Love the One You're With Read online

  I hesitated. “Are … you all right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you … all right?” I repeated, more solemn than the first time.

  He knew what I meant.

  He sighed. “I … I had a lump … on my back. Just below my neck. I … had a biopsy. Last December.”

  As my eyes grew large, I inhaled with dread.

  “No, I don’t have cancer,” he assured me.

  I exhaled my relief.

  “But just the idea … it scared the shit out of me. Still does.”

  “So … you … had to go through it alone.”

  “B.D. and Babyface, they were around. And Carl … tried to be.”

  Ah … I’d finally get the lowdown on why they broke up. “He tried to be?”

  “You know how I am. I can’t be the vulnerable one, the needful one. Even after I got beat up …” His voice drops and trails off whenever he brings up the night he was gay-bashed, two summers ago in the Vill. They caught the three punks who did it; they pleaded guilty to a variety of charges, including several counts of aggravated assault and assault with a deadly weapon (they took turns punching and kicking him while one knocked him out with a bottle of Coke he had just purchased at a store), and are each serving a minimum of five years. Because he suffered a concussion, a cracked jaw, a broken nose and right arm, fractured ribs, and a damaged left testicle, he had to take a two-month leave of absence from his position as a publicist at Simply Dope Records to recover. But I know the physical healing happened faster than the emotional.

  He heaved. “I … I let him in, but not all the way. But with something like that I had to and … I just couldn’t put my pride aside.”

  “You mean your ego,” I corrected.

  He frowned. “Thank you for the clarification.” He sighed. “I pushed him away. So, yeah, I kinda went through it alone.”

  I took his hands in mine. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Gene.”

  “Chile, why are you sorry? I’m the one who’s sorry. I let this motor run and almost lost you because of it. You were the one I needed, and when I needed you the most … I had no one but myself to blame you weren’t around, that you didn’t want to be around me. I realized just how much you mean to me. Not having you in my life … I don’t know what I would do.”

  We hugged. Tighter and tighter and tighter. Our shirts were soaked with the other’s tears.

  Then it hit me: This is why I haven’t seen a cigarette in his hand the last two days. He would’ve gone through three packs by now. Last night at dinner with B.D. and tonight at Anita’s, we sat in the smoking section but he didn’t light up.

  “Did you quit?”

  He pulled away. “Ha, sometimes you can be just as slow as that Brain Dense child.”

  I smiled. “How long has it been?”

  “Exactly two months.”

  “Did you join a support group? Are you a patient at a clinic that helps people kick the habit?”

  “Hell no. I just stopped.”

  “Cold turkey?”

  “Yup.”

  “Gene, you’ve been smoking since you were fifteen.”

  “I know. I was there.”

  “You just can’t stop like that.”

  “I can just stop like that. I can do anything, have you forgotten?”

  “Yeah. I guess I have. But given how much you love it and how long you’ve done it … not having one for more than two hours is one thing, but two months? You should’ve exploded or something by now.”

  He giggled. “Yeah, spontaneous combustion. Hell, I ain’t cured. And I still get the craving. But anytime I get really weak, I just remember the pain of them sticking that needle in me.” He gently stroked the upper left part of his back. “No doctor or nurse is ever going to do that to me again.”

  “It wasn’t malignant, but … are you out of the danger zone?”

  “Given my history, the doctor says it’s no wonder my lungs don’t look like the sky on a foggy Frisco day. They’re going to monitor me over the next few months.”

  “Well, if you want me to go with you—”

  “I do.”

  Silence.

  “Why didn’t Babyface and B.D. tell me?”

  “Because it wasn’t their place to tell you. This was something I had to handle. But if it turned out I did have it, I would’ve told Pooquie.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes. When I got that phone call from him last month … he proved that he is worthy of my respect.”

  “He’ll be happy to hear that.”

  “No, he won’t, ’cause you ain’t gonna tell him. He’s still on probation.”

  “Probation?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And when will that be over?”

  “When you two have celebrated your fiftieth anniversary.”

  We laughed.

  “How do you think Babyface and B.D. will feel about your leaving everything to me?”

  “Babyface doesn’t care. He helped me draft it.” He pointed to Babyface’s signature on the document; I didn’t recognize it since I’ve never addressed him by his given name (Courtney Lyons) in the five years I’ve known him. “But I’m sure B.D. will be flabbergasted. He’s always had his eye on my fake mink stole. You can give it to him.”

  “Why don’t you just put it in the will?”

  “Because if I left him something, then everyone else would trip.”

  “Ah. So have everybody angry with me, right?”

  He elbowed me in the side. “You got it.” He leaned against me, his head resting against my neck. “I don’t ever want to be missing you like that again.”

  I lowered my head onto his. “You won’t.”

  4

  ALL NIGHT LONG

  “It’s the only thing—besides you—that could get me to venture into Crooklyn.”

  So says Gene about Body & Soul, a dance held every Sunday night in Brooklyn. I hadn’t attended it in some time. In fact, I haven’t been to a club since Pooquie and I closed a spot called UnderCover up in the Bronx the summer we started seeing each other. (UnderCover is exactly that: a place where all those boyz who are very under cover—including those homiesexuals in hip-hop—can go to jam.) Body & Soul lives up to its name: You don’t come to dance; you come to Dance. You will sweat the stress, wash the worries, abandon the angst. You won’t just work that body—you’ll set your soul free. And, while the slammin’ sounds of the disco/dance era take you on that trip to Redemption, you won’t find the aloofness, antagonism, and attimatude that pollutes much of the Black gay club scene. No muscle heads or cutie pies whose noses rise three inches in the air if you talk to them—or whose eyes hold you in contempt if you don’t. No crafty cretins whose main purpose is to break up other people’s happy homes because theirs is so unhappy. No Geritol Granddads preying on the Embryos (or vice versa). No homiesexuals holding up the walls, standing guard like pit bulls and wearing menacing stares that would make Medusa turn to stone. No Queens without a Country holding court on a stool they rent nightly, being way too catty and way too loud. And, what do you know, not a single “cool” or “hip” Caucasian, or a Snow Cone hangin’ on his arm who feels out of place because there’s way too much Negritude in the room (but, like his man, watches us in awe as if they are on safari in Africa).

  Just the brothers coming together to do the Chic cheer: Dance, Dance, Dance.

  For Gene, it just isn’t about the Dance. The party reminds him of the very festive and fierce Paradise Garage, the dance-club landmark that preceded Body & Soul, the H(e)aven away from home for Black and Latino gay men in the seventies and early eighties. Gene met many of his friends there and, after the club closed its doors, saw many of those friends die—of AIDS. He’ll well up when certain songs are played—most notably, Patti LaBelle’s “Music Is My Way of Life.” He’s recognized that while they may be gone, the music didn’t die inside himself. It’s left up to him to celebrate the lives they lived and the life he has.
As Patti testifies, “When the music plays, I gotta keep dancin’ …” And so he does.

  Before we headed to Brooklyn, though, we made a pit stop that was truly the pits. Gene had comps for Dizzy’s, which claims to be “the only club in America where disco isn’t dead.” I wasn’t too thrilled about going; given who was on the flyer (a chiseled white man in white Calvin briefs … how unoriginal), I knew we were not going to see the type of folk or hear the type of “disco” we would hear at Body & Soul.

  And, when we pulled up in front of Dizzy’s, the song that greeted us confirmed my suspicions: the Bee Gees’ “Night Fever,” which the deejay introduced just before the first verse with: “And here are the true innovators of disco.” Huh? If there is any “white” act that could be called a disco innovator, it’d have to be K.C. & the Sunshine Band (and they were a mixed-race group). White folks finally decided disco was worthy of being respected when Saturday Night Fever hit, but the Bee Gees’ work was truly cheesy and lacked the grit and soul of real disco (listen to the other Fever soundtrack contributors—Kool & the Gang, Tavares, and the Trammps—to hear the proof). I’ve always argued that if disco died, ­they ­were to blame: because of their hokey misappropriation it’s no wonder that, ­twenty-five-million-plus albums later, the world overdosed on them and wished the genre itself would go away.

  So, I wanted us to, as Soul II Soul once chanted, “Keep on Movin.’”

  “Let’s just go to Brooklyn, Gene,” I insisted, tugging on his arm as he paid the taxi driv­er.

  “Chile, we won’t stay long.” He opened the cab door and stepped out. “Besides, it’s always good to see how the other half is not having fun.”

  After checking our coats and passing through a makeshift museum that house­d a gold record of the Bee Gees’, the Golden Globe Paul Jabara won for “Last Dance” (the theme from the ­not-as-celebrated disco flick Thank God It’s Friday), and the velvet ropes used outside Studio 54, we entered the main room—and ­were assaulted by the lights. Strobe beams flickered green, red, and yellow in every­ direction. A giant, ­silver-studded, spinning disco ball hovered above the center of the dance floor, which itself blinked on and off. All the flashing annoyed the hell out of us but didn’t seem to bother the rest of the clientele.

  “This would be a sniffer’s paradise for those who love cocaine,” Gene observed.

  “You got that right.” In fact, you could count the Negroes on two hands—and you know I counted them (yes, I included Gene and me). Most of the two-hundred-plus white men seemed out of place in that bland and boring white-short-sleeved-T-and-faded-blue-jean ensemble. There were a few preppies (khakis, varsity sweatshirts, and loafers) and a lone punk sporting purple spiked hair, slashed denims, and black Doc Martens. But some did keep in tune with the spirit of the place: several had on platforms and bell-bottoms, there was a Village People incarnation (the Cop, the Construction Worker, the Sailor, and the Indian, who was a very pale face), a Donna Summer dragon queen (he was a beast), and, of course, a half-dozen John Travolta wannabes, dressed in silk shirts and white polyester suits. Unfortunately, everyone (including the few colored folk) were doing that white-boy shuffle: moving and clapping off beat, some so erratically you’d think they were on drugs (they probably were; the only way some folks can listen to disco is if they are fucked up).

  We got our complimentary drinks and stood directly below the deejay booth. We were hoping our distaste for the selections would be felt by her and the music would get better. It didn’t. The Bee Gees were followed by Leo Sayer (“You Make Me Feel Like Dancin’”), Leif Garrett (“I Was Made for Dancin’”), Rod Stewart (“Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”), and, the ultimate horror of horrors, Rick Dees (“Disco Duck”). If this is the music that people define disco by, it’s no wonder there were well-publicized and well-attended events where stacks of disco records were demolished and/or torched (hell, I would’ve volunteered to drive the bulldozer or start the fire). It was odd that we hadn’t heard any Black female artists; Diana’s “Love Hangover,” Thelma’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” Gloria’s “I Will Survive,” and almost anything by Donna are staples at white gay clubs. Whether these ladies were already played or coming up next, we didn’t plan on sticking around to find out: as Cher began pleading “Take Me Home,” we made our exit.

  The best things in life aren’t always free.

  Three dollars is all the folks who put on Body & Soul charge and it’s a criminally low sum to pay for the very jood time you know you’ll have. Frankie Knuckles, undoubtedly the greatest deejay and mix master ever, was on the turntables this eve, so we knew he’d be crankin’ out those classics nonstop (jood thing I wore my dancin’ shoes: a pair of black Rockports that are also great for walking). We arrived just as the horn-howling intro to the “let’s get this party started right” tune blared: Cheryl Lynn’s “Got to Be Real.” Frankie continued on a Disco Diva run: Evelyn “Champagne” King (“Shame”), Aimee Stewart (“Knock on Wood”), Anita Ward (“Ring My Bell”), Miss Ross (“The Boss”), Karen Young (“Hot Shot”), Candi Staton (“When You Wake Up Tomorrow”), and Taana Gardner (“Heartbeat”). And, as it always does, Patti’s “Music …” caused Gene to go into a trance, his body jerking as if he were having a seizure. By the end of the song I was rocking him like a baby, as he sobbed. But he did a three-sixty on Loleatta Holloway’s “Hit & Run” (unlike Loleatta, Gene believes in stickin’ but not stayin’).

  Then Frankie proved the beat did go on when the eighties rolled in, serving us treats like Atlantic Starr’s “Circles,” Two Tons O’ Fun’s “Just Us,” Womack & Womack’s “Baby I’m Scared of You,” Denroy Morgan’s “I’ll Do Anything for You,” Teena Marie’s “Square Biz,” Fonda Rae’s “Over Like a Fat Rat,” Gwen Guthrie’s “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On but the Rent,” Imagination’s “Just an Illusion,” Young & Company’s “I Like What You’re Doing to Me,” Indeep’s “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life,” Patrice Rushen’s “Forget Me Nots,” D-Train’s remake of “Walk On By,” and back-to-back jams from Alicia Myers: “You Get the Best from Me (Say, Say, Say)” and “I Want to Thank You,” which everyone sang—including Gene, who is an atheist (that dance floor can take you places you wouldn’t normally go, but the conviction with which he recites those lyrics makes me wonder if he’s a closet Christian). When Alicia repeated the song’s verse a second time, Frankie cut the music as we swayed to our own voices and drummed the beat with our feet. And the Amen Corner—the Children who come straight from afternoon church service in their Sunday best—provided us with the hand clappin’ and tambourine slappin’ on this and every other song.

  It was on “Funky Sensation,” when Gwen McCrae breaks it down (“move your left leg … throw your right hand in the air … lean left, lean right, lean front, lean back, c’mon …”), that he appeared. Gene would later tell me that he saw him checkin’ me out from afar, dancing just close enough to peep me. He joined Gene and me as we and dozens of others heeded Gwen’s instructions.

  As Gwen gave way to Carl Carlton’s “She’s a Bad Mama Jama (She’s Built, She’s Stacked),” he stepped in my purview but off to my left side. Mmm … Shiny, rich, dark caramel skin. A U-shaped head, topped by a neatly styled short afro. Very thin eyebrows that sat above his very big brown eyes. A large, broad nose, the nostrils flared. Lips that weren’t full and plump but fat and pouty, not to mention glossy. Cheeks that seemed to be invisible, they hid so well in the plumpness of his face. His facial hair consisted of a thick mustache, stubble on his chin, and sideburns that stopped at his earlobe. And the ears: almost Mr. Spock–ish. He was a little taller (a couple of inches) and a little stockier (not bulky or muscle-bound, just slightly toned and smooth) than me.

  An extraordinarily ordinary-looking man.

  He wore a uniform that made him stick out in the crowd: military fatigues. (Was he in the armed forces? On leave for the weekend?) But it was the azz—that’s right, the azz—that really made him stick out in the crowd. Now, I thought I had a big boot
y for a guy my size, but his was nearly twice the size of mine. It sat so far from and off his waist it had to have its own zip code. It seemed so firm you could probably bounce a roll of quarters on it. And those fatigues were having a hard time containing it—the trousers sat a jood two inches below his waist, exposing the ribbed top of his boxers. Talk about a low-slung booty!

  Uh-huh, he was a Bad Papa Jama—built and stacked. Just as PHYNE as he could be.

  Our eyes met; I smiled. He turned away, but I could make out the outline of a grin.

  We repeated this scene twice more; was he going to do something? Say something? Since I’m attached, it would be wrong for me to. I wouldn’t want to lead him on.

  The sign he was waiting on came when Gene spotted his ex, Carl, and proceeded to do da butt on his butt.

  If Military Man thought Gene and I were together, he didn’t anymore. He wasted not another second.

  He didn’t say a word—he let his hips do the talkin’.

  When making that contact, some will dance up to you; some will dance up on you; and some will dance around you, hoping you’ll grab them and stop them from going in circles.

  Military Man did none of these things. He took two steps to the right, groovin’ directly in front of me. Then he danced himself—or rather, that azz—up into me.

  What a military maneuver that was!

  He didn’t put a booty rush on me; he did it gradually. Baby-steppin’ his way back, pokin’ it to the left, pokin’ it to the right, pokin’ it out a little, and a little more, and a little more, and a little more until he was doin’ a little rub-a-dub-dub on my nub.

  I did what any red-blooded American man in this position would do: I let my nub follow his rub.

  And Frankie knew just what to play at this moment: Rufus & Chaka’s “Do You Love What You Feel?”

  I sho’ ’nuff did.