Early Warning

“No, sir.” Charlie knew to say “sir” and “ma’am” if he was in trouble.

There was a long pause. Coach Lutz said, “Most kids, I wouldn’t believe them, Charlie, but you I believe.”

Then he said, “It was a good one, too. But don’t do it again.”

Only then did he smile.

After that, going to diving class was like putting himself in a box and closing the lid. He did exactly as he was told and just the way he was told to do it. But the day would come, like Christmas, when he would be allowed to open the box, and the rolls and twists would fill him with that sense, again, that he knew everything and nothing at the exact same time, that between the sight of his foot and the feeling of the water there would be an intoxicating mystery, and that was the only thing in this world that he wanted.

—

MICHAEL GOT IT into his mind that the best place to take girls was down to New Hope, where the queers had these great dance clubs, like the Prelude. Richie didn’t object — the sound system was top-of-the-line loud, the mirror lights were flashing, the dance floor was big, and girls could wear great outfits and get plenty of compliments. If you didn’t mind queers that much and kept your elbows up in the john, that part was fine, and there were also plenty of poppers, which made for an even better time. Sometimes Michael went without Richie, but they didn’t have to go everywhere together, and they weren’t living together. Michael worked for Mr. Upjohn as a runner on the trading floor; Richie worked for Mr. Rubino, updating commercial listings and answering the phone. Michael made fifteen hundred dollars a month, and Richie made sixteen hundred.

Their car was the old Chrysler (though Michael was looking at a Jag, and Richie liked Porsches). The number-one girl was Marnie Keller. She worked as an assistant in publishing at Viking, and made about two cents an hour. She lived in an illegal sublet in Chelsea and couldn’t answer the phone or the door. If Michael wanted to see her, he had to go to her place and knock, and she would look through the little hole in the door and let him in if she was in the mood. Girl number two was a friend of Marnie’s from work, who lived on the Upper East Side, in a dump. The main floor of the apartment was nice enough, but Ivy’s room was down a spiral staircase that had been cut into the floor. No window, but there was a double bed and a colorful rug, and it was better than sleeping on couches, which is what Ivy had done for three months after coming to New York after graduating from Bard. Marnie was in publicity, and Ivy was in editorial. They didn’t let you hold doors for them, but they did let you pay. Michael said that that was women’s liberation for you.

Everyone was waiting for him outside Michael’s place on Eighty-fourth Street, also a dump, but in a good neighborhood. Michael had an arm around each girl. He was wearing a tight jacket and boots with heels. A cigarette was dangling from the corner of his mouth. When Richie pulled up, Michael hustled Marnie into the back seat with him and let Ivy open the passenger’s door for herself. She got in and gave Richie a kiss on the cheek; Michael said, “Fuck, it’s cold. The heat on?”

Richie kissed Ivy in return, then said, “Hi, Marn. Where’d you pick up this asshole?”

“Usual spot,” said Marnie, and the two girls laughed.

“Fuck, she loves me, she loves me not,” said Michael. He had the expanded quality that indicated to Richie that he’d had a few drinks before the girls arrived. He lay back across most of the seat, and pulled Marnie against him. She said, “How can I fasten my seat belt?”

“No seat belts on you, baby,” said Michael.

Ivy fastened her seat belt, put her hand on Richie’s knee.

New York was not like college in many ways, and one of them was that the girls he dated in college wanted boyfriends, a ring, and a wedding, but the girls that he dated in New York wanted something more like a wild brother. Michael said that the only thing girls in New York wanted was a decent apartment, and to get that you had to find an older man who (as Richie knew) had purchased his apartment in the early sixties. If that meant kids and an ex-wife, so be it. Boys their own age were for fun, and older men were for membership at MoMA, an account with a car service, access to book parties where Norman Mailer might show up. This system was fine, according to Michael. In the first place, look at their mom and dad, who might as well be living in a hotel as in a house together — a thirty-year-old stepmother would at least buy the old man some cooler suits. In the second place, in ten years, when they themselves had it made, they would have their pick of that crop, the 1963 crop, and who was to say that 1963 wasn’t a very good year? Michael planned to sample all the vintages along the way.