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New Voices From San Francisco |
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New Voices From San Francisco |
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Circuit Stories By Ken Cimino Chapter Four: White Party
The Wyndham Hotel pool is filled with rippling abs, bulging biceps and bursting pecs. If it wasn't for the fresh young faces attached to them – faces with wide eyes more used to the sight of the Mid West countryside than the big city scenes – it would look like a still from some Hollywood movie.
The White Party.
Hundreds of handsome men in seductive swimwear and sailor hats, all
clutching plastic cups of beer and dancing to the remix versions of
Israeli transsexual Dana's Diva. Buff boys, Speedos, and the color
white, flashing wildly in the sun as it glistens across the water. It was
all so artificial. Not touch
of reality anywhere.
And then there was Will. At forty-two, Will was really way too old for the White Party – a big brother to the hundreds of twenty-something’s filling the pool. What the hell was he thinking, he wondered? A quick glance around the poolside provided the answer. This wasn't just any old swimming pool – and although Will hadn't done a cycle of steroids since the early 90s, he wasn't just any old forty-something. Will's body was still muscular: his 5'7
frame toned to perfection from years of training at the gym five times a
week. He was still more bulky than lean, and the young men parading around
the pool were all so cut. Will’s bald
head and piercing green eyes contrasted like the colors black and white
with all the perfect Ken Dolls running around the pool area. The little
brothers swarmed around the water like drone bees horde a hive, most of
them buzzing on the excitement of a three-day weekend and only a few
hours' sleep. Will could almost hear the aggregate humming sound. The
albino bees sang 'Jeffery Sanker is our leader'.
Sanker
is the messiah of Circuit Parties. In fact, it’s been said if you're a
circuit boy there are only two people you’ll ever need to meet: Madonna
and Jeffrey Sanker.
He rose out of the ashes of Studio Fifty Four in the late 70s, beginning
with his famous "branded" parties, famous for their hand-written
invitations. Within a decade he was the King of West Hollywood. The former
New York Magazine creator has been producing parties for over
fifteen years. He developed the concept of the White Party after
witnessing 2,000 partying lesbians invade Palm Springs' Dinah Shore
Golf Tournament. Sanker wonder if the boys could do this. And did the boys
ever…
Sanker
was the most famous circuit party promoter of them all. Young men from all
over the West Coast would train for months, sometimes, twice a day to be
“prefect” for the Easter weekend. No other man had such influence on
gay tribal culture. Sanker led the cult of masculinity - in some ways his
parties defined it. Like going on a Safari, Sanker led a three-day journey
that for most would symbolize their lives for the next year.
Will
watched as two young men walk by with tiny white Speedos painted on to
skinny frames, and white bunny ears. Will was beginning to hate White. In
one day he'd seen more than enough of it to last him the rest of his life
– so much white that it had started to blend into one huge, blank
canvas, like sugar dissolving into milk. It was if someone had hijacked
the color and franchised it. The color had become a commodity.
Will
was looking around for his ex-boyfriend, Tom, and soaking up the sea of
flesh when he focused on an exceptionally muscular man with a hairy chest,
who was wearing a maroon USC baseball cap – a splash of color amongst
the relentless white. This particular corn-fed young man had a chiseled
square face with high cheekbones: his physique was perfect, marred only by
the fact that he seemed unable to walk without stumbling. The guy was
obviously totally messed up on “Tina” or what his friends like to call
“Crystal Carrington”. As he watched, Will saw a White Party volunteer
approach and ask if he needed any help. The skinny young man with him –
who also looked tweaked out of his mind – dismissed him.
"Don’t
worry," he said, his words drifting over the water to where Will lay
by the pool, "He's OK. Just a little drunk. Come on - Jack stand
up.”
"Yeah,
right," Will thought, wryly, "sure he is". Sure enough,
minutes later the maroon cap falls to the floor as the muscular young man
collapses onto the cement, narrowly avoiding falling into the pool. Hot
men in bathing suits move out of the way, but continue their
conversations. The two men with the bunny ears hardly look over. The White
party volunteer comes running, parting the sea of white to place two
fingers on an artery on the muscleman's neck, searching for a lost pulse.
The sun beats down, still twinkling on the water. The white clad crowd
didn't miss a beat as volunteers carried the unconscious man away. It
would be an awkward moment, a dark blot on the sparkling white, but most
people don't even notice that one more muscleman has left their ranks. The
dance beat cranks. The bodies gyrate. Will sees the skinny friend dancing
by the speaker. "Some friend," he thinks.
And
speaking of friends…
“Where
is Tom?” he asked himself.
Will
always noticed when Tom was not around. Tom was 6’1”, shaved head and
muscular. Four tattoos covered various parts of his dark complexion.
They'd met at the White Party two years ago, and instantly Will new Tom
was the hottest black man -
in fact, the hottest man, period – he'd ever seen. Their connection was
instant. Tom was an artist, living in Los Angeles. Older men supported his
creativity, and Tom supported them in return by listening to their every
word. It was a fair deal. Tom made men feel important just by listening to
them.
As
he watched the sun shine white hot on the water, Will remembered the first
time he and Tom had sex. It was near this very pool, at around 4 in the
morning. Both were still high on ecstasy: they'd seemed to merge into one
being. Will knew from his first kiss with Tom that he was the one.
Will
smiled at the recollection as he laid his Rayban sunglasses down by the
poolside. It was still hot and humid, and he decided to lie by pool a
while longer, taking in all the muscular young bodies. He liked the fact
that even although he was almost old enough to be some of these men's
father, he was still comfortable hanging around at an event which was a
celebration of manhood for men still in their youth. Although Tom was not
with him, he remembered how last year Tom’s diva like ways had made
sharing a hotel room difficult. Tom could never go a day without drugs. He
always wanted more. He said he was an artist and they allowed him to be
creative. He needed to go on journeys for the sake of his art. If he
overdoes it, then that was all just part of the plan.
As
Will stepped into the cool blue water, he felt instant relief from both
the hot sun and from the memory of Tom's drug-induced diva demands. He
sank down into the shallow end of the pool, trying to stay away from the
crowds of men intoxicated on various substances. The cool water was so
refreshing. Will had been sober almost a year. He had known he was HIV
positive for around four. He'd spent one of those years drying out at
L.A.'s infamous Probe. It took another two years to not party every
weekend. Yep, it had taken Will three years of trying to kill himself
through partying before he decided to live.
Will
recalled shaking as he Tom began to have sex. He didn't want to tell him
his secret, but when he did, and Tom answered "me too", he
almost cried in relief. "God damn," he thought. "I wish Tom
was with me now." This party was Will's first attempt to rejoin the
“circuit” after his relationship with Tom had ended. He was
uncomfortable, and not just because of the proximity of inebriated men.
Will
was always uneasy about getting into pools. He made sure to always stay in
the shallow end. When he was around eleven, he'd dove into a pool at the
local YMCA. The water was around 7 feet deep, but as he'd struggled to the
surface, he'd felt as if we were being pulled down to the bottom. He'd
panicked when he'd realized that there was nothing beneath him but water.
He struggled against it, kicking out hopelessly at water, fighting it. His
head went under three times. The third time, it stayed there. Will felt
someone tugging at his foot, although there was no one there. He began to
accept his fate. He had lost the battle with the water, and his mind went
blank. When he felt the arms of the YMCA lifeguard pulling him to the
surface, he thought it was as imagined as the hand he'd felt pulling him
under.
Once
he'd recovered, spitting out lungfulls of water onto the cement, he'd
asked the guard who had pulled him down.
"No
one," he'd answered, puzzled. "There was nothing around you.
Stay out of the deep end
until you can at least tread water."
Will
had taken the lifeguard's words to heart. He'd stayed out of the deep end
for thirty-two years. Well, that was until he met Tom.
Late
into his twenties, Will told the story in one of his many therapy
sessions. He told the psychiatrist he never could figure out what the pull
was.
"The
pull could have been psychological," the psychiatrist replied. As
soon as he heard it, Will realized it was true. He should have recognized
it. He'd been fighting psychological pulls just like it for as long as he
could remember:
The
pull of drugs
The
pull of self-destructive relationships
The
pull of hating himself
The
pull of working in porn
Will had left the room in the early afternoon after waking up with a splitting headache from his nap. He wanted to see the awe-inspiring, panoramic view of the Dessert Mountains, next to a bright blue sky. He was staying in modern Southwestern luxury inhabited by homosexuals everywhere. He looked around the Wyndham poolside and wondered what makes ten thousand gay men unite with energy in Palm Springs and gather for the surreal three-day weekend known as the White Party? Will wasn’t sure why he had come either. He was sober now, but he still had something to prove to himself. In AA he'd learned it wasn’t the playground that mattered. It was how the user played. Besides, he hated insipid music and muscle queens en masse, and he always felt claustrophobic in a crowd. But the reality was Will didn’t know exactly what to expect. Will
thought about his arrival the day before: about how he'd almost turned the
car around twice and gone back the way he'd come. The pull of home was as
strong as the pull of the water that day in the YMCA pull. But the pull of
Tom, and the White Party was still stronger. He'd promised Tom he'd be
there. He'd promised himself. This whole weekend was about making peace
with each other. It would be fitting, Will had thought, pulling up in
front of the Wyndham, to make his peace here, in this place. It was here
that they'd broken up, at last year's White Party, Tom had walked into the
hotel room and found Will naked with one of their friends. Will had tried
to blame it on the drugs, but even as he'd said it he knew it didn't
matter.
Their
fight after the discovery lasted for hours. Chaos replaced the harmony
between them. Names were called. Drugs were taken. The relationship ended.
The argument continued until Tom locked himself in the bathroom for what
seemed like days. Will’s shoulder still felt pain from when he broke the
door open to get to Tom.
Like
any creative artist, Tom, was prone to mood swings. He had been depressed
for months and the drugs didn’t make things better. They were a
recreational band-aid for an everlasting problem. This year's party was
far from Will's idea of fun, but Tom had insisted, and the romantic in
Will never had been able to refuse him. It was their anniversary, after
all – in more ways that one. They'd gotten together here, and they'd
broken up here, too. Now he hoped they'd be able to make it a hat trick
and make up at this, the most important party of the year. Will’s first few hours at the pool blended together. A gimpy hustler told Will he wanted to be his husband after he saw the eagle tattoo on his shoulder. Although the hustler would never get a tattoo, it would be bad for business, he thought Will’s tat was sexy. The hustler offered Will a quick blowjob, free of charge, in the hotel gym’s bathroom. But Will wasn’t here for sex a least not yet so he declined the offer. A cute surfer-looking guy drank cocktail after cocktail just after 4pm, in the deckchair next to Will. The surfer was clearly drinking to try and mask his discomfort. He told Will a story about getting drunk and having sex with some old Queen with a water bed the night before. When the two men woke up in the morning they'd discovered a discoloration on the pure white sheets. Algae from the water in the bed, they'd reasoned, too embarrassed to look at each other, and unable to remember what had happened the night before. As
they sat there, two go-go boys on chain leashes with white collars walk
by. There was something almost angelic about the two men. Something
mystical about their look. Will wanted to laugh out loud at the sheer
pleasure of being here to see them. He swore he saw a vanilla hew
surrounding their heads.
Will wondered if Sonny Bono’s spirit would make appearance at this White Party. The former mayor of Palm Springs had only passed away a few months earlier in a skiing accident. Is Bob Hope dead yet, he wondered, suddenly? Ever since Will got sober his personal moods haunted him all the time. His phantom was his failure to make the correct choices. Will
was dancing at Product in San Francisco’s Folsom district in 1994 when
he ran into a friend of his, Doug. Will hadn’t seen Doug in over a year
since Doug had moved to San Francisco.
When Will asked him what was up, he hadn't been prepared for the
reply.
"Haven't
you heard?" Doug had asked, incredulously. "I'm HIV+".
That was the day that time stopped for Will. The news that his friend was terminally ill would have been devastating enough: the fact that they'd had a wild three way with an L.A. soap opera actor made it even more so. It had been a three-day bender on Crystal. No one used condoms. Will had been a bottom that weekend, and more than once. He knew the test held the answers. But it took him about six months to get tested. Which
door would it open?
Door one: Positive. Painful death. AIDS. How would he go on? How would he tell his mother? Door two: Negative. A new lease of life. Will would bargain with God. He promised to use condoms and only be the top from now on. Will had seen the errors of his ways. At first Will was angry that soap opera actor hadn't told him and Doug his status. Next, he was scared. Finally, after six months he went in for the test and had made peace with the results before they were read to him. Will
had to open door number two.
As he moved slowly through the cool water of the pool, Will thought how fitting it was that he should be here now. It was at a pool, after all, that he'd had his first taste of a man. Will was fifteen and spent the whole summer bringing ice tea to, Ron, the seventeen year pool boy who would clean their pool. He lusted for a moment that they might touch. Finally, on the last day of the summer out of desperation for wanting to be with Ron he came up with a plan. He would leave the garage door open and wait for Ron to pass. That hot summer day Will waited in the garage for three hours until Ron walked by. As he did Will dropped his shorts and acted like he was changing. Ron looked over at Will as he stood in the garage naked. Will became hard and Ron smiled as he reached over to Will. Before he could recollect any further, his thoughts were broken by a low, brash voice.
"Will, is that your tired white ass lying here with your eyes shut? Don’t you see all these beautiful men running around here? Don’t you want to get something?” asked the voice of the dark, muscular figure in front of him.
It was his Tom Katt. “Will,
when I hung out at the pool, I would keep getting grabbed at. All the boys
wanted to stroke me. You know, when it comes down to it, hardcore homos
are starved for a tattooed black man,” Tom said.
Will shot him an angry glare. “For
the last time," he said, "I hate hearing about how other men
always wanted you!"
Tom gave a short, sharp laugh, glancing quickly around to see if he had an audience. Tom loved an audience. “Work with me people. Work with me. Will, I only came down to the pool to support you. Black folks don't swim! But, I know how you hate the pool. I see all these tired club kids running around. When I hang out at the pool its only to hook up. Like we did two years ago. Remember?” Tom
always brought a smile to Will’s face. It was their relationship that
had helped Will through some of his darkest moments. Tom had the ability
to make a person laugh at life. Tom’s years in the gym had made his
exterior truly beautiful. But his easygoing manner, represented by his
art, made him beautiful on the inside, too. Tom made Will grin during all
life’s twists and turns. Will got sober for Tom.
“Tommy, you know I love when you make an appearance. Will eyes examined his ex boyfriend’s body. His favorite area was Tom’s big arms. Will especially loved the tribal tattoo that marked Tom as a top. Six months ago Will had had the same tattoo placed on his own arm, on the opposite side. They would forever be seen together. Distinctive, but still one. "Why so late?" Will asked. “I
think you need to worry more about that bulge in those Speedos. Not very
lady like. Stop worrying about my arrivals. I always show up don’t I?”
said Tom.
Will
readjusted his package and nodded his head in agreement.
“You know, I can’t help it. I still get hard when you come around,” he said, surveying the landscape of the pool. "Did you see Chi Chi yet?" he asked.
Chi Chi La Rue, the drag performer and porn entrepreneur was supposed to be here with her porn posse. Jeffrey Sanker might be the King of the Circuit, but Chi Chi was the Queen of Gay Porn. Ms. La Rue was an icon to Tom. Will
hoped Chi Chi would be accompanied by her squadron of porniness. He had
already recognized two of the A-list porn stars laying a few feet away
from him. Both of them had posed for Colt Magazine. He knew Tom would
drool at the sight of them.
Just
then Tom spotted one.
“Isn’t that Bruno over there? Man, isn't he a hot one? Look at that bulge,” declared Tom.
Immediately, Will became defensive. Although both Tom and Will fixated over guys who were in Colt - Will wanted this hobby all to himself. He was the porn star after all. Not a very famous one. But still a porn star. His first movie bought furniture for his apartment when he got out of rehab the first time. He hadn’t been featured in Colt yet. But it was only a matter of time. Of course Will knew he didn’t have much more time left.
“It's
startling how often your favorite Colt models in real life end up being
5-foot-5. Just nothing little shorties,” said Will.
Will
wasn't too tall himself, but shortness went against the fantasy. He
thought about how he didn’t smoke, drink or take drugs, anymore. His
obsession over tall, big and buff Colt Models was all the fun he seemed to
have left. Dancing with them seemed like a drug. He knew sooner or later
Colt would feature him as a model. Will could abandon his sex worker
persona and just dance among the beautiful Colt Men. They were the gay
ideal. He didn’t want Tom to ruin his fantasy.
Tom lost interest in Will’s conversation as a hot Asian muscle boy walking by. “"Meanwhile did you see that?" he crowed. Meanwhile was a code word that Will and Tom had. It meant hot guy walking by. After the Asian muscle boy failed to look back at Tom, he returned to his conversation. “Guess who I saw in the hotel lobby?" asked Tom. "Michaelangelo Signorile!” Will’s
guilty blank face showed he wasn’t exactly sure who that was, but he
knew he should for some reason. He was failing his gay culture quiz. His
gay card would have to be forfeited.
As always Tom helped Will along. “You
know! Michaelangelo Signorile, the Out Magazine columnist and
inventor of "outing." I just over heard him tell someone on the
elevator that gay men want to feel like a part of something larger, and
that's why they attend circuit events,” he said.
Suddenly, Will realized who Tom was speaking about.
“I think I would be more interested if you saw the conservative gay writer, Andrew Sullivan, and he was telling people why gay men vote Republican,” replied Will. Will thought that Sullivan symbolized what was wrong with the gay community in the 1990s. Sullivan had become the “gay” to represent all gays after he wrote on the political need for “gays” to marry. To the straight world this was revolutionary. Two thousand years of marriage ruined by a few fags in San Francisco. Mainstream gay politics was becoming more radical, more grotesque than any piercing, branding, tattoo, punk or leather scene. Will thought how candy-coated gay politics was becoming. It was all about fitting in to some straight ideal. It was no longer about being represented but about the delegation of imaginary rights. Will thought Sullivan cared more about being on television than representing a movement. But then again, it wasn’t as if the gay community really cared. Will thought how the White Party was not really a party but a shared ritual among the young men. For the men, most of the ceremony was preparing for it. They'd go to the gym together, buy drugs together, work on party outfits together… Will stared at one of the short Colt models. He noticed that the models face was shiny almost glowing, like someone had put clear nail polish all it. That’s all we are now. Radiant pretty boys with not much underneath. We’ve become what the straight community tells us we are, he thought. Tom noticed that the sun was starting to set. "You know, this weekend is Daylight Savings Time, but I always forget whether it's spring forward or spring back," he commented.
“I
hate Fucking Daylight Saving Time," Will snapped. "This weekend
already has taken so much from me. Does it have to steal an hour of my
sleep too?" he demanded. He saw five thirty staring back at him from
his watch.
Will was starting to get irritable. Some of the fun seemed to have gone out of the day. He had waited all day for Tom to show, and now that he had, his presence only served as a reminder of what he had lost. Tom looked the same, and sounded the same, but he wasn’t the same, and they both knew it. His relationship with Tom would never be the way it was. How could it? Its demise would haunt Will the rest of his life. The sun seemed to dim. The blue sky still shone its reflection down into the pool, but it was suddenly lacking in luster, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. When he looked up from the water to the place where Tom had stood, he saw only an empty space.
Will pulled himself up out of the pool, shivering slightly although the sun was still warm. Shaking, he lowered himself back down onto the concrete, his feet still dangling in the concrete. Beneath him, and all around him the muscle boys swam and sang, but Will knew Tom wasn't among them. There was no point looking. There was no point in anything, really. Tom was gone. He wasn't coming back. Will finally went deep and what did it get him? At last he left shallow waters for something more. He dove into what he knew wasn’t superficial, only to be pulled down so deep he Will nearly drowned a second time.
Will had found his body in the bathtub of his hotel room at the Wyndham last year. It was the loss of blood that killed him; red blood leaking out from the deep cuts on his wrists, and falling onto the bright white linoleum, like some ghoulish checkerboard. Tom had become severely depressed when he found Will having sex with his friend. So depressed, in fact, that he'd gone into the bathroom and slit his wrists. Will never knew if it was the actual sex act itself, the drugs or just Tom’s emotional state that made him do it. All he knew was that it had taken Will a long time to get the image out of his head, and even now it still crept up on him, catching him unawares. Tom was still one with Will even in the afterlife. Will didn’t want to be there but he had promised Tom. He needed to make peace with his past. Will had vowed never to come back to the Wyndham, and now that he'd had this one last look, this one last White Party, he knew he never would. He would always be a person treading in shallow water.
Copyright © 2006 Ken Cimino |
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Also by Ken Cimino on SoMa Literary Review:
Chapter One: Blue Ball Chapter Two: Fireball Chapter Three: Black Party Chapter Four: White Party Chapter Five: Cherry Ball Chapter Six: San Francisco Pride Chapter Seven: Fire Island Pines Chapter Eight: Lazy Bear Chapter Nine: Labor Day Chapter Ten: HellBall Chapter Eleven: Promises Chapter Twelve: Exits
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Reproduction of material from SoMa Literary Review pages |
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