smiled feebly. “I know that one.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You betcha. I busted my butt trying to be everything to one person. Finally, I had to settle for being one thing to every person.”

  “What’s the one thing?”

  Michael hesitated. “Hell, I was hoping you could tell me.” Brian laughed and squeezed his shoulder. “You’re crazy, man.”

  “Maybe that’s it.”

  “I tell you what,” said Brian, looking directly at his friend. “I love you, Michael. I love you like my brother.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  There was a moment, a very brief moment, when their eyes met with unembarrassed affection. Then Michael retrieved the joint and took a hit. “Is your brother cute?” he asked.

  Father Paddy

  HAVING MADE UP HER MIND TO SEARCH THE PARK FOR her missing wolfhound, Prue Giroux spent the morning at Eddie Bauer choosing just the right safari jacket for the job. To her surprise, she encountered one of her Forum regulars in the camping supplies department.

  “Father Paddy!”

  Swinging sharply—so sharply, in fact, that his crucifix grazed Prue’s chest—Father Paddy Starr turned to face his public, flashing the fluorescent grin that had endeared him to thousands of local late-night television viewers.

  “Prue daaarrrllling!” He pecked her once on each cheek, then held her at arm’s length as if to check the merchandise for damage. “What on earth are you doing in this he-man, roughneck place?”

  “I’m looking for a safari jacket. What about you, Father? They don’t make cassocks in khaki, do they?”

  Father Paddy shrieked, then sighed dramatically. “And more’s the pity, my child, more’s the pity! Wouldn’t that be divine? This tired old basic black … year in, year out. It’s truly loathsome. I long for a new dress.”