SIX
I’D FIRST MET ALEX on a cold January day in Barnes & Noble, at 22nd and Sixth Avenue. I’d never been in that bookstore before, but Alex spent many hours a week there. It wasn’t like any bookstore I’d ever seen. There were easy chairs all over, desks you could work at, even an upstairs espresso bar.
I’d gone there to listen to a new George Michael CD. Alex usually sat in the music section. We struck up a conversation, and he handed me a headset and told me to listen. It was an Elvis Costello song—“Almost Blue”—sung in this strange, husky voice Alex said was an old jazz singer named Chet Baker.
After that we sat there talking and drinking espresso. When I got to know him, I got to know places in New York I’d never heard of. Even though Alex’s apartment on Avenue A was a dump, he made up for it by finding great places to hang out all over the city—Roosevelt Island, for one.
We headed there that Sunday I was in from East Hampton.
It is smack in the middle of the East River. We caught a tram on Second Avenue between East 59th and 60th. Then we took one of the old red buses out to Lighthouse Park.
We had a picnic there, thumbed through the Sunday Times, and played chess. I think chess was the only thing I ever taught Alex.
Before we headed back, we took a walk on the island’s west side, to get a view of the Manhattan skyline.
That was when we ran into Scott Lund.
He was walking ahead of us. I’d noticed him before Alex called his name. He had a white shirt on, buttoned at the wrists, with a polka-dot silk scarf under it. Something about him—everything about him, from his walk to his tight, tight pants—made me know he was gay. But he had his arm around a woman in a red dress, and he was bending down to kiss her, while she gave him this adoring look.
I was just about to whisper to Alex, “Get her!”—and I wouldn’t have meant the lady in red.
“Scotty!” Alex called out to him.
“Alex! Alex Southgate! Come say hello to Maggie!”
He waited for us to catch up.
Alex introduced me, and we stood there chatting for a while.
He was an actor too, a lot older than Alex, starring in a Pinter revival that summer.
“Of all places to run into each other!” Scott gave Alex a friendly slap on the arm. “I’ll tell Zack I saw you, Alex. Delighted to meet you, Lang!”
After we left them, Alex said, “That’s his beard. He never goes anyplace without her.”
“What’s a beard?”
“She’s his disguise. With her, he passes as straight.”
“Oh, sure. And I’m Dolly Parton.”
“He tries, poor old Scotty. She lives across the hall from Zack and him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Scotty with Zack in public.”
“What’s in it for her?”
“Oh, she gets to be seen with a famous actor. I don’t know, Lang. She’s crazy about him.”
“A fag hag.” I’d heard there were females who glommed onto gay guys.
“I think Scotty adores her, too, in his way.”
“I think Scotty adores looking straight…only he can’t pull it off.”
“Some old fairies cope that way. The theater used to be filled with them. Some even marry.”
“In name only.”
“Some. Some not. Some have children.”
“But they’re not really bisexual. I think people who claim to be bisexual just can’t admit they’re queer. It’s easier to say you’re bi. That makes you halfway straight.”
“I know gays of both sexes who’ve had heterosexual affairs.”
“Actors. Acting.”
Alex said, “People. Loving. Everything isn’t as black and white as you make it. You’re gay and I’m gay, but look at someone like Madonna.”
“She’s omnisexual,” I said.
Alex laughed.
I watched Scotty mince along in the distance. I knew that walk. I’d seen comedians imitate it, for laughs.
I said, “Scotty’s the kind of fairy that ruins it for the rest of us.”
“No, Lang. Guys like Scotty got ruined. They didn’t do the ruining. People are the way they are because of the way things were in their day…. Look at your friend Nevada.”
“What about him?”
“The druggy seventies did him in. All those young rock stars were on some kind of dope.”
“Some of them still are.”
“And some of us still swish around. Don’t try to make everyone fit a mold. Wasn’t that the gist of one of Nevada’s songs?”
I shook my head. “Everybody knows his songs but me.”
Alex said, “It goes:
“If you make yourself me
Then I might set you free
Then I might let you be
Then you might let me see
That you’ve turned into me.
It’s called ‘Dad’s Advice.’”
“I remember. ‘If my lies you believe, Then I might let you breathe.’”
“His songs are filled with Daddy, when they’re not about Cali.”
“What else do you know about him?”
“Hey, I thought you didn’t like my star gossip. It’s too faggy, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you tell me?”
“This is different. I’m right there at his place.”
Alex said, “Don’t get blown away by the winds of Roundelay.” He laughed. “Sounds like a song.”
SEVEN
THAT NIGHT WHEN I got in, my mother handed me a sealed envelope.
Printed up in the space for the return address, in gold letters, was:
B. L. N.
Roundelay
Ocean Road
East Hampton, New York 11937
My name was written across the front.
“Hurry up and open it!” my mother said.
B. L. N., again, in gold, at the top of thick cream-colored paper.
I read it aloud:
Lang,
Please come up to Roundelay tomorrow at noon.
I’ll give you lunch.
Use the back walk leading to
the terrace.
I’ll meet you out there.
Ben Nevada
“I wonder what he wants,” Mom said.
“We know what he doesn’t want. He doesn’t want me in the house.”
Mom shrugged. “Why should he? I’m not in Roundelay that much myself. You had a phone call, too. Brittany’s in Sag Harbor. She said she’d be up late tonight, to call her. The number’s written down on the pad by the
