The Coming of the Night by John Rechy

Author:John Rechy
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781555847265
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Ernie

AFTERNOON

Goddamned size queen! Ernie kept repeating after Andy had left like he couldn't get away quick enough. He remained naked, sitting before the television screen, pointing the control like a gun at the screen. Saturdays were awful television days. He could hardly wait for that new cable channel everyone was talking about, that MTV, with all those cute guys dancing around in tight clothes.

He flicked on the television. Not even a good old movie with Bette Davis, that movie queen old guys loved so much. Lots of stupid talk shows. Who cared about that fucking Jupiter planet? Or Mars, or wherever the hell they were shooting those damn rockets at now. Hey, don't anyone say he was against science, but first things first, right? Those scientists couldn't even cure a cold.

Too much to hope for a big special, like when Prince Charles and Lady Diana got married. He'd stayed up into early morning to see the wedding, and damned if he hadn't cried. That old queen—not the English one, the one who lived in the apartment near his—had watched, too, he knew, because he could hear the TV and her sobs. The next day she'd asked him how he'd liked the royal wedding. Of course he'd said, “What royal wedding?”

What he wouldn't give for a rerun right now. Like Dynasty! You didn't have to apologize for loving Dynasty, because every gay guy had watched it at one time or another, even the most macho guys. A favorite gay bar on Santa Monica had held "Dynasty nights.” Leather guys, cowboys—everybody sat watching and cruising—and whenever that Alexis came on with one of her lines, the guys would yell it out after her, “Dawn't even bothuh!”

Go to the movies? Hey, maybe Ragtime was playing. He'd seen it at a preview a friend had invited him to, and he planned on seeing it again, to check out that real cute reddish blond kid with a knockout bod, the kid who'd played a photographer by the beach in one scene, and then was in the ballroom scene. Look, it wasn't that he went to movies only to look at cute guys, like some of his friends did. Hey, he didn't have sex in the head, right? But what was wrong with spotting one of your favorite sexy types and having a little fantasy going in Technicolor?

“—two more fires in the hills. No planned evacuation yet. The freeway—” A breathless news bulletin had come on, with that weird an-chorwoman, Mandy Lange-Jones, smiling away. “Some are saying this is earthquake weather, too—” Damn if she didn't look even more delighted than usual, at the thought of two disasters at the same time. Now Mandy Lange-Jones went on to announce a late-evening news “In Depth Report” on young male hustlers along Santa Monica Boulevard. “Street-smart young men can earn a thousand dollars a week selling their young bodies to—”

Ernie clicked her off and waved goodbye with a finger.

He reached for a magazine that pictured muscular men wearing only boots or cowboy hats, or a leather jacket.

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