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cigarette to the tarmac, ground it out under his foot. You re a virgin too,
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aren t you. Just forget it. In the amber glow of the parking lot pole lamps,
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his face was unreadable angry, disappointed, disgusted. He turned his
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head. In an instant Jerry had memorized the profile, small, upturned nose,
chin bristling with beard.
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George, no, wait. I m into it, I ve just never
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George s head pivoted back. Look, man, he said, a harsh, throaty whis-
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per, I been screwing around with guys since I was fourteen, two years
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younger n you, that s ten years I don t know what to do with cherry. It s
been fun, kid. Gimme a call in four or five years.
George, I ve got a hard-on now, too.
So? Go home and whack off. That s what I m gonna do.
What if they d said than when you were fourteen?
George looked at him, looked away, hawked, spat. You got a car. Gimme
a ride home. I ll think about it.
When Jerry parked in the lot of an apartment building ten minutes from
the campus, George muttered, Sixteen-year-old cherry. Jesus. He put his
hand on Jerry s thigh. Okay. Kiss me.
Eyes closed, it was hard to find George s mouth in the beard. A thick
tongue, harsh with a taste like the smell of cigarette smoke, pushed be-
tween Jerry s lips. He pulled back, startled, but George s hands on shoulder
and neck wouldn t release him, and George s tongue forced itself between
his teeth. Christ, George said when he finally let go, you need training
wheels. C mon, before I change my mind.
Jerry had not questioned the necessity of being homosexual queer, a
fruit, a faggot, a fairy. He resigned himself to it the way he resigned himself
to being an artist or being freakishly tall and skinny. Relatively certain that
Andy was queer too, he thought that they might be in love with each other
in a way, a romantic friendship that did not encompass desire. Sex with
George if it had been sex, necking, frottage, mutual masturbation hadn t
been especially illuminating. He felt no strong urge to repeat the experi-
ment, not with George, not with Andy, but in the dry hot shade of the al-
mond orchard he regarded his friend with a tender, veiled curiosity. Andy,
he said, sit still for a while. I want to draw a picture of you.
Or as if I could compose for him the entries in
a journal he never kept
San Francisco, California: September 1969
First day of school registration, all that.
After, talked to this girl woman, Ruth Goldman. His age. Tea in the stu-
dent union. She said, all the signals he s putting out indicate he s gay, yes?
Just to clear the air.
Not yet eighteen years old, coming from a huge suburban high school
with more cliques than you d want to count, none you d want to join,
never having had a close friendship with a woman nor with more than two
or three men, he had never been asked that question. Not in those words.
Bright fluorescent light on the floor, the shiny tables, happy get-to-know-
you conversations all around: the heart thuds.
As soon as he escaped from high school, Jerry started growing a mus-
tache he knows what kind of man he wants. He wants a Levi Strauss
man, a San Francisco man. Men who take you home to their small or large,
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calculatingly designed or indifferently thrown-together apartments. How
could you count them? The men he s brought home to his own apart-
ment already. He s young, he isn t beautiful but attractive enough. Men
like tall, men like gawky. They like eager. He s eager. He gripped his cup
of tea, stared across the table at his new friend, nodded. Good, she said
briskly, me too.
San Francisco, California: October 1969
Everyone except Ruth, even his parents, even
his grandparents, calls him Jerry. She said, nickname for what? Gerald,
Gerard, Jerome, Geronimo. Do you mind if I call you Jeremy, she said. I hate
nicknames. Maybe because you can t do anything with Ruth Ruthie? I
had a teacher in grade school who tried to call me Ruthanne. I said, Can t
you read, Mrs Whoozy, there s a space between Ruth and Anne, my name
is Ruth, the Anne s just there so I ll have a middle initial. I was a snotty kid.
Please call me Jeremy, he said, I d like that.
San Francisco, California: May 1971
After the opening of the student/ faculty
show they went walking, Ruth and he, heading for an all-night coffee shop.
Arguing nobody argues better than Ruth. She s so tall that he doesn t
even need to bend to hear her voice, fast, low, uninflected; she s so long
legged and concentrated that he has to speed up his tall-man s amble to
keep in step. Cool, fog-thick street, the fog glowing in fluorescent nimbus
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around incandescent street lamps, the wind cold, damp, salty, pungent
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with the sewery smell of the city late at night. She said: I can make better
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coffee than we d find anywhere at this hour.
Year and a half he d known her and he d never seen her place. Had been
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wondering how to ask, when the time came, if she d like him to see her
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home.
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These are things he likes about her: She couldn t be bothered to wait
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for a bus. Walked the whole way from Russian Hill. Street lights at long
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intervals and the post-midnight traffic. The wide street unreeled like a
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bright thread through the fabric of the city. Sheets of newspaper lifted by
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a passing truck or the wind, flapping like ghostly birds. A distant honk or
siren or the shriek of tires. The city! He still can t get over it.
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His apartment was closer but he didn t think of it. Did he have coffee, in
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any case would it meet her standards.
Things he likes about her: Not simply tall, she wore elegant boots with
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high heels clipping along the sidewalk. She wore (this for the opening) vi-
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brant colors dulled by the night but flaring up when they passed beneath
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a lamp, purples, deep greens, scintillant blues, a dress of so many layers
and components that it seemed calculated for an air of perpetual dishevel-
D
ment her long bones and milk-pale skin harassed by her own clothing.
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Students wear paint-stained jeans and sneakers: he knows this, it s what
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he wears. So you look at her like she s got on a costume, and you have to
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admire that, her clothes and her wild hair. In certain lights, auburn looks
like magenta.
More: he admires her paintings, admires her fierce, paralytically intel-
lectual approach to the work admires her for an avidity, a kind of greedi-
ness, a basic opportunism that is in effect unselfish. Admires her vividness,
a stridency he has not previously encountered in a woman; appreciates
a certain inability to function that nonetheless doesn t interfere with her
functioning.
This is like kind of a love letter like saying, Ruth, I m looking for a man
just like you.
The apartment was on the lower slopes of Twin Peaks, where Market be-
gan to twist and swerve a long walk. Not even winded. She made espres-
so. He said: I m a rube, I m from San Jose I ve never had espresso except in
an Italian restaurant. She said: You have to grow up sometime, Jeremy.
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