Prettyboy

30: Prologue

Part II of II:

Invitation To The Tainted Blues

It seems like he's everywhere when spring comes, this time around.

See, he's there: drinking his coffee at the nearest coffee shop, reading the news. Or he's under a sycamore tree, going about his work, reviewing new releases. Or, even when it's raining, he's at the bus stop, smoking and waiting, motionless until he decides to wave at the familiar old lady across the street. I swear to whatever I have left sacred, he is there. 

Though, I suppose, all of the above would be lies. I hold nothing sacred. And I know he's not there, because, when I approach, he does not seem pleased to see me, in the slightest. 

No, he's not there. In fact, he's everywhere; he's the whisper as a gust of wind whistles by. He's the car whisking by, he's the tree blossoming, he's decay all around the world. 

But who would be a fool to kid themselves like I am doing? He is probably nowhere to find. I know he is nowhere to find.

And if there is one thing I have come to realize, writing this far, then h e's the reason 'I do' and the reason 'I don't'.

And I strove. I strove, I tell you, to realize: he was always and yet never mine.

***

Once I had hailed a cab, I realized I wanted to be left alone with my thoughts outside of a vehicle and told the driver to pull over a few blocks down. I heard music coming from the subway and descended to take the alternative, as the commotion was slowly pulling me in. I decided to take the A train to the Village; I knew I should have taken line 1 but before I had the time to brood it over, I was on the train, hanging by a pole, watching some altercation progress at the other end of the car. By the time I had to get off at the next stop, one kid was threatening to pull a switchblade at the other, and the other was biding his time huffing and puffing. 

When I approached my destination, I found that the place was too crowded for me to get an actual close shot of the Stonewall Inn. I suppose I underestimated the magnitude of the event, which was an actual, burgeoning riot, so what I had in mind was thwarted. Nevertheless, I had the intention of snapping a picture of the clamor, imagining that future generations would one day look back at the event. That's what always has astonished me with photography; unlike other arts, it is realism at its pinnacle. When during the Great War the people of the home front were showed pictures of the combat zone, their perceptions changed entirely. I kept my handy Polaroid away from the public eye inside my jacket, in case anybody thought I was some journalist with the intention of pouring scorn on their efforts. I was on Christopher Street, then, looking around for any familiar faces. "Hey," somebody called to me, tapping my shoulder, "if anybody asks, you tell 'em this was organized by the Students for a Democratic Society. 'Kay, fella?" I laughed.

Swarming the place were mostly specific kinds of the people. There were queens, hustlers, street people and mostly youths. Then there were curious wide-eyed middle aged people, even tourists snapping photographs. But nobody minded their presence, because they were serving a purpose, whether they liked it or were privy to it. They were forming a crowd. Anybody who identified me and attempted to draw attention to me I solely ignored at the purpose of being righteous. It was not about me as an individual, that night. 

At some point, I caught a glimpse of my friend, Paul Ferro. I was not surprised, as I knew he could not afford to be absent from the racket. And sure, I was not taken aback either when I noticed Allen Ginsberg someplace. He was gleeful and chatty with someone else. It really felt like a party—with half the people terrified, of course, either by the emerging fires in garbage cans, or the climbing street queen throwing stuff from up a lamppost, or perhaps the yelling, as there was yelling. It was a riot. Officially. Still, I was not sure if my decision of coming had been a good idea. I felt out of place. I was fine with finally considering myself a homosexual, overt in my close-circle but I did not exactly have the riot in me. And excluding myself from this community I thought was not congenial. Especially at that point, because, by then, I had more often been told to come out with it than to keep it down. Mainly and most profoundly, Robert advised me to do so.