I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore by Ethan Mordden Read Free Book Online Page B

was intently aggressive, even sadistic, especially with those smaller than he: a classic adolescent tormentor. I frankly admit I was afraid of him. With a little warning, anyone could outrun him, but sometimes he would lie in wait, then come hurtling out to nab you, braying like a monstrous donkey. Once he caught me while I was pumping my bicycle tires and, without uttering a word, snatched the air pump and marched off with it.
    Our meanest encounter happened up by the swings one summer evening. Harvey came upon me and my two little brothers while we were in the air and couldn’t run off. Anyway, you can’t run in front of little brothers. I stood my ground and had the first extrafamilial fight of my life, outclassed by Harvey’s superior weight and a warrior’s will I had yet to develop. My brothers came to my aid—Andrew socked his head and Tony bit his foot—but I was losing badly until my older brother Jim happened by.
    Jim was one of those cooly murderous youths who, if not strangled at birth, grow up to comprise a sizable fraction of the straight male population as cooly murderous adults. I must admit, though, that it was rather grand knowing him on this occasion. Always decisive if sloppy on the amenities, Jim grabbed Harvey by the hair and swung him with a grunt into one of the metal posts that supported the swings. Harvey lay where he landed, and I feared he might be dead, but suddenly he reared up and ran off. At a safe distance, he turned around and brayed at us.
    “That,” Jim observed with disgust, “is one champion queer.”
    “Yeah,” I said.
    “He sure is,” agreed Andrew.
    “I bit his foot,” said Tony.
    “And you know what you are?” Jim asked me, getting around to one of his favorite subjects. “A stupid jerk. ” He shoved me. “Because you can’t even defend yourself from a fag with an army to help you!”
    “I bit his foot,” said Tony.
    Jim shoved me again. “Because you were born a jerk and you’ll die a jerk!” He stared at me as if he could see another Harvey Jonas on the rise. I was there; I know it; I can feel how it looks to this day. And Jim stalked off.
    It’s tricky being the middle child: half the known world looks up to you and the other half looks down. Andrew and Tony waited for the next move, but I was too crushed to initiate anything.
    “Do you want us to grunch his room for you?” asked Andrew, to cheer me up. “Grunch” is to ruin, to trash.
    “The Revolt of the Moon Mice!” cried Tony, planning the marquee. “Let’s chew Jujubes and dribble them in his sneakers!”
    *   *   *
    Childhood is hard. I’ll skip ahead now to my grownup years in New York—you’ll see why directly—to a fey and raucous party of gays and their friends in the West Nineties. I knew no one; the other guests all seemed to be old comrades. There was a lot of liquor and smoke and by midnight the place was roaring. A few couples were openly smooching, a Puerto Rican teenager was wandering around wearing nothing but a Melitta coffee filter paper around his middle (it was large and he was small), and, in the main room, two queens were doing show-biz impersonations.
    It appeared to be a set routine. After a handsome actor type smoothly intoned into an imaginary microphone, “And now, it’s time for Dish Maven, with the first legend of stage and screen, Miss Katharine Hepburn,” seven or eight people hummed “Fine and Dandy”— Dish Maven ’s theme song, I guessed. And “Hepburn,” on a couch, ran through the rituals of the talk show, with preposterous commercials, rampant plugola, and unwitting egotism.
    “And now, Miss Hepburn,” the actory announcer cut in, “it’s time to bring on your special guest.”
    “Damn. I was just going to do Coco medley,” said Kate.
    “Too late now, for here comes your dearest friend and competitor, the scintillant Miss Bette Davis!”
    To a reprise of “Fine and Dandy,” a second queen joined Kate on the couch, eyeing her as