Between Boyfriends by Michael Salvatore Read Free Book Online

movie is a manifestation of Brian De Palma’s fear of Hollywood. A fear that made him turn from the source material—Stephen King’s straightforward, yet poetic prose—and run into the dictatorial arms of the movie studio machine. Brian didn’t trust his source, like gay men don’t trust theirs. They want to constantly be like the blockbuster and appeal to a wider audience instead of being happy to appeal to a niche market. Carrie: The Musical isn’t afraid.”
    “But Carrie: The Movie was scary,” Lindsay said, unable to remain silent.
    “Yes, it was scary!” Flynn freaked. “Because it was a prime example of how yet another talented filmmaker bent to the whims of the Hollywood dictatorship.”
    “What about the hand coming up through the grave at the end?” Lindsay asked. “Tell me that wasn’t scary?”
    “That isn’t even in the book!” Flynn screamed. “And now yet another gay man has bent to the whims of the gay male society. ‘Here’s my number, call me. No, wait, I can’t trust my instincts so when you call I won’t return your phone call.’ If gay men want to be trusted by each other and the hetero world, they have to begin by trusting themselves and stop playing this endless game of push me–pull me.”
    “Ah yes, the old llama dilemma,” Gus commented.
    Flynn didn’t even hear Gus’s Doctor Dolittle reference; he was still under Carrie’s musical spell.
    “We as a community—and I am not including lesbians, bisexuals or transgendered peoples because they need to stop piggybacking and create their own community ’cause they’re sucking the life force out of ours—must take a cue from Mr. King and Michael Gore, the wildly misunderstood composer of Carrie, and explore the psycho-sexual-socioreligious dogma that we have allowed to dictate our framework before that framework ruptures and traps us within our own fear.”
    Flynn was finally finished. He took a gulp of his coffee to refuel and waited to see if his didactic words had any effect on his pupils.
    “So what you’re saying,” I started, “is that Piper Laurie really wanted to fuck the shit out of Sissy Spacek and then knife her to death so she didn’t have to deal with her emotionally anymore.”
    “My insight is wasted on you people!” Flynn shouted.
    “Give it one more day,” Gus said rationally. “Then if Frank still hasn’t called you back you can call him again.”
    “I have a better idea,” I said. “Why don’t one of you call Frank right now to see if he’s around? That way I’ll know if he’s busy or just uninterested.”
    “Even if Frank answers, it won’t tell you anything,” Gus rationalized. “It’ll just tell you that he’s home.”
    “And not interested in calling me back!” I said, sounding as pathetic as I knew I would.
    “Is this about Jack?” Lindsay asked.
    The silence this question stirred was deafening. If this were a scene from ITNC the end credits would roll or we’d at least cut to a commercial. Everyone at the table knew that my ex-partner Jack DiRenza had told me to leave his apartment and his life four years ago on July fourth (forever ruining for me a day that to the rest of the country is a cause for celebration) and everyone at the table had shared their advice as to how best to move on, as well as their shoulders for me to cry on when I didn’t think moving on was an option. But everyone at the table also knew that Jack was more than just an ex-partner. He was the love of my life and the man I thought I would grow old and happy with. No one at the table, including myself, ever thought he was the person who would push me from his life because he felt tied down, or as he so eloquently put it, “too bored with the whole commitment thing.” So like most fragile elements of a person’s past, Jack had been carefully packaged and stored somewhere just out of reach. Now Lindsay had ripped him thoughtlessly from the distant emotional shelf I had placed him on and the result