Faggots by Larry Kramer, Reynolds Price Read Free Book Online Page A

being so heavy.” He patted Patty’s tush. “When there is love, everything can be worked out. Patty, how can they not have sent Oreos?”
    “No one will notice the difference,” Patty answered. “And they might make a nice change.” He sighed to himself. He couldn’t do it.
    Laverne was not finished. “What did Leather Louie give as the reason for the sadist pushing the masochist further than he’s ever been pushed before?”
    Now it was Patty’s turn to look across the river. “Pushed to a greater connection to the ultimate, and a search for identity on the part of both of them to find out who and what they truly are. Which brings them pleasure.”
    “Crazy. That’s what and who they truly are!” Maxine pulled out the tweezers again and studied his face in the mirror again and found out he had nothing else to pluck, causing him nervous frustration. “You’re right,” he said to Laverne. “We don’t have our acts together.”
    Laverne nodded and sighed. Yes, sex and love were different items when he wanted them in one, and yes, having so much sex made having love impossible, and yes, sadism was only a way to keep people away from us and masochism only a way to clutch them close, and yes, we are sadists with some guys and masochists with other guys and sometimes both with both, and yes, we’re all out of the closet but we’re still in the ghetto and all I see is guys hurting each other and themselves. But how to get out! And yes, the world is giving us a bad name and we’re giving us a bad name and one of us has got to stop and it’s not going to be the world. But even knowing all of this…where am I ? And how to say all this to anyone, when no one is listening, no one wants to hear, not even his two best friends, whom he sensed weren’t listening to each other, oh what good were words, words didn’t help me and Dinky, what good were words when acts were all that counted?
    He reached out and took Maxine’s hand and he reached out and took Patty’s hand and he hoped and prayed they were all trying to feel as one.
     
     
     
    How do I feel about being pissed on?
    Fred mulled this thought as he walked uptown to make final weekend plans with Abe. His body wore its marine fatigues, its sturdy work boots from L. L. Bean of Freeport, Maine, its plaid shirt of flannel, already too hot and ready to give way to summer Lacostes or gray Healthknit T’s; his hand carried, how unpredictable the temperature, the Navy aviator’s flight jacket by the Brothers Schott; and his heart, head, face, smile, crotch, and all interior regions wore the warm, anticipating mittens of Dinky’s forthcoming return.
    These articles of clothing, or permutations of same (khakis, Levis, with button flies only, and not preshrunk, painter’s pants, Adidas, items of butch-ery) were the uniform. He felt safest wearing them, though he knew not why. Was it hiding? Or homogenizing? A way of staying anonymous to the outside world but recognizable to the inmates? If clothes make the man, what were they making? A way of insisting they were men, more men than men? And why was the same guy Hot and fuckable in a Pendleton and not in a Polo? And why did black boots on Christopher Street lure more fellows than brown? And were leather and jockstraps and football jerseys and satin boxing shorts all a send-up and a turn-on, and was this a clue to the faggot sensibility? He paused to juggle jacket and insight and to jot a note in his faithful Wire-In-Dex for future filing.
    He did not, as many others did, wear-and-tell all. He scorned the ass kerchiefs and keys, posted and peeking for all the boys to see: navy for fuck and yellow for piss and mustard for big cock and red for fist fucking and robin’s egg for 69 and lighter blue for cock sucker and olive for military and green for hustler and brown for shit and orange for Anything and this kerchief or keys on the Left Side means I Do It To You and on the Right Side means You Do It To Me and on