Tales of the City 03 - Further Tales of the City

nuns who have.”
    “Climb every mountain, huh?”
    Ned laughed. “I suppose you could be an All-American nun.”
    “What’s that? A denim habit?”
    “Denim under your habit,” smiled Ned.
    “Right. So I can swing into action at a moment’s notice. Like Superman. I like it, Ned—style and content. You got an answer for everything.”
    The nurseryman gave him a once-over, then smiled. “Sister Mary Mouse, huh?”
They remained there in the dappled light, finishing their lunches in silence.
    Then Michael said: “Do you ever get tired of all this?”
    “The nursery, you mean?”
    “No. Being gay.”
    Ned smiled. “What do you think?”
    “I don’t mean being homosexual,” said Michael. “I wouldn’t change that for anything. I love men.”
    “I’ve noticed.”
    “I guess I’m talking about the culture,” Michael continued. “The Galleria parties. The T-shirts with the come-fuck-me slogans. The fourteen different shades of jockstraps and those goddamn mirrored sunglasses that toss your own face back at you when you walk into a bar. Phony soldiers and phony policemen and phony jocks. Hot this, hot that. I’m sick of it, Ned. There’s gotta be another way to be queer.”
    Ned grinned, tossing his yogurt cup into the trash. “You could become a lesbian.”
    “I might,” Michael replied. “They do a lot of things that I’d like to do. They date, for Christ’s sake. They write each other bad poetry. Look … we give them so much grief about trying to be butch, but what the hell are we doing, anyway? When I was a teenager, I used to walk down the street in Orlando and worry about whether or not I looked like … well, less than a man. Now I walk down Castro Street and worry about the same thing. What’s the difference?”
    Ned shrugged. “They don’t beat you up for it here.”
    “Good point.”
    “And nobody’s making you go to the gym, Mouse. Nobody’s making you act butch. If you wanna be an effete poet and pine away in a garret or something, you’re free to do it.”
    “Those are my choices, huh?”
    “Those are everybody’s choices,” said Ned.
    “Then why aren’t they exercising them?”
    “They?” asked Ned.
    “Well, I meant …”
    “You meant ‘they.’ You meant everybody else but you. You’re the only sensitive one, right, the only full-fledged human being.”
    Michael scowled. “That isn’t fair.”
    “Look,” said Ned, sliding his arm across Michael’s shoulders, “don’t shut yourself off like that. There are two hundred thousand faggots in this town. If you generalize about them, you’re no better than the Moral Majority.”
    Michael looked at him. “Yeah, but I know you know what I mean.”
    “Yeah. I know.”
    “It’s just so fucking packaged,” said Michael. “A kid comes here from Sioux Falls or wherever, and he buys his uniform at All-American Boy, and he teaches himself how to stand just so in a dark corner at Badlands, and his life is all posturing and attitude and fast-food sex. It’s too easy. The mystery is gone.”
    “Is it gone for you?”
    Michael smiled. “Never.”
    “Then maybe it isn’t for that kid. Maybe it’s just what he needs to get Sioux Falls out of his system.”
    A long silence, and then: “I’m sounding awfully old, aren’t I?”
    Ned shook his head. “You’re just a little gayed out after the tour. I feel that way sometimes. Everybody does. Nobody ever said it would be easy, Michael.” He tightened his grip on his friend’s shoulders. “You want me to help you make your habit?”
    Michael’s eyes widened. “You sew?”
    “Sure,” said Ned, “when I’m not standing in a dark corner at Badlands.”

Unoriginal Sin
    P RUE RUMMAGED FURIOUSLY FOR THE RIGHT WORDS. “He’s just … different, Father. He’s different from any man I’ve ever known.”
    “Somehow,” replied the priest, “I have no trouble believing that.”
    “He’s decent and he’s kind and intuitive … and he has such respect for nature, and he understands God better than anyone I’ve ever known.”
    “And he’s a helluva lot of fun in the sack.”
    “Father!”
    “Well, let’s get the cards on the table, girl. This isn’t the dressing room at Saks, you know.”
    Prue didn’t answer for a moment. She sat there rigidly in the darkness, hearing the scuffle of feet outside the confessional. “Father,” she said at last, “I think somebody’s waiting.”
    A sigh came through the hole in the wall. “Somebody’s always