Dear Aaron,
Lizbeth and I are in camp. It is raining out of a sunny sky, as
is not so uncommon in Austin at this time of year. I've hung up a
bunch of shower curtains, making something of a tent. The bamboo
absorbs most of the rain and so we need protection only from the
dripping. For that, the shower curtains work fairly well.
I've been in camp most of the day with dysentery—a not
very exceptional condition under the circumstances. Last week was
rather interesting. I've been going in Sleazy Sue's almost every
day. I check for messages there as well as at The
Chronicle and cool off and get away from the mosquitos. Also,
so lang as I have reasonably clean clothes and the pool at Shipe
playground (45th & Ave. G) is open, going to Sue's is sort of
my excuse for making myself as presentable as possible at least
once a daily. I work the crossword, try to do some writing, watch
TV—I've now seen the tape of Charles Pierce's drag show
dozens of times—and generally hang out.
Monday, a week ago, I got picked up fairly early in the
afternoon by my first real M. He was a fairly closety type and
evidently not very well experienced, but it wasn't altogether a
disaster for him. Unfortunately it was not until a couple of days
later that I found a stack of Advocates one of which had
an "Advisor" column that explained it all to me.
It seems that silly and inexperienced bottoms sometimes confuse
reality and fantasy so they don't tell you their real limits, but
only what they wished their limits were. Well, I don't think I did
him any permanent harm, but I made mincemeat of his butt. Anyway,
he kept shooting off all over the place, so perhaps I wasn't so far
from the mark. I didn't get a lot out of it, but I was very deeply
touched by the sweet way he would beg me to pee in his mouth.
My god, honey, I'm almost forty-one years old. [My text actually
says "almost forty." This must have been a slip of the pen. Surely
I would lie to Aaron about my age.] And he wasn't so very bad
looking—-a bit like the one with the beard on Thirtysomething
only more slender. I guess among the titty torture and watersports
and butt slapping I must have fuck him about an hour. And he kept
sucking on it. But I don't get off to head and his ass was so loose
that I wasn't going to come that way. In fact, I guess I never came
at all, but he thought I had when I fucked him. It wasn't very
exciting for me, but I did like the submission. I had too much to
drink. He had bought me one at the bar and discovered I took vodka
& tonic. So he had stopped on the way to his place and gotten a
1/2 gallon of vodka and a six-pack of tonic! In Hollywood I wasn't
taking as much as two drinks a week [on average] when I had money
and I'm drinking even less now—-although when I find
something I'll take it just before bed so as to better sleep
through the mosquitos. They aren't so bad in the dead of night, but
are worse at twilight when I usually retire and at dawn when I
usually get up and about anyway. You wouldn't believe
them—-huge clouds of mosquitos, hundreds of them. And also,
my diet being fairly irregular, my stomach is not always prepared
for alcohol.
Anyway we got to his very nice apartment off Rundberg and 183 or
whatever, up in the apartment city to the northwest and his
brother-in-law's truck was in the parking area. Well there was no
sign of the brother-in-law and we started undressing. Since I had
by then gathered that I was supposed to provide the wherewithal for
golden showers and being pee-shy, I mixed myself a very stiff
drink. Lizbeth was put out on the balcony where, as my sex life
bores her to death, she went right to sleep. Things had hardly
gotten underway when the john spotted his brother-in-law walking
across the parking area toward the apartment. This required some
frantic dressing because the brother-in-law might have the key. But
it turned out the key was with the sister.
It turned out the truck had broken down in the area and that's
why it was left in the john's parking area. The brother-in-law
wanted to wait until the sister, his wife, could pick him up after
she got off work. The brother-in-law was a roofer or something like
that. Well the john had been making me promise not to leave the
second I came, but to stay the night—-so I was content to
wait out this little scene. But by now the john was hot, anxious,
and more than a little drunk. He wanted to loan his car to the his
brother-in-law, but the brother-in-law wouldn't hear of it. And
wouldn't take a hint, although it certainly appeared to me that, as
the john believed the brother-in-law didn't have a clue as to what
might be going on—-except the john obviously had been
drinking which I gathered was a no-no: there was something in the
way of inspirational AA literature on the door of the
refrigerator.
My policy regarding tricks with problems: I won't encourage them
to do things they are not supposed to do just so I can get in their
pants. I won't buy it for them. But I won't stop them or bitch etc.
I figure it is their problem and I refuse to let them shift the
responsibility for dealing with—-or not dealing with
it—to me.
Well after a number of attempts at lame excuses, the john
finally said, "Look, we were just about to do something," and
showed the brother-in-law the door. I don't think the
brother-in-law had quite "got it" as he left, but the wheels were
beginning to turn in his head. I mixed myself another stiff drink
and the john barricaded the door.
The phone rang several times after that and eventually got
unplugged.
The story was supposed to be that the john was worried about
visitation rights of his 10-year-old son. But the ex-wife was
supposed to know. In fact, so he said, he had been sucking dick
when he met her at a swingers' club. But his family—he came
from Hillsboro—didn't know—they hadn't until the scene
with the brother-in-law. If it were as he said I couldn't see the
problem with the son. If the wife knew and it was cool with her, as
it seemed it was, I couldn't see his family intervening in
visitation. Anyway the boy was supposed to be leaving for 2 years
in Singapore with the ex-wife whose new husband was working on an
artificial hear project there.
After the john had some number of orgasms—I have no idea
how many. Four? Five?—I got tossed out. The story was that
the john had been supposed to take the sone somewhere [to see
Batman for the fifth or sixth time] that night and was now filled
with remorse of being led astray by a wanton temptress—-c'est
moi.
He—having apprehended my situation—volunteered a
hunk of cheese, some canned goods, and change—nothing like
carfare.
It was overcast and I couldn't see the moon or stars so I got
somewhat lost in North Austin until I realized I needed to keep
going in the direction of decreasing house numbers. Usually, even
without the sky, I have a pretty good sense of direction. But i was
still mildly intoxicated and up there the streets tend to curve so
gently that I can't keep track of where I'm going.
Finally I found Lamar and eventually a lady cop who was a
dog-lover gave Lizbeth and me a ride to the vicinity of Sleazy
Sue's. She kept complaining of Austin being too liberal. So
liberal, I thought, that they give a woman a blue-and-white all to
herself.
Thursday night I got picked up in Sleazy Sue's by a desperate
new widow. I'd seen Andy around for years, I'd guess. Anyway his
husband had died of AIDS—at home—on the 19th of July.
But evidently he had been quite ill for quite a long time. Also he
was quite a bit older. Late sixties I would guess from the pictures
I saw of him while he was well. He had decided he wanted to die at
home without "heroic" measures. Apparently this was a reasonable
decision in consideration of his age and that his health had not
been great to begin with. Also, he had been president of the Texas
Cosmetology Association for almost 40 years and once he retired, he
was rather at a loss for anything else to do with his life.
It was a tremendous strain on Andy, however. I've now seen
several of these cases where the one who has passed on was clearly
the brains of the outfit, and it is always very sad. Andy must have
been 22 when they met—and clearly "Daddy" had always taken
care of everything. Anyway, so the story went, trade had already
taken Andy for about half of the money that was left. Although Andy
had seen me for years, he kept asking if I would beat him up and
take his money—-to the point that the thought crossed my mind
that he might want that.
We took a cab with Lizbeth to Bluebonnet Lane. A bone of
contention was that there was a smaller cocker spaniel named Levi
there. Well, Lizbeth, left to her own devices is fine with other
dogs—so long as I'm not there. If she is chucked in the
backyard or allowed to run loose with the other dog, things are
fine. But the worst is a living room confrontation where the other
dog may come between us. And that was exactly the scene Andy
proposed. Lizbeth growled. So there was lots of switching dogs back
and forth between the yard and the house. Andy couldn't decide
whether he wanted Levi in or out. It was all the same to Lizbeth
and me. Evidently Levi was strong and scrappy and it was believed
he could have held his own with Lizbeth except that Lizbeth was a
street dog, and, no doubt, well versed in deadly street-dog
fighting techniques. Once it was temporarily settled that Lizbeth
would stay in the yard and Levi would stay in the house, Andy fell
apart on me. Now Andy was playing his tragic scene for all it was
worth, but the situation was, after all, tragic. I don't suffer
drunken maudlin scenes well, but where there is some reality to the
situation, I've fairly broad shoulders. And so it was for an hour
or so. He never put it into so many word, but clearly Larry, the
deceased, had been very selfish in deciding to die as he did and
Andy had performed far beyond his usual capacity in managing the
situation. Andy was basically very angry, and justly so I think.
Andy would have said this—or anything else that crossed his
mind—but I could see he had not formulated it in his mind.
Everything Andy said was about how wonderful Larry was, but it did
not take an Einstein to piece it together.
All of my granduncles married women like
Andy—scatterbrained, dizzy, not altogether playing with a
full deck. I was really astonished that Andy had held together
through it—even discounting for a bit of melodramatic
embellishment. I side with Andy, I'm afraid. Nothing Larry wanted
would have been out of line if Andy had been constituted
differently. But after 15 years together Larry must have known what
he was doing to Andy.
Anyway, so I could overlook Andy's referring to his ass as pussy
while I was screwing him. "Stick it in my pussy," is not of course
one of my favorite endearments. And of course the ghost was
everywhere in the house—amazing really how easy it was to see
what was Larry's and what was not. One of the things that was not
Larry's was the Selectric. Andy bought it for Larry when Larry
retired, but not being the word processor Larry had at work it was
rejected. "Something wrong with it."
Of course it was in perfect working order. The evil that men do
lives after them. So I could detect nothing of Larry that was not a
scar left on Andy. Of course, it was not like that in
life—which is rather my point. The good is oft interred with
the bones.
Well I managed to do about four hours of my duty before dawn,
which I reckon to be exceptional service for a 40-year-old tool
under such circumstances. I think about calling Andy—but you
know I really can't think that anyone ever calls after a trick.
Does this ever happen. Anyway I'd like to see what Andy is like
when he's sober, if he's sober. And there is the Selectric. So
Lizbeth and I with ample carfare departed with the rising sun.
The next day I got hit on in Sleazy Sue's again. But he didn't
have money and to try to get Lizbeth on the bus by pretending he
was blind. He wasted a lot of my time. He didn't seem to understand
I did not want to neck in Sue's. And he was making noises that he
wanted on top. Well I'll stick it in anything male, just about,
that will let me, but it's got to be love, at least temporarily,
for me to take it. Lizbeth and I left Sleazy Sue's parking lot with
this guy wrapped around my ankles. Lord knows what the people
pulling in thought.
Meanwhile my "sister" Billy whom you have met made an indecent
proposal. However he's putting most of his salary up his nose and
is now far too messed up to tempt me to violate the incest
taboo.
It was quite a week. Makes me think seriously about whether the
limitations I've always thought are real for man my age in my
situation and condition are after all real. Evidently, leaving
Hollywood was a good idea.
Love,
Lars.
Dear Aaron,
Well, day-to-day, Lizbeth and I are living in Sally's. I'm
brewing as much coffee as possible on the space heater as the gas
is supposed to be cut off today. the water has been off for about a
week. Tiny and the owner of the property agree for me to be here,
but don't agree on who has possession of the property, so I do a
lot of fancy footwork to avoid being caught between them. I finally
finished the series I doing for The Guide, but haven't
quite got all my fiction gears working. Lights are the hassle. On
very cloudy days I don't get enough light at all. I plan to invest
in some candles.
Ran into Clint, the muscleman, night before last. So he came
over at the crack of dawn yesterday and spent most of the day
drinking tail-ends of Tiny's beer and being reconciled to me.
Drinking is a new twist for him, but he reconciles as good as ever.
I kept wanting to get back to work as it was the first bright day
we had in a long time, but then I would remember—hey, I'm
working in order to be able to be reconciled to a lot of musclemen,
so I should relax and enjoy this.
I had a postcard from Aaron fan Rod who inquired about Aaron and
also about Studflix which he think has folded—I
am not informed.
Evidently Billy has disposed of the carbon of my novel, so it
may be lost for good. [Later a copy was recovered and the novel was
published as Pawn to Queen Four in the fall of
1995.]
I was 41 on the 25th and I did manage to get downtown for a
couple of drinks. But basically it was pretty grim. Then the day
before I ran into Clint, a would-be partyboy came by looking for
the bar and once he realized I knew something about the business,
stared pumping for information about the sex industry. I should
have jumped on him but instead told him something of what I knew.
He had a little pick-up with a Gilley's sticker on it. It was hard
to tell if he was star quality with his clothes on, but it seemed
to me he was a bit too stocky and underhung. Funny thing was,
pretty much the same naïf character was in my typewriter when this
guy knocked.
Well, the sun has risen out of my eyes now. More later.
Love,
Lars.
