Tales of the City 06 - Sure of You

not?”
    “Because, Thack, it didn’t come up. Besides, I’m your basic generic homo. Who needs to be told?”
    “He does. He needs to be surrounded by fags and told what a fucking hypocrite he is.”
    “I thought we were done with this,” said Michael. “Is there more milk?”
    “In the refrigerator.”
    Michael brought the carton to the table and splashed milk on his cereal.
    “The thing is,” said Thack, “he was famous for being gay.”
    “Not to me he wasn’t.”
    “Oh, c’mon. I heard about it down in Charleston. Everybody in New York knew about him. He fucked every porn star in town.”
    “So?”
    “So now he’s out selling wedding rings and singing the praises of heterosexual love.”
    “It’s his profession, sweetie.”
    “O.K., but it doesn’t say shit about his character.”
    Michael was beginning to get irked again. “You don’t know him,” he said. “Maybe he really loves her.”
    “Right. And maybe she’s got a dick.”
    “Thack…people get married for all sorts of reasons.”
    “Sure. Money and image, to name two.”
    Michael rolled his eyes. “He’s got much more money than she does.”
    “And he plans to keep it too. Can’t have America knowing he’s a pervert.”
    “They’re doing an AIDS benefit in L.A.,” Michael reminded him.
    “Uh-huh. Welded at the hip, no doubt. A nice liberal married couple helping out the poor sick gay boys. Only you can be damn sure they won’t be mentioning the G-word.”
    “Why are we arguing?” Michael asked. “You know I agree with you. Basically.”
    “Why’d you go, then?”
    “Look, it was question of not busting up the party. Mary Ann obviously wanted to go.”
    “No, that’s a cop-out. You wanted to go too. This shit matters to you.”
    “O.K.,” said Michael. “Maybe it does.”
    Thack sulked for a moment. “Well, at least you admit it.”
    “Admit what? That I was curious? Big deal. Thack, I can’t go through life being some sort of Hare Krishna for homos. I just can’t. I’d rather find out what I have in common with people and go from there.”
    “Fine. But what you have in common with Russell Rand you could never talk about in public. Not if you wanted to be his friend.”
    “Who said I wanted to be his friend?”
    After a long, brooding silence, Thack said: “She should never have bullied us into going. She invited us to her house for dinner, and then she just let Burke take over. It was fucking rude.”
    “I agree with you,” Michael said calmly. “It could have been handled better.”
    This seemed to placate him. Eventually, Thack began to smile.
    “What is it?” asked Michael.
    “She told Brian that Burke has a little dick.”
    “Brian told you that? When?”
    “Yesterday at lunch.”
    “It’s not true,” said Michael.
    Thack gave him a sly look. “How would you know?”
    “We double-dated to the mud baths in Calistoga. Him and Mary Ann and me and Jon. They have a girls’ side and a boys’ side, so we ended up in…you know, adjoining vats.” He shrugged. “It was kind of glopped with mud, but it looked fine to me.”
    “Figures,” said Thack.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Brian thinks she said that to make him feel better.”
    “About what?” asked Michael.
    Thack shrugged. “Them still having a thing going.”
    “Burke and Mary Ann? Please.”
    “Well, you saw them last night.”
    “Saw what?”
    “Those looks she kept giving Burke.” Thack looked peevish. “She kept catching his eye all night long. Didn’t you see it?”
    “No.”
    “Well, something’s going on.”
    “So why were we invited to witness it? That makes a helluva lot of sense.”
    “Maybe she wants your blessing,” said Thack. “She usually does.”
    “Oh, right. Why are you so down on her all the time? Does she always have to have an ulterior motive?”
    “No, but…”
    “Just save it, O.K.? I’m sick of arguing with you!”
    This flare-up came so suddenly that Thack frowned. “What brought this on?” he asked.
    “Nothing. I’m sorry. It’s not you. I had a bad dream.”
    “About what?”
    “Oh, it’s stupid. You and I went to Greece, looking for Mrs. Madrigal.”
    Thack smiled. “What’s so bad about that?”
    “Well…she was hiding from us. She was afraid we were gonna take her back. She had this little lean-to sort of thing on a cliff…with lots of her stuff from home. When we finally found her, she invited us in for sherry, and I told her how much we missed her, and she