Numbers Read online

  Oddly, Johnny isn’t angered by any of this. Had someone else spoken in that tone to him, he would have put him down, or walked away, made a smart remark. But this person seems to be not so much attacking him as exploring his own frantic loneliness. Poor lucid madman, Johnny Rio thinks.

  “If I sat here and said I just want to talk,” the man says, “you’d probably think I was crazy; you’d walk away.”

  A few minutes ago—anxious as I was to make it—yes, I would have, Johnny thinks. But I wouldn’t do that now. “I won’t walk away,” he promises. “You wanna talk? What about?”

  The man looks bewildered, puzzled, as if he hasn’t heard right—or as if he thinks he’s being made fun of.

  Johnny fumbles for conversation, feeling great sympathy for this man. “What do you do?” is all he can think to ask.

  From the look of flaring anger on the man’s face, Johnny realizes immediately he’s misinterpreted the question. What Johnny meant is: What kind of work do you do? But as the words came back at him the moment he’d said them, he realized he’d asked what is a very common question in the world of vagrant sexhunters: meaning: What kind of sex activity are you after? That is, are you looking to do what I want done?

  “You see!” the man gasps. “Everything reduced to the physical act! The localized sensation. Instead of the mind and the heart stimulated, it’s the penis!”

  “Cool it, man,” Johnny says. “That’s not what I mean; I mean: What do you do for work?”

  “So! You’re trying to find out if I have a good job! You want to know if maybe you can ingratiate yourself with me! You probably want to get paid!”

  “No, man,” says Johnny patiently (although his mind says, Fuck it). “I’m not hustling.”

  “You’re not?” the man asks.

  “No,” Johnny says. “I just wanted to make conversation.” The man’s franticness keeps Johnny here, keeps him deliberately calm. “That’s what you said you wanted—conversation—and how the hell do you know that I don’t want it too?”

  “Because of everything about you!” the man goes on. “Because you want to be admired, desired—oh, it’s so obvious!—because you’re selfish—. . .”

  “You wanna talk?” Johnny makes another attempt to cool him.

  But the man has abruptly stopped talking. Suddenly, without warning, taking Johnny completely by surprise, he reaches out to grope him between his legs. Stunned, Johnny lets him. Now the man’s got Johnny’s cock in his hands; now he’s bending over the bench blowing him. Bewildered, Johnny can’t even get hard at first; but soon he does—very, very hard, perhaps in anger. As he sucks Johnny’s prick, the man’s hands move frantically in his own pockets.

  Obviously the man came: He quickly removed his mouth from Johnny’s cock, stood up—spitting contemptuously.

  A wave of anger engulfs Johnny. He wants to hit the man—but he’s already hurrying away. With real bitterness Johnny calls after him, smashing the silence so violently that the shadows stop all over the park, as if roused from deep slumber; calls after him loudly: “Say, friend—buddy! You forgotta say goodbye!”

  Crazy bastard! Weird-ass fucker! That man’s strange hypocrisy has made Johnny even more anxious for that fleeting contact again.

  Impatiently he moves about the park—to the darkest places—the walk where a ledge of flowers conceals one’s lower body; then to the place where an artificial waterfall creates a small alcove. People follow him everywhere, but they’re still suspicious of him. Eventually they move away. Finally he walks out of the park.

  Along Wilshire. To the other park he recalls a block or so away. This time he passes the remembered corner. He thinks of Tom—stops his thoughts.

  Lafayette Park spills from a small branch library (now dark) on a slight hill. A balustraded terrace leads down a few steps to a landing with concrete benches. A row of concealing trees, then more stairs, and a small square lake, where water plants float prettily and tiny fish swim. To one side of the park there’s a row of dark trees along a road. On a gradual slope from the road, those trees provide several guarded areas. On the opposite side, the park rolls in exposed hills.

  There are few people here—Johnny has seen only three—and so they will probably be more determined, more in a hurry, he thinks.

  A man is sitting on a bench near the balustrade; he looks anxious, ready—staring after Johnny. Johnny walks toward the tree-covered area along the road. Legs planted firmly and spread, he stands before a thick growth of trees and shrubs, which create a hollow big enough for someone to squat in. Now his groin is demanding attention.

  From God knows where, a swishy youngman—a pretty almost-queen—stands next to him. “Hi!” he says languidly.

  “Howya,” Johnny says. (I don’t want conversation, that crazy fixed that!) He buries his hands in his pockets, to touch his cock and thereby indicate what kind of action he wants.

  The youngman walks away quickly, almost running. Now he is running!

  For chrissake, Johnny thinks, he probably thought I was going to pull a knife on him and roll him!

  Someone else is approaching: the man he saw on the bench.

  “Wanna come with me?” the man asks Johnny quickly.

  “Don’t wanna go anywhere,” Johnny says.

  “I got some fuck-movies at home,” the man tries to entice him, “and all the beer you can drink—and you can stay if you haven’t got a place.”

  “I got a place,” Johnny Rio says.

  “I’ll pay you,” the man says, misunderstanding Johnny’s reticence.

  “You wanna suck me?” Johnny asks bluntly. His tone surprises him.

  As much as he obviously desires Johnny, the man is thrown off. “Yeah, sure,” he manages to say.

  “Then do it, man,” Johnny hears his own voice say. “Here, man. Blow me here!” His voice is hoarse.

  Responding to Johnny’s command, and perhaps excited by it, the man slips into the cavity of bushes and trees; he squats there, about to reach out to open Johnny’s fly.

  At that very moment a car like an angry wild animal rams into the road, its lights flooding the path.

  Frightened, the man slides down the hill. Johnny turns away quickly. Is it the cops?

  As he moves away at an even pace, remaining cool in case it is the cops—the car’s motor stops. Its lights continue to bathe him for a long time: as if determined to imprison him in their glare.

  Suddenly they shift.

  Johnny looks back.

  The car is backing out, into the street. It turns awkwardly and rushes away.

  A drunk maybe, just making a clumsy turn, Johnny assures himself.

  Feeling a pang of illness in his stomach, he realizes he’s forgotten to eat tonight. But he returns to MacArthur Park.

  At the entrance a man approaches him. The man is shabby and turns him off. Johnny merely says hiyuh and walks into the park.

  The shadows are still cruising each other.

  This time unquestionably, there comes a cop-car moving slowly through the park like a hearse, bright lights on, preparatory to driving everyone out now that it’s almost midnight.

  Defiantly—for the few minutes remaining before he’ll have to leave—Johnny sits on the same bench as before, the one concealed by the large tree; and he’s thinking:

  Just one person, and I’ve been moving around for hours, just one person came on with me though lots wanted to, lots and lots, and it could’ve been two but that motherfucking shitass car had to come ramming in, it could’ve been two, just one person tonight, three last night, four altogether, three last night in the balcony, and that crazyman tonight, it could’ve been five, motherfucking shitass car, but it’s four, four people in two nights, only one tonight, four.

  Four.

  SEVEN

  YEARS AGO, a great fire swept Griffith Park in Los Angeles. It had been a dry, hot season; and the soil panted for water. Flames clutched greedily at the dry bushes, the trees, the sun-seared grass. At night an orang
e glow crowned the park, a glow visible as far away as downtown Los Angeles. The Cloud, swallowing the fiery smoke, was more orange than ever.

  The blaze left horrid scars. Brown ashen patches, black skeleton trees—like something out of a dream of desolation.

  Now the wounds, almost completely healed, have become a part of the vicissitude of the landscape. New trees, new brush, new grass, even new soil cover the razed terrain.

  And how did Johnny Rio decide to come here?

  Buried in his mind were breathless references to this park overheard mostly in Hollywood gay bars and always uttered in quickened tones of excitement: “You should have seen the numbers at Griffith Park the other afternoon!” . . . “Let’s take a drive to Griffith Park and: See The Sights!” . . . “Her party was as crowded as Griffith Park!”

  Then, however, Johnny (being, you’ll remember, “strictly a hustler”) wasn’t interested in such parks—other than Pershing Square, of course, which was okay because it was hustling territory. (No actual sex-action occurred there; it was the place where such action was proposed, accepted, or rejected.) And so Pershing Square and Main Street and its two swinging bars, the bar on Spring Street and the one on Figueroa, and Selma Avenue (occasionally) and Hollywood Boulevard and the make-out bars off it—those were the boundaries of Johnny’s jagged world, then. Now his boundaries were being redefined.

  Even then, though, some part of Johnny’s mind must have carefully filed the meaning of those aroused tones of voice, because, waking up late this morning and taking account of the dreary Sunday just passed (hours and hours and hours—and just one!—ironically, the weird hypocritical loony), those drowned references bobbed to the surface of his mind. Griffith Park! He knew immediately he’d go there this afternoon.

  The park is much vaster than Johnny expected. It sprawls over several thousand acres—threatening to spill out into Los Angeles, Hollywood, Glendale, invading even the sky; its various roads spiral up hills high above the city.

  Having approached it from the maze of the freeways, Johnny encounters the picnic grounds first, the zoo, the merry-go-round, the stables; families and troops of young boys and girls congregate noisily. Johnny knows this isn’t the area he’s looking for.

  Though he doesn’t know where that area is, he does know he’ll recognize it the moment he comes upon it (not unlike the way he would recognize the hustling quarters of cities by their proximity to all-night two- and three-feature movie theaters). But finding it is becoming more difficult than he anticipated. Roads fork into one another in a series of seemingly endless Y’s. A dead end at a bridle path. A steep blocked hill.

  Johnny’s radio is on: pouring out its mad, maddening cacophony, sounds ripped from the frayed edges of contemporary despair, often the slurred despair of those who are, emotionally, eternally children: who feel savagely but don’t understand.

  Now the Rolling Stones are conveying the sound of Johnny’s anguish, speaking of the lonely blackness inside; and convoluted bastard sounds spawn convoluted bastard sounds, not finished, leading to others, also unfinished.

  Johnny speeds along the curving road. Still he hasn’t found the section he’s looking for. Once he thought he had—when he spotted several parked cars in a cluster along a curve; but approaching them, he saw a man and a woman and a family nearby.

  Not here.

  Shit!

  Johnny has reached the Griffith Park Observatory: that dome capping one of the park’s many hills. Summer tourists wearing caps saunter about with cameras.

  Dry with anxiety, Johnny parks his car, drinks thirstily from a water faucet. Hot, he removes his soaked shirt.

  He goes into the men’s room nearby. There’s a mirror. Standing a distance back from it so he can see more of himself, Johnny squares his broad shoulders, smiles widely at himself—and knows that, once he finds the area he’s searching for, he’ll make out great.

  Speeding determinedly along the twisting roads again!

  Back down the same road!

  The breeze kisses his bare chest coolly.

  Golf course.

  Crap!

  Tennis courts.

  Goddamn!

  A greenhouse for special plants.

  Motherfuck it!

  And then the road exits into a long lane of attractive hybrid-California-Southern houses with wide green lawns.

  Piss!

  Johnny Rio turns the car around. Almost 3:00 in the afternoon, and he still hasn’t found the area he’s looking for! He’s become tense, frantic.

  I’m wasting time!

  And then:

  He sees a white car in his rearview mirror. Even from that distance and without having seen him before, Johnny “recognizes” something about the driver that comes through distinctly—he’s a sexhunter.

  Abruptly, Johnny swings his car to the side as if to park, actually allowing the other (who looks back with interest) to pass him.

  The white car turns to the right before the golf course. Johnny continues up so the driver won’t think he’s following him. When the car is out of sight, Johnny waits a few more seconds by the road. Then he makes a U-turn and takes a sharp left up the road along which the white car disappeared.

  As if abandoned on the sandy margins off the road and near the brush, there are many empty parked cars here. No visible hikers nearby. Each such parking place soon discloses narrow paths leading to or around lush trees whose branches spread like hugging, possessive arms, creating, farther on, what must certainly be coves of twigs and vines and leaves.

  As Johnny proceeds much more slowly up the swerving road, traffic thickens. Cars drive back and forth, making quick turns, parking. Men are getting out of their cars and moving into the thickly foliated areas and cavities of the park; they pause to look at those driving by. As Johnny passes them, they watch to see if he’ll turn back.

  But he doesn’t stop yet; he’s reconnoitering territory soon to be invaded, weighing the merits of one section against those of another for his purposes.

  The road extends a long, long distance up.

  At one turn, five cars are parked on a wide islet of sand about ten feet deep, bordered on one side by a dense grove of trees. On the other side, a broad path leads onto level land. Johnny marks that area in his mind.

  As he drives up the same road, he notices many other islets of sand—islets big enough for several cars to park in, always hugged by the curve of the road, always leading to tight paths down the side. . . . Treed sections before cave-like hollows. . . . Men standing on dunes along the road—like a periphery of an outpost overlooking the city. . . . A high, high hill, three cars parked before it: signals alerting others; at the top of that hill a growth of trees.

  And all along the road: many, many parked cars, some vacant, some occupied. Men waiting, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups. Heads disappearing along paths. . . . This is Monday’s idle group, then—tomorrow there will be another. It was so in Pershing Square and the bars: the distinct shifts of idlers that a hustler relies on to make it from day to day.

  When the cars begin to thin out, Johnny drives back very swiftly to the area where he saw the five cars. He parks in the sandy fan and waits in his car a few moments. He can see no one—but there’s that cleared path narrowing very gradually into what must be several other paths. And the cars—six now, and Johnny’s.

  All of a sudden, as it did at the landing of the balcony that first night, Johnny’s heart pumps cold blood.

  But the iciness soon thaws into pulsing excitement.

  Leaving his shirt in the car and lowering his Levi’s, typically, to his hips, Johnny gets out. Before taking the wide path, he looks at his watch carefully (seven minutes till 3:00)—as if he were about to execute a timed lap.

  The branches of so many trees droop so thickly here that the sun filters through only in tiny shifting sequin points and jagged patches.

  An atmosphere of eternal, sad twilight. . . .

  Johnny has a feeling of having “been”
here not long ago—no: more a sense of having experienced this exact mood. In the parks last night? Yes—and in the movie balcony. But other than that.

  And then he remembers: the purple morning outside of Phoenix.

  The wide path becomes several thinner ones, each narrowing even further, becoming circuitous, looping about trees, leading through clusters of bushes, to a slight ascent here, a decline there. And trees, trees. Still, no one.

  It’s like walking through a world of frozen green and gray.

  At the edge of a strip of sun, Johnny sees the tip of a multicolored towel; and now: lying on it a blond youngman ostensibly sunbathing: “ostensibly,” because the patch of light, drifting away already, is slightly smaller than the length of his body squared.

  Coming on him so suddenly, Johnny is shocked to see him lying there in what appears to be complete nudity—shocked at first only because of the mind’s unpreparedness. Before moving his eyes away abruptly (he couldn’t allow that youngman, nor anyone else for that matter, to think he’s interested—it’s he who must be noticed), Johnny realizes the youngman is actually wearing a bikini, the kind with snaps on the sides. What made him appear naked is that he’s unbuckled one of the two metal loops so that the front flap barely conceals his groin. Although pretending to sunbathe, he’s already spotted Johnny and is leaning interestedly on one elbow, the flap of the bikini almost sliding off. Only a short distance away, another man, fully clothed, leans against a tree.

  Noticing that Johnny is walking away, the blond youngman calls out hopefully to him: “Did you say something?”

  Johnny Rio hardly glances back, turned off by the fact that the youngman is obviously trying to attract attention by his near nudity. (He doesn’t attract me! Johnny thinks defiantly.) “Nope” is all he answered as he walked away.

  “Too bad,” the blond youngman sighed wistfully, in a tone that seems to indicate that he would come on with Johnny on Johnny’s terms. Nevertheless, Johnny moves on because there’s that other man near the tree. If, having seen Johnny too, he still prefers the blond youngman, it will depress Johnny very much. Rather than find out, he moves quickly along another path circling the large round trunk of a tree which could easily conceal someone leaning against it, another kneeling in front.