Harlan's Race

is fucking you over,” Vince ragged me. “He isn’t buying you a new wardrobe.”
    “Russell’s just a friend.”
    “Tell me another one, honey.”
    “Nothing to tell.”
    “You look like a beach bum.”
    “I am a beach bum.”
    “Stop wearing Steve’s clothes. It’s unhealthy.”
    As Vince’s Jeep raced along the freeway into West Hollywood, I sat behind my dark glasses, feeling empty and flat. Our hair blew wildly in the warm morning air. All those palm trees and tile roofs felt alien. I knew L.A. only from track meets in the distant past, and had never been in a mood to explore its pleasures. Vince yelled some local history over the wind. West Hollywood had been a retreat of “bohemians” from the earliest movie days. Gay life centered around the “strip” on Santa Monica Boulevard. And yes, there were rumors about sick men out here, too.
    ‘You’ll like the West Coast,” Vince insisted. “Gays and lesbians are swinging a little political power here — the kind we don’t have in New York.”
    Just then, an LAPD police cruiser pulled us over. We had to submit to a registration check.
    “Pig-fuckers,” Vince said when they left. ‘We still don’t swing the police. They like to pull over gay guys in Jeeps.”
    First, we went to the Santa Monica strip to find Harry and Chino. In the balmy spring morning, not much was happening. Boulevard boys and panhandlers had called it a night. Studio One and the Blue Parrot and other bars and discos were closed. At cafes, people drank coffee and read papers. Shoppers milled the sidewalks, past flower stalls, where vendors arranged roses and birds-of-paradise. At the Hamburger Haven, Harry was brooding over coffee alone. He looked L.A. butch, with blond hair in a little ponytail, and a gold earring on the side that said top. “Where’s Chino?” I asked.
    ‘You might see him at the Valhalla soiree tonight. Chino is doing less and less good. He moved out of our place.” This was bad news. ‘You two had a fight?”
    “No. But he’s been ... remote. He sleeps in his vehicle like he’s homeless, and showers at the Athletic Club. I gave him a membership for his birthday, so he’d have somewhere to clean up. I’ve tried, Harlan. Tried to be the older brother he never had. Therapy, these new 12-step programs for PTSD. Nothing works. Maybe you can do something. I’m afraid he’s giving up.”
    Harry’s eyes misted — the most emotion I’d seen him show.
    “PTSD?” I asked.
    “Post trauma stress disorder. New word for shell shock.”
    After Harry left us, Vince dragged me to his favorite clothier on the Boulevard. Fortunately it sold my kind of casual. As we looked through clothes racks, my mind was flooded with worry about Chino. To make more conversation, I said:
    ‘Well, you look like you’re doing fine.”
    “I am. Finally on the right track.”
    ‘You dating anybody?”
    “Too busy. I’m into friendship and ideas.”
    “What? No partying?”
    “Moi? Hey, babe, I’m a workaholic now.”
    Honey, I thought. Babe. In New York, it was getting so nobody but old queens said darling any more.
    “What about you?” he ragged me. “Seriously... are you going to feather a nest with Russell Houghton?”
    “He’s more your type,” I ragged back. “He’s got all kinds of money. I’ll introduce you.”
    Quickly I chose slacks, pullover, a corduroy jacket. The
    cowboy boots and Steve’s belt looked good with them.
    Valhalla Productions was located in a funky old sound-stage on Sunset Boulevard, not far from the Paramount lot. At 11 a.m., Paul and Darryl gave me a grand tour of the little office. The staff numbered six, including the secretary. I met the two other associates, a black lesbian couple — CFO Rose Bass and casting director Vivian Woodruffe. Then they gave me a private screening of their first documentary. Night and Fog was about the 200,000 gay men and lesbians killed in Nazi Germany. Valhalla had taken a deep breath and entered it in the Cannes Film Festival. Vince was credited as executive producer. I was impressed.
    Later, at a sun-splashed restaurant table, Paul said: “Why don’t you take a shot at a script? The market for serious gay films is going to explode.”
    Darryl added, “We’ll even do the big no-no. We’ll give you — gasp! — creative control. On a screenplay of Rape of the Angel Gabriel. We understand you control the rights.”
    The thought of Hollywood backed me off, but they kept hammering. “The