Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

just want …”
    “Almost anything but Beauchamp, huh?”
    Silence.
    “You want a gynecologist who doesn’t know the family, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “O.K. This guy’s a prince. Gentle, discreet and a treat to look at. Got a pencil?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Jon Fielding. The Jon doesn’t have an h . He’s at 450 Sutter. You can tell him I sent you.”

The Beach Boys
    M RS. MADRIGAL’S TENANTS HAD DUBBED THAT COR ner of the courtyard “Barbary Beach.”
    Well, thought Michael, spreading his towel on the bricks, it ain’t Sunday at Lake Temescal, but it’ll have to do.
    In less than seven hours he would be on the platform at The Endup.
    He needed all the rays he could get.
    “Hi,” said a voice somewhere between him and the sun.
    He looked up, shielding his eyes. It was the guy from the third floor. Brian something. He was carrying a towel imprinted with a Coors label.
    “Hi. Come on in. The water’s fine.”
    Brian nodded and tossed his towel on the ground. Five feet away, Michael noted. Close, but not too close. A perfect HBU. Hunky But Uptight.
    “Think it’s worth it?” asked Brian.
    “Probably not, but what the hell? Who are we to disappoint all those other pink bodies in the bars?”
    Brian laughed, obviously catching the irony of the remark. O.K., thought Michael, he knows we’re not heading for the same bars. Much less the same bodies. Still … he knows, and he knows that I know he knows. It’s O.K.
    “You’re Brian, and I’m Michael. Right?”
    “Right.”
    They shook hands, still on their bellies, reaching out over the void in order to touch.
    Michael laughed. “We look like something off the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel!”
    Fifteen minutes later, Michael felt like talking again.
    “You’re single, right?”
    “Yeah.”
    “This must be a great town to be single in. I mean … for a straight guy.”
    “Oh?”
    “Well, I mean … there are so many gay guys that a straight guy must be a hot property with the women. At least … you know what I mean.”
    Brian grunted. He was on his back now, his hands folded behind his head. “I spent four fucking hours at Slater Hawkins last night, trying to plug a chick I wouldn’t have sneezed at in college.”
    “Yeah,” said Michael, somewhat jarred by the remark. “It kinda gets to be a game, doesn’t it? Unwrapping the package is more fun than the package itself. At least, sometimes …” He looked over at Brian, wondering if they were communicating at all. “Do you know Mary Ann Singleton?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well, Mary Ann and I had this really heavy session where she told me she wanted to go back to Cleveland, and I gave her the whole est trip about taking control of her life and all … but the creepy thing is that sometimes I think she’s right. Maybe we should all go back to Cleveland.”
    “Yeah. Or go live in a farm town in Utah or something. Get back to basics.”
    “Uh huh. I have that one too. A mountain village in Colorado, maybe, with just the bare essentials. One nice French restaurant and a branch of Design Research.”
    They both laughed. Michael felt instantly more comfortable with him.
    “The thing that bugs me,” said Brian, “is that you never really know what women are like … not for a long time, anyway. They only show you what they want you to see.”
    Michael nodded. “So you fantasize over all the wrong things.”
    “Yeah.” Brian began to tear blades of grass from between the bricks.
    “Christ! That happens to me all the time,” said Michael. “I meet some person … male-type … at a bar or the baths, and he seems really … what I want. A nice mustache, Levi’s, a starched khaki army shirt … strong … Somebody you could take back to Orlando and they’d never know the difference.
    “Then you go home with him to his house on Upper Market, and you try like hell not to go to the bathroom, because the bathroom is the giveaway, the fantasy-killer….”
    Brian looked confused.
    “It’s the bathroom cabinet,” Michael explained. “Face creams and shampoos for days . And on the top of the toilet tank they’ve all always got one of those goddamn little gold pedestals full of colored soap balls!”

Ebony Idol
    T HE BLACK WOMAN ATE SUNDAY DINNER ALONE IN THE back room at Perry’s.
    She was an image of grace and sophistication, dark and sleek as a patent-leather dancing slipper. She was avoiding her french fries, Brian noticed, and her eyes seldom wandered from her plate.
    “More