Tales of the City 03 - Further Tales of the City

…”
    “What if it was the double you saw?”
    Another decisive shake of DeDe’s head. “It wasn’t.”
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “I just am, that’s all.”
    “He hasn’t changed at all? Surely people would recognize him.”
    “Would you?” asked DeDe. “Who the hell expects to bump into him on the street?”
    “Yeah. I see your point.”
    “Besides … there was something different about him. His nose, maybe … I don’t know. They could’ve given him plastic surgery in Moscow. God, I wish you believed me! I remember the past, Mary Ann. I won’t be condemned to repeat it!” DeDe flinched as if she’d been slapped. “Jesus!”
    “What’s the matter?” asked Mary Ann.
    “Nothing,” said DeDe. “I’m still spouting his jargon, that’s all.”
    “What jargon?”
    DeDe shrugged it off. “Just a stupid quotation he hung over his throne.”

Taste Test
    S ORRY I ‘ M LATE ,” SAID BILL RIVERA, JOINING MICHAEL AT a table in Welcome Home. “My ex-lover’s brother’s lover just left town.”
    “Hang on. Your …?”
    The policeman smiled. “Ex-lover’s brother’s lover. He came out about a week ago.”
    “Out here, or out of the closet?”
    “Both, more or less … and the sonofabitch picked my apartment to do it in. He showed up on my doorstep with fourteen different fantasy costumes.”
    “Like … leather?”
    “Leather, cowboy stuff, bandannas out the ass, tit clamps, three-piece suits … you name it.”
    Michael smiled. “And guess who’s supposed to show him around.”
    Bill shook his head. “I hardly saw the guy. He’d stop by long enough to crash or change costumes or swipe my poppers, and then he’d take off again. He trashed his way from Alta Plaza to Badlands to The Caldron and back again, while I stayed home and watched TV. This morning, when he left, he got real serious all of a sudden and said: ‘You know, Bill. This place is just too decadent. I could never live here.’ I felt like strangling the prick with his harness.”
    Michael laughed and handed Bill a menu. “The people from L.A. are the worst.”
    “This guy’s from Milwaukee. Even the faggots there think we’ve gone too far.”
    Michael smiled suddenly, remembering something. “Did you hear about the fire in the Castro Muni Metro station last week?”
    The policeman shook his head.
    “It wasn’t much of one,” Michael continued. “But a whole hook-and-ladder showed up, complete with half-a-dozen hot firemen. They parked across from the Castro Theatre, but couldn’t get into the Metro station without passing through a hoedown being held by The Foggy City Squares.”
    “Translate,” said Bill.
    “A gay square dance group. They were doing this big do-si-do number in front of the Bank of America. Clapping and yee-hawing and singing ‘The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.’ All men. It was great. What struck me about it, actually, was the look on the firemen’s faces: blasé as all get-out. They nodded to everybody kind of pleasantly and went right about their work … as if they always passed through a crowd of square dancing men before putting out a fire. That wouldn’t happen anywhere else on earth. That’s why I live here, I guess. That and the fact that some of the cops are a little funny.”
    Bill grinned. “More than a little.”
    “Just enough,” said Michael. “You’re not real big on country-western, are you?” He’d deduced as much from Bill’s reaction to his square dancing yarn.
    The cop made a noncommittal grunt.
    “I ask because … well, I was wondering if you’d like to go to the rodeo with me.”
    Bill looked up from the menu. “The gay one.”
    Michael nodded.
    Bill frowned. “More faggots pretending to be cowboys, huh?”
    “Not all of them,” Michael replied. “Some are pretending to be Tammy Wynette.”
    Mary Ann didn’t hide her surprise when Michael showed up on her doorstep just before midnight. “I thought you were seeing your Boy in Blue tonight.”
    “I was. I did.”
    “I see.”
    “He doesn’t like to sleep with people,” said Michael. “All night, that is.”
    Mary Ann made a face. “He sounds like a lot of fun.”
    Michael shrugged. “I think we’re both in it for the sex. It’s just as well. He has sleepsleepsleep sheets.”
    “He has what?”
    “You know … those sheets that say sleepsleepsleep. They go with the towels that say drydrydry. It’s awful, Babycakes. His taste is not to be believed.”
    “Wait a minute! I had