by Mason Brown
I was 18 years old when I walked into that bathhouse in Brooklyn. Old newspapers and the dust of dead cockroaches swirled around my feet as I stood at the door. It was in a seedy neighborhood, exactly where you would expect to find a place for outcasts and miscreants to congregate, to love, and to fuck. It was March 1979, and I was about to lose my virginity to the hottest guy I’d ever seen. I was so nervous. I’d never done anything—never even kissed a guy, but I’d heard about bathhouses and, being an 18-year-old boy, I couldn’t resist the allure of an open invitation to sex. I was so scared and excited that my hands were shaking when I handed the clerk the 10 bucks to get in the door. He led me down half-lit halls, the smells of bleach and sweat crawling up my nose with sharp claws. He showed me to my room and left me to get undressed.
The idea of walking around in nothing but a towel in a place filled with men who were like me and who might want me was so powerful I was light-headed and giggling from the minute I stepped in the door. I shuffled around the halls a bit, nervous about the impending sex and wondering if the other men there would like my skinny body and too-wide eyes. I walked with eyes downcast like some latter-day geisha, demurely avoiding the gaze of anyone I passed. The tile floor felt cool under my feet and I relaxed a little as I walked, even venturing a look up from time to time. As I wandered, I found the usual bathhouse amenities I had read about—the sauna, the steam room, the hot tub, the over-bleached pool. I also found some of those features unique to a bathhouse, like the orgy room, which I hurried past, blushing furiously. Then I stumbled across the private rooms. I walked those halls like a farmboy in an art gallery, alternating between gawking nervously and staring unabashedly at the men and the sex spread out before me.
I found him on my second go ‘round of the private rooms. He was gorgeous, with curly brown hair just kissing the tops of his ears, his smooth golden chest and flat stomach lightly dusted with auburn hair. He had a face that fell just short of chiseled and his cotton candy lips, beneath a Tom of Finland moustache, glistened faintly in the dim light. He was laid out on the small, hard bed with his towel draped artfully across his body so you could just see a hint of his cock peeking out from underneath. He looked up at me with ice-blue eyes, looked me up and down, and smiled. I was so nervous that I walked away and then had to catch my breath before I walked back. Finally, I mustered up the courage and went into his room. He leaned over to the nudge to the door closed with his foot and pulled back the towel to show me everything.
He wasn’t gentle, or loving, but he was intense. He was passionate and strong and guided me through every step to be exactly what he wanted. I lost myself in the moment and most of the experience was a blur, but I do remember running my hands over his body and feeling the small bandage on his left side just below his nipple. I remember wondering, at the time, if he’d been injured somehow.
As I walked home later, I alternated between feeling guilty and giggling at the forbidden thing I’d done. I was so scared of what had happened, but I desperately wanted it to happen again.
#
It wasn’t until six years later, walking out of the health clinic in Chelsea on a cool September afternoon, that I thought to wonder if perhaps the bandage had been hiding something more sinister, maybe a KS lesion. I don’t even know if he was the one. Six years of fucking my way through the five boroughs had a lot of possibilities. And, truthfully, it didn’t matter; I had just been told that I probably had AIDS and all I could think about was that I was going to die. And it was going to be ugly. And no one would want to take care of me. And I was going to be an embarrassment to my family. And I was going to lose my job. And I was going to lose my goddamn mind. I was standing there, glassy-eyed and reeling, feeling like I was at the top of the biggest hill on the rollercoaster, just feeling the first tendrils of gravity reach up and coil around me as I braced for the inevitable fall. A voice broke through my mounting panic and a Brooklyn brogue brought me back to the present.
“Hey, buddy,” the voice said, “you OK?”
“Yeah, fine,” I muttered as the world came into focus again, and I saw the red fire of the autumn leaves and a middle-aged man in a newsboy cap leaning against a food cart that he had clearly been pushing a moment ago. I realized I was standing in the middle of the sidewalk and the hot dog vendor was trying to get past. I moved out of the way, flinching away when he came close, and let myself drown for a moment in the smell of coney sauce, onions, and relish. I wondered how many more artery-clogging coney dogs I had left. On impulse, I asked, “Hey, where are you setting up?”
“10th and 28th, in Chelsea Park,” he said, grinning as he pushed his cart. “Come on down,” he called back over his shoulder, “I got the best dogs in the city.”
And I did. I called in to the midtown design firm where I worked and told them I was taking the rest of the day off. Then I went down to Chelsea Park, had three coney dogs and relished every bite of them. I remember it so well, that last day before anyone knew. Those last hours before I became a trope, another statistic—another queer with AIDS.
The hot dog man, turned out his name was Sam, watched for a little bit after I finished my dogs and then decided to take a break and sit down for a minute. I guess he could read something in my face or the way I sat on the park bench because he came and sat next to me. He looked around, a little furtively I thought, and then turned his concerned eyes toward me. I could read sympathy and a little bit of fear in the lines by his eyes and the tightness around his mouth, making the stubble on his chin and cheeks stand out like little soldiers at attention.
“I couldn’t help but notice,” he said, staring at the ground and shooting me a glance out of the corner of his eye, “where it was you came out of and how you were looking standing there on the sidewalk.”
He paused for a moment and glanced at me, expectantly, as if he wanted me to volunteer something. My heart started pounding like the wheels of a subway train running down the A line and it felt like that train had parked on my chest. He couldn’t know, I thought. How would he have any idea what the nurse had mumbled to me from beneath that paper mask, with disgust in her eyes and a tone of voice that said, ‘you deserve what you’ve got.’
“I’ll be blunt,” he said, looking back at the pavement, “is it what I think it is?”
“Wha-what do you mean?” I asked, trembling.
“Is it—you know, the gay thing?” he asked, still staring at the textured concrete beneath his feet.
“I don’t understand what you’re asking,” I said in a voice that sounded shrill and pinched to my own ears.
He sat up, looked up at the sky, sighed, and shook his head.
“Look, kid,” he said in a weary voice, “you were standing outside the Health Clinic looking like you were ready to jump in front of a bus. It wasn’t hard to guess. Guys don’t generally get suicidal over the clap.”
I was panicked at this point and looking for a way out, any escape that would let me run away from this crazy hot dog man who somehow knew I was dirty and diseased. I must have started to stand up because he put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me, gently, back into my seat.
“Shh,” he whispered as he patted my shoulder, “it’s OK. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Its just—” and he paused for a moment, “my brother died of it.”
I had no idea what to say. My mouth just worked in silent consternation as I tried to decide how to respond to this random guy’s accusation and confession. After what felt like an hour, I finally managed to blurt out, “What?” which wasn’t the most sensitive or eloquent thing I could have said, but I was just so floored, it was the best I could do.
Sam looked at me again and then returned to his study of the concrete as he began to tell me his story.
“My brother, Andrew, was always a little different,” he said, “but it was okay. It was just me and him and our parents, and Pop was never home, and Ma always just took him for who he was.” He chuckled quietly. “Andy was a character. He was bound and determined to follow our Dad and become a longshoreman—and he did. He didn’t tell me he was queer, you know. I found out on my own.”
He sat back and crossed one leg over the other, settling his hands at his aproned midsection. I still hadn’t said a word, and he was looking a little apprehensive.
“Now this next part,” he said, “it don’t make me look too good, but I got to admit who I was and the mistakes I made. See, I was working construction—a site over in Brooklyn. Me and some of the guys get juiced up one night and decide to go rough up some queers down in the Village. All three of us were pretty drunk and one of my buddies somehow looked up a queer bar and we headed down there.”
He blushed a little and looked at me kind of sheepishly. He looked away, across the park, and scratched behind his left ear for a second before turning back to me and continuing.
“We were young and stupid then,” he said with a sigh in his voice. “We didn’t know what we were doing. Or, at least, we didn’t think about it too much. Enough Old Granddad and almost anything seems like a good idea. No excuse, but that’s how it was then. So, anyway, we went down there and camped out in an alley behind one of the popular queer bars. We hunkered down behind a dumpster and passed the bottle back and forth between us, and waited. We saw a black, whadycallit, drag queen, or whatever, come through, but she skittered into the bar quicker than you’d believe a fella could move in heels.”
He shook his head and then leaned forward, clasped his hands together and rested his chin on top which gave him an almost comically conspiratorial look.
“So, what happened?” I asked, spellbound by his story. So spellbound that I didn’t realize at first that, as he spoke, I had calmed down. My heart wasn’t pounding anymore and my breathing had returned to normal.
He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. Then he looked at me and said, “Everything changed.
“We waited in that alley for a couple hours with no luck, but then, finally, near what must have been closing time for the bar, we saw a coupla guys coming towards us from the mouth of the alley, a tall one and a shorter one. I remember us whispering nasty stuff to each other, about how we were gonna teach them a lesson and how disgusting was it that they were holding hands. Mind you, this would have been—” he cocked his head to the side for a second and scrunched up his face while he tried to dredge up the memory, “—about 1961, I think, so things weren’t so good for homosexuals back then. Lots of bar raids from the cops and beatdowns from punks like me and my friends.”
He shook his head ruefully and his eyes misted over.
“God, we were stupid back then,” he said, “We couldn’t see them as people, just the freaks that our parents and our priests told us they were.”
A tear rolled down his cheek and he brushed it away as he sniffled gently in the cool September afternoon.
“We saw those boys coming,” he said, “and we were ready. We were crouched like alley cats, waiting to spring on a couple fat rats. Only problem was, once those boys got close enough, I realized that the tall one was Andy.”
He covered his face with his hands and shook gently for a moment. When he moved his hands, his eyes were wet with tears. He brushed them away, took a ragged breath, and braced himself to finish his confession.
“I was so shocked at first,” he said, “that I just froze. My friends jumped out yelling all sorts of trash and running toward Andy and his…friend. I just stood there for the first few seconds, felt like an hour, and tried to figure out what to do. It was two against two, my friends against my brother and his buddy, how could I choose? But I did choose. I picked Andy. Now, mind you, in those days Andy was a big boy. Like I said, he was a longshoreman and built like Samson, so he probably counted for two all on his own. Good thing, too, because his friend wasn’t much of a fighter. By the time I snapped out of it, Andy had already knocked down my friend Joe, but Bobby was going after Andy’s friend and the little guy didn’t have a chance. I jumped on Bobby’s back and knocked him down and yelled at Andy and his friend to run. Andy was so surprised to see me there that he froze stock-still for a minute. Then I saw him look at Bobby and Joe and then back at me, and I saw the realization dawn in his eyes. He knew I’d been with them, ready to smash some queers. He got this real pained look in his eyes, like his heart was breaking and then he picked up his friend and took off running. And so did I.”
He leaned forward on the park bench, looked up and let out a breath so deep and filled with regret, it sounded like he’d been holding it since that night in 1961. He was holding his hands with palms together and had his lips pressed against the sides of his index fingers, as if offering a prayer for absolution.
“What did you say to him when you saw him again?” I asked.
He chuckled softly and gave me a weary, tearful look and said, “10 years. That’s how long it was before I saw my brother again. It was our father’s funeral. Andy had left without a goodbye or an explanation except for a letter he wrote our mother that just said he needed to find his way in the world and that he loved her and Pop. He had a friend with him at the funeral. Not the same one from the alley, but someone new—to me at least. Ma fell apart. She was so broken over Pop’s death, but so overjoyed to see her baby again she just didn’t know what to do. All I got from Andy was a cold stare and a quick handshake that was clearly for our mother’s benefit, not mine. After the graveside service, we went back to the house for food, you know, like people do, and after a coupla beers had gone down, I got Andy alone on the back porch for a minute and just broke down. I fell apart and sobbed in my brother’s arms for what felt like an hour, just saying ‘I’m sorry’ over and over again. Really, it was probably only about five minutes, but I had spent the last ten years feeling so guilty about that night in the alley that when I finally got to say I was sorry and beg his forgiveness, time didn’t matter. When I finally got a hold of myself and looked up at Andy, he was crying too. He just hugged me tight and said ‘I forgive you’ and then gave me a huge grin. We went back in and made pleasantries with all the Aunts and Uncles and family friends that had turned up for the funeral. Or for free food.” He chuckled and cocked his head to the side and said, “Hey we’ve all got at least one mooch in the family. Anyway, Andy and I finally did sit down and talk and things worked out pretty well. I didn’t understand the whole gay thing at first, but I did my best and loved my brother no matter what.”
“So you weren’t disgusted with him for being…gay?” I asked.
“No,” he said, with a hint of uncertainty. “I was confused for a while, but over time I came to understand that love is love and that it didn’t hurt nobody that Andy liked guys. It was just who he was. Besides, we’re all made in God’s image, right? I’m just a mook from Brooklyn,” he said, smiling, “Who am I to argue with God?”
He chuckled a little and put his hand on my shoulder again for a moment. He got a sober look on his face, looked me in the eyes and said, “You’re in for a rough time, kid, and I’m sorry for that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked
“With the—” He paused for a moment, looking around to see if anyone was in earshot and dropped his voice to a whisper, “The AIDS.”
I tensed for a second and then just let the fight go out of me. He must have felt my shoulders relax because he starting nodding a little.
“I’m not going to lie to you and tell you ‘it’ll be ok,’ kid,” he said, “because it won’t. But maybe, I can at least help a little. You know, if you need someone to talk to.” He sighed “I remember how everyone looked at Andy when he got sick, like he was some freak, or like he deserved what he got for being who he was. If he hadn’t had me, I don’t know what he woulda done. I remember the people at the clinic down in the Village, where I used to take him for checkups and stuff, telling me how many of the guys with the AIDS just killed themselves because they lost everything and didn’t have no one to talk to, no one to listen to what they were going through. Broke my heart. But I stayed with Andy till the end. The nurses at the hospital the last few days thought I was crazy for holding his hand and giving him a kiss on the forehead when I’d leave to get coffee or go to the john. They must have thought I was suicidal, but I wasn’t. I knew what I was doing. I’m no college boy, but when the doctors talked, I listened. I knew I couldn’t get it from holding his hand or smoothing his hair back or kissing him on the forehead, just between the eyes, like Ma used to do. I knew better, even if the nurses didn’t. I wasn’t going to let my brother die alone. And I didn’t. I was there, in the room, holding his hand, when he went. You know, the nurses didn’t even give their sympathy? The doctor did, but he didn’t mean it, I could tell. He was just doing his job. They came in and took him and two weeks later I got back a box of ashes. I haven’t had much in my life since, except work, so I volunteer sometimes down at the gay community center. I’m a little out of place,” he chuckled, “but we have fun.”
“Is it open to anyone?” I asked meekly.
“Of course,” he said, “you’d be welcome anytime. You got a pen?”
“Sure,” I said, and pulled a ballpoint and a crumpled receipt from my pocket and he gave me the address and phone number for the community center. We sat and chatted for a few more minutes and then Sam had to get back to work, but as he stood up, I grabbed his hand with both of mine. He stopped and turned to look at me, the evening sunlight deepening the lines of his face. “Thank you,” I said, “for everything. You have no idea what this means to me. I think it may be a while before I find someone else who’s willing to see me as a person and not just as the disease.”
“No, it won’t.” he said with a serious look on his face, softened by the hint of a smile. “I’m here every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday from 11a.m. to 6 p.m., sometimes 7 if the weather’s nice or business is good.” He paused for a moment, looked at the pavement and then back up at me. When he met my eyes, he had tears in his. “Don’t be alone, kid. Don’t give up. You never know, they might find a cure for this thing next year, or the year after, or the year after that. Don’t lose hope.” His face broke into a small smile. “You get lonely or sad or need to talk,” he said, “you come see me. Have a dog and let go for a while, just be you again for an afternoon.”
I took him up on that offer. From that afternoon in September ’86 until he died in ’91, I came down almost every Sunday and hung out in the park, eating hot dogs and listening to Sam tell stories or telling him some of my own. I think, in that first decade of the AIDS crisis, that rough-edged straight guy from Brooklyn was my best friend.
Mason Brown is a longtime senior at the University of Akron, working toward a degree in English. He assumes he will get there someday. When not at school, or at work, he enjoys singing, spending time with friends, and playing chess with his cat. She always wins. Mason is a former Arts & Life editor for the University of Akron’s “Buchtelite” newspaper and, more recently, was a finalist in the 2016 Weathervane Playhouse 8×10 Theaterfest with his 10-minute play, Shadowplay. He has written a number of plays, short-stories, poems, and first chapters of novels, most of which languish placidly, gathering virtual dust, in a corner of his computer’s hard drive.