Beauty Queen

sparkling heavy shot glass. "You're a little late today," he said.
    "Yeah," said Danny. "They gave me an extra night run from Jersey." He had always told Lenny he was a truck driver.
    "Armando called," Lenny said. "He's going to be a few minutes late."
    "That bastard," said Danny, laughing a little, but feeling a twinge of jealousy.
    Lenny must have read his mind, because he wiggled his eyebrows archly and said, "He said he got into a big argument with somebody about Intro Two."
    "Well, I believe that," said Danny. "Armando would argue with Saint Peter about which side he was wearing the key to Heaven on."
    Just then the wooden door creaked open again and a great bear of a man walked into the bar.
    He was fully six foot five, weighing 220 pounds and dressed in battered black-leather pants and black-leather jacket, and a couple of battered handcuffs. A bunch of battered keys hung from his right pocket, looking like they might fit into the trunk lock of every junkyard car in lower Manhattan. If a bear could walk like a cat, Danny thought, that was the way Armando walked—his father might have been a grizzly, and his mother a great mountain puma.
    Armando Ostos was Danny's lover. He was twenty-nine, Spanish-American, and the M to Danny's S. He was a bartender in another leather bar a little farther up Tenth Avenue, the Eagle's Nest, where he also doubled as bouncer. Armando could eject a dozen brawling sailors from his bar single-handed. But those who knew him well saw the quiet, happy, kittenish streak in him. It was this streak of mystical joy, of sunny peace, of pure gold ore sandwiched in a mass of iron, that Danny loved as much as anything. He had met Armando six months ago and he did not want to love anyone else again, ever. At least, not right now.
    Armando looked at Danny, and under the vinyl visor of his raffishly cocked black leather cap, his eyes took on a mischievous and evil expression, like that of a kitten thinking about killing its first bird. Danny envied Armando's freedom to wear that cap—he wasn't "out" far enough to dare to wear one.
    Armando spread his great gorilla arms. "Light of my life," he said to Danny.
    Danny burst out laughing. They slid their arms around each other and there, under the dark and splendid banners, they gave each other a lingering kiss. Armando's beard grated against Danny's chin, and he smelled ripe with sweat and booze.
    "I was at the Cellblock," said Armando.
    This was an after-hours place where leather bartenders often went after they'd closed up their own places.
    "I'm sure you were," said Danny, envying Armando's freedom to visit the Cellblock. So far, the Spike was the only leather bar Danny had dared to visit. He was hungry to visit places like the Mine Shaft, but knew he wasn't ready to take that step yet.
    "I had this terrible argument with Bert about Intro Two," said Armando.
    "I believe every word of it," said Danny.
    Grinning, Lenny was busy making a Brandy Alexander. He knew that Armando never drank anything but Brandy Alexanders.
    "No, really," said Armando. "Bert thought that the gay rights crowd did the right thing when they threw all the transvestites out of the Liberation Day march. I didn't. I nearly broke his goddam neck"
    "It's funny Bert should go along with that," said Danny, "when you think that those straight-looking gays want us leather guys out of sight, too. Nothing freaky around to scare the straightsie-poos with."
    "Come to think of it, why wouldn't Bert think that way?" said Lenny. All three men howled at this—Bert was a notorious masochist.
    Armando drank his Brandy Alexander down. Then he cradled his hairy head in mock distress. "For once I have a hangover. Lenny, you got any black coffee?"
    Lenny headed for the back, where he kept a coffeepot on. When a brother bartender asked for coffee, you gave him coffee.
    While Lenny was gone, Armando and Danny talked. Every day that they could manage, on their days off or when their work shifts permitted, they met here in this relatively safe place and talked—about their lives, about their past lovers, about being gay, about cars and motorcycles and guns and dogs, and above all, about St. Francis of Assisi. They didn't live together, so it was the only thing approaching home life that they had. Both of them still valued their independence, and neither was quite ready for the monogamous one-apartment bit. Also Danny was a little afraid of moving in with Armando. He had heard of a straight police