Numbers by John Rechy

Author:John Rechy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 1984-11-08T05:00:00+00:00

NINE

JOHNNY RIO RETURNED to Griffith Park the next day. This time in the morning. Ten minutes after 11:00.

He had thought there wouldn’t be much traffic in the park this early, but the funereal procession of slow-cruising cars had already begun; and when he parked before the Arena, there were five cars there already. It’s summer, the season of indolence; and the subterranean reputation of the park draws people from everywhere.

Once again last night Johnny lay by the pool until he went to bed. And then it was as if sleep were a craggy, steep mountain he had to climb. . . . Eleven, eleven, eleven, his mind kept insisting—until, finally, he faded out.

It was still dark when he woke, startled, thinking he was in the park and it was night. . . . He got up, turned the lights on—to reassure himself. In the imagined night the park had looked like a graveyard, the bushes like stones.

I won’t go back!

In the morning, he knew he would.

Long ago, Johnny saw a movie in which misty ghosts rose from their graves to prowl a foggy cemetery. He wasn’t so much frightened as saddened by the silence and remoteness of it all—though at times the ghosts did fuse. Now, in the Arena—still struck by the sense of entering a separated world, and seeing the men here cruising the misty greenness—he’s reminded of that movie—and of the awake “dream” he had last night. It’s as if he’s interrupted the walk of somnambulists.

As if to assert his aliveness, Johnny walked in like a warrior certain of victory.

The blond youngman in the bikini isn’t here today, though he could be “sunbathing” somewhere else—his usual place is smothered by shadows.

Farther inside, Johnny encounters a very goodlooking youngman wearing a crazy sailor cap pushed back over masses of sandy curls that tumble down his forehead. (He can’t possibly be a sailor, though, with hair so long it licks at his collar.) Cocky as hell, he’s what queens refer to as “a real cute butch number.” He too is dressed in Levi’s, and a sweatshirt with the sleeves lopped off unevenly. Perhaps slightly shorter than Johnny, he’s clearly competition.

In one sharp look—and only one—they became rivals, declare war. I’ll show the fucker up! each obviously thinks.

Two other men in the area look from Johnny to the other, as if trying to decide which one to pursue (and it’s clear both Johnny and the curly-haired youngman expect to be pursued). Of course, a clear-cut victory for Johnny would be for the two men to follow him to the Cliff, toward which he’s swaggering.

Here comes one of them. And another!—a new one. Two on Johnny’s turf. Only one on the other’s. No, two; Johnny just saw a second one edging toward the curlyhaired guy. Two and two—a draw for now. (But not really, because that other man cruising him hasn’t seen me yet! Johnny points out to himself.)

Like in that movie in which ghosts materialized, new people keep appearing in the area—too many to divide into two camps.

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