Not So Good a Gay Man by Frank M. Robinson

Author:Frank M. Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

XIX

I SQUIRMED IN my first-class seat, took a pass on the meal, and closed my eyes to try to sleep. Bob Shea would meet me at the airport and drive me to my apartment on the lakefront, not that far down from Northwestern. I understood the apartment was furnished, complete with both bedding and kitchen supplies.

I’d miss Cat. I should have thought of some way I could take him along, but I had a hunch he was more attached to the apartment than to me.

Good luck, Cat.… I hope your new master loves you as much as I did even if I didn’t always show it.

And then the memories started to slide back in. Fat Maxey, a fixture at the I/Thou, who had the most handsome boy in the Haight as his lover. Nobody knew how he did it, least of all me, though I was properly jealous.… Then the one Haight hanger-on who had connections down the peninsula and took me on a guided tour through the locker room at Stanford. I was supposed to be impressed, but I had spent too many years working out at the Evanston Y to do more than glance at the athletes changing into their uniforms.

What I remembered most was my first night in ’Frisco, when “Jesus” had stepped out of the shadows and offered me a french fry.

Then most of my San Francisco memories started to slide away. It was dark out and I fell asleep. The next thing I knew the stewardess was shaking me gently to say we’d arrived at O’Hare.

Shea met me at baggage claim, told me it would be a short ride, and threw my bags into the backseat. I was out of it and saw little of the city. It was a windy night and I could hear the waves of Lake Michigan sweeping over the beach.

There were lights on in some of the windows of the apartments, but I couldn’t make out the whole building. Bob gave the apartment keys to me and told me they didn’t expect me at Playboy until noon.

I fumbled for the light switch and glanced around. I had lucked out. Wall-to-wall carpeting, big living room, large windows overlooking the lake, medium-size bedroom, and what looked like a fully equipped kitchen.

There were two huge floor pillows in the living room and I collapsed on one of them, too tired to go into the bedroom and strip to my shorts.

It was a very bright morning when I woke up, wondered where the hell Cat was, then jerked fully awake. An hour to brush my teeth and make it down to the Palmolive Building, renamed the Playboy Building. They had really come up in the world since the last time I’d been in their offices. Playboy was now the biggest-selling newsstand magazine in the country, with a circulation of seven million. It usually ran to three hundred pages, half of which carried ads. Playboy now paid the rent of many of the magazine outlets that carried it.

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