Tales of the City 03 - Further Tales of the City

strip joint. It has three separate rooms—one for leather types, one for disco queens, one for preppies. I wandered around aimlessly, having my usual identity crisis. Ned, of course, sauntered into the leather section and racked up so many phone numbers that he looked like the bathroom wall at the Greyhound station.
    David Norton, one of our tenors, had twenty members of his family show up for the concert in Minneapolis. That’s been happening a lot, all over. Lots of hugs and boo-hoos backstage. Also in Minneapolis, I met an old couple—both in their eighties—who came up and thanked me in the lobby after the concert. They were brother and sister, both gay, and they’d driven all the way from their farm in Wisconsin to hear us sing. They had thick white hair and incredible blue eyes and all I could think of was the “eccentric old bachelor and his spinster sister” who used to live down the road from us in Orlando. We talked for about fifteen minutes, and we hugged when we said goodbye as if we had known each other forever. The old lady said: “You know, when we were your age, we didn’t know there was a word for what we were.”
    As the song says—“Other places only make me love you best.” Next comes New York, Boston, Washington and Seattle. A big hug for Mrs. M. Tell her the brownies were perfect.
    In haste,
M ICHAEL
    P.S. I have it on the best authority that the chorus will be returning to the city in the vicinity of 18th and Castro at 5 P.M . on Father’s Day. If you can make it, I’d love to see your shining faces in the crowd. Make Brian wear something tight.
    P.P.S. Dallas men wear their muscles like feather boas.

Her Wilderness Like Eden
    L UKE’S FAVORITE BIBLICAL QUOTATION CAME FROM Isaiah:
    For the Lord will comfort you; he will comfort you; he will comfort all her waste places, and make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord.
    Prue entered the passage in her notebook, then read it aloud again. “That makes such perfect sense, now that I think of it.”
    “What?” asked Luke, looking up from his cot. He was stroking one of the chipmunks with his forefinger.
    “That quote. This place. You’ve made this spot your garden of the Lord. You’ve made this wilderness like Eden.” True, the rhododendron dell wasn’t exactly a wilderness by most people’s standards, but the metaphor worked for Prue.
    Luke smiled benignly. “You could do it, too.”
    “Do what?”
    “Change your wilderness into a garden.”
    Prue’s brow furrowed. “Do you think I’m living in a wilderness?”
    He let the chipmunk down and laid his hands to rest on his knees. “That’s for you to decide, Prue.”
    The sound of her own name stunned her. She was sure he had never used it before. “You don’t know that much about me,” she said quietly, trying not to sound defensive. Why did she suddenly feel like a butterfly on the end of a pin?
    “I know things,” he said. “More than you know about me. I’ve read your column, Prue. I know about the thing you call a life.”
    She didn’t know whether to feel flattered or indignant. “Where?” she exclaimed. “How in the world did you …?”
    “How in the world did a hermit get a copy of Western Gentry magazine?”
    “I didn’t mean it like that, Luke.”
    He seemed amused by her disclaimer. “Yes you did. You can’t help it. You’re a woman who worships material things. I don’t mind, Prue. Jesus found room in his heart for people like that. There’s no reason why I can’t, too.”
    She reddened horribly. “Luke, I’m sorry if …”
    “Sit down,” he said, patting a place on the cot next to him. Prue obeyed, responding instantly to a tone of voice that conjured up images of her father back in Grass Valley.
    “It hurts me to see people in need,” said Luke.
    Prue thought this was just plain unfair. Her Forum discussions often focused on the needy. “Luke, just because I have money doesn’t mean I don’t feel compassion for the poor.”
    “I’m not talking about the poor. I’m talking about you.”
    Silence.
    “I’ve never seen such need, Prue.”
    “Luke …”
    “You need someone who doesn’t see the fancy dresses and the house on Nob Hill. Someone who refuses to be distracted by the myth you’ve spent such a long time creating….”
    “Now, wait a minute!”
    “Someone who really sees Prudy Sue Blalock, not the party girl, not the pathetic creature who spends her time bragging about how far