Beauty Queen

to sea was just passing the Statue of Liberty. His imagination shot out to her, and he could hear from her rail the hoarse hoot of the buoys, clear out in Ambrose Channel. He could hear the deep thrumming of her engines, and the clang of bells in the engine room. Now he could see the rolling dunes of Fire Island to the north, as the ship stood out along Long Island. And finally, there was Montauk Light, and the Atlantic breeze was stiff and fresh on his face.
    Freedom! Oh, how he had always wanted to go to sea! But he had always been too busy doing landlubber things that he felt had to be done. Maybe now there would be more time. Surely God wouldn't mind if he and Marion bought a nice little ketch, and learned navigation, and did some sailing together. The deal included the two old piers across the street—he and Marion would be able to tie up their boat right there.
    Meanwhile, there was this gutted building to find joy with. It was as mysterious and seductive as an unclimbed, unnamed mountain in the Andes.
    He walked slowly across the street to the high arched doorway, taking the tape measure and notepad out of his jacket pocket.
    The building, of course, stood open and the rusted metal door hung drunkenly from its rusty crumbling hinges. He had already hired a watchman, who would start duty tonight and who eventually would live in a little trailer in the back.
    Inside, his footsteps echoed eerily. The stone floors and vaulted ceilings on the first floor were beautiful, though plaster had long since peeled away, baring the brick. Before he started measuring, he simply walked around aimlessly, thinking where everything was going to be. In the back, there was a large room with a huge fireplace. This would be a magnificent eat-in kitchen, where he could feed friends in earthy medieval splendor, while logs crackled in the fireplace. Another tall arched door opened into a sunny walled courtyard, where wagons and teams had once unloaded canvas and other ship supplies.
    The paved courtyard was now overgrown with sunflowers and jewelweed, and shaded by a few trees-of-heaven that had seeded themselves. This would be the garden, planted formally with herbs and old shrub roses to delight
    Marion. There would be benches, statues, a fountain and vegetables on the sunniest side.
    But today something in the air here troubled him. Every other time he had visited this building, he had felt its peace, its waiting to be recycled into life again. Today Peake & Sturgis was not at peace.
    He walked slowly up the worn stone stairway to the second floor. As he ascended the stairs, the uneasy feeling grew stronger. Then it slacked off on the third floor.
    Here, under the airy ceilings with their heavy beams, had been the sail loft. Through the broken windows, the sunlight poured onto the dirty floor littered with newspapers and junkies' refuse.
    He walked slowly over to the windows, and looked out. The Italian ship was now far out in the channel.
    Suddenly his chest constricted, and he had to choke back a deep and wrenching sob. A number of gay men sought to deny all ties, and traveled from love to love, hoping to find some kind of permanence and security in impermanence, hoping to build a stable sand castle on the sand. But for Marion and himself, the pair bond had been total, like those animals who mate for life, like wolves or swans who are parted only by death. Unlike the animals, however, they had never dared to stake out a territory where they could be at peace. That deep need of a lair, a sanctuary, had been the one need that had marred their relationship. It had always been Marion's apartment at lunch time or after work Over the years, Marion had sometimes come to 69th Street for cocktails and dinner, but only as a business associate, never for snatched intimacies, and he had never dared to invite him there while Cora was alive, because he was so sure that she had psyched out what was going on.
    When he and Marion had looked at this building together, before contract-signing, they had walked around discussing what room should be where, where the study, where the big bathroom with antique tub and shirred fabric walls. They had stood before these windows, looking out, and suddenly Marion had turned and looked him in the eyes and asked, point-blank, "Then ... you want us to live here together?"
    "Well," Bill had stammered in return, "would you be willing to give up your nice little place for this?"
    But Marion had answered his