When partying on drugs, timing was everything. If you smoked, snorted, shot, popped, or swallowed too soon, you’d be all fucked up with nowhere to go. If you waited until everyone else was going full blast, you’d never catch up. Too much at once and you’d pass out before the fun started. Too many kinds and you’d barf. The trick was to coordinate liftoff with your entrance, rapture with the music’s climax, and the ecstatic second before blackout with orgasm.
Richard’s Friday night was off to a promising start. He had smoked a joint with Sam and Eli back in the apartment about an hour before midnight and floated the idea of bringing them along to Max’s. Sam begged off because he had to write an English paper (“What, stoned?” “Sure. I get some really high ideas while cool.”) and Eli was too engrossed in a Twilight Zone rerun (“To make better how I’m spoken English”), so Richard hoofed it over to the club by himself. Fuzzed out and ravenous by the time he arrived, he slipped past the front room’s packed booths, dodged into the bathroom to do a quick couple of lines (people were having either sex or heart attacks in the adjoining stalls—impossible to tell which and inadvisable to ask), and bellied up to the bar for a vodka shot or two. The buzz was that David Bowie was going to show up later that night but no one was holding their breath. Richard sucked the last ice cubes, left a twenty on the bar, and sauntered to the back—Andy’s domain. He did a quick internal scan before confronting Dorothy, the inner sanctum’s crazy dipso lady bouncer. Hands steady, breath sweet, pants tight, dick front and center, coke stash wedged deep in his front pocket, brain. Brain? Brain clear spinning warped woofed and welded firmly to his skull. The perfect buzzed state to party with the beautiful people, among whom Richard (quick sideways glance to the mirrored wall) stood out for his pretty-boy cheekbones and quarterback shoulders. Daddy’s record label didn’t hurt either—but that had only been good for a one-time pass. Richard was on his own now. No problem. He knew the ropes. And he had a little surprise up his sleeve that none of them would be able to resist. Showtime!
Dorothy waved him through, the black door swung open and shut, the front bar roar faded to a distant migrainy hum, and he was in. No Andy tonight. No Lou. No Patti. Maybe they were all at the Chelsea hanging with Bowie? No matter. A black-clad silver-bangled arm rose above the round table, beckoned him over, pulled out a chair. “Ree-chard!” Nico kissed his cheeks, Joel pushed a glass in front of him, Jackie winked her (his?) eyes, which looked distinctly rabid in the bloody neon light. Home! It didn’t matter that no royalty was in evidence. Even on an off-night, the back room at Max’s was better than anyplace else in New York—in the country—fuck, in the world. What happened at every other club was gossip—here it was history. What the women wore became fashion. What the men painted, sang, or wrote determined the avant-garde. What the men and women did together was the real cultural revolution. Fuck Kim and her fucking Black Panthers. Max’s was the only radical underground that counted, though the back room did eat up whatever Panther crumbs Richard picked up from Kim, Black Power being oh so chic at the moment. And now there was this weapons deal—guaranteed to boost his cool quotient, street cred, and cash stash. Richard Rines—gunrunner to the Revolution, when they’d all written him off as just another pretty face with a hardworking cock.
The regulars were hard at it when Richard joined them—dishing about sex, what else?
“Well, I’ve been both and had both,” Holly drawled, silencing the table. “And I can say that the intensity is a hundred times greater for women. It’s like a BB gun compared to a bazooka.”
“Bigger bang for the buck?” Larry, a sorta famous AC/DC artist who’d been on the scene before most of them were born, asked.
“Not just bigger, sweetheart. More . . . what am I saying? . . . pervasive? A guy fucks with his dick—a woman fucks with her whole body and soul.”
“More orifices, that’s for sure.”
“So male,” Holly sighed. “As if it’s all just plumbing. I’m talking about the mind-body continuum.”
“So what’s better?” Larry was lapping it up. “Up the ass or in the twat?”
“You tell me, darling.” That brought down the house—and the next round was on Larry, club rules.
“Anybody know where Andy is tonight?”
“Doing Bowie’s makeup, if I had to guess.”
“Or just doing Bowie, period.”
“As if. Andy never does anyone—he just watches.”
“And takes pictures.”
“And makes movies—but god, have you ever sat through one?”
“They call it art—but it’s more like printing money if you ask me.”
“Yeah, well, if it’s so easy, why don’t you run off a bunch of Franklins so you can quit mooching.”
“Mooch? Moi?”
“Oui, cherie, toi.”
“The price of fame.”
“I hate to break it to you, doll, but the only thing you’re famous for is between your legs.”
“Did a single head turn when you walked past the bar?”
“Of course—I counted six, give or take.”
“Well, when it comes to you and heads, it’s always more give than take.”
Another round of cackles—another round of drinks.
Richard barely touched his glass—he was saving himself for later in the evening. Anyway, it wasn’t the same without Andy. It was like they were all playing themselves. Putting on an act. So brittle. So fake. Jackie and Ari, Mick and Bianca, John and Yoko, Andy, Oscar, Liz and Dick were genuinely famous. The rest of them were back-up singers. Rule #1: If you talked about being famous, you weren’t. Richard, flatlining, began to wonder why he was here.
“So what have you been doing, Richie?” Candy batted her three-inch eyelashes his way. “Aside from ass and twat.” More roaring. “Got a job yet?” Code for drug money.
“As a matter of fact . . .” Every one of them lasered in on his face. This is what Richard loved best. Even if they were mostly just the B-list, he wanted them. Now that he had them, he had to hold them. Spin it out. Make it last. Dangle and dodge. “You know that wad of cash Leonard Bernstein laid on the Panthers?”
“The famous radical chic fund-raiser.”
“Throw a bone to the black folks—”
“Before they blow your white ass up!”
“Well,” Richard looked around the table conspiratorially, “I’ve figured out a way to get my hands on it.”
“What, you’re gonna break into Panthers headquarters and crack the safe?”
“Pull it out from under Bobby Seale’s mattress while he’s asleep?”
“Turn tricks? Sweetie, that’s never gonna work unless you change your sex—”
“And race.”
“Hilarious.” Richard crossed his forearms on the table and leaned in. He was desperate to do another line of coke but he had to drop his little bomb first. “Have any of you ladies ever heard of an Uzi?”
“You mean like Uzi and Harriet?”
“Scusi?”
“Uzi—who’s he?”
“Uzi Americains are so stupeeed.”
“I can’t eat, I’m feeling kinda Uzi.”
“I Uzi love her but it’s all over now.”
“Yeah, I thought it was pretty funny too.” Richard didn’t move a muscle; every eye was still on him. “Until a crate of them fell into my lap. Top-of-the-line, brand-new, Israeli automatic weapons.” The eyes widened; mental gears spun. “And I know who’ll pay top dollar for them. Now, if you’ll excUzi me . . .” He pushed himself off the table and stood.
“Hey, where’re you going?—you just got here.”
“Business.” He winked, making for the door while a surf of voices broke behind him.
He didn’t get far. He detoured to the bathroom to snort that line—and when he came out, the mirrored lights of the bar burst in his pupils so he just had to stop for one more drink to bask in the dazzle. His nose was already numb from the coke and after one sip of iced vodka the rest of his head followed suit. Fuckin’ A, it felt good to be alive. Richard was admiring himself in the mirror, minding his own business from the top of the world, when a familiar face appeared in the mirror beside his. Nico the Aryan goddess model bombshell actress superstar undisputed A-lister. They winked at each other’s reflections. Why wasn’t she still in the back with the rest of the crowd?
“Sometimes those people make me want to scream, you know?” The din was so loud she had to put her lips practically inside his ear to make herself heard. Her perfume turned his insides to pudding. “You too?” Richard nodded and Nico’s soft smooth lips glided up and down his ear. “And what’s all this about Uzis? Are you running guns for the Black Panthers?” It came out Bleck Pentards in her German accent.
Richard kept his eyes on the mirror. The bar was packed shoulder to shoulder. Nico on his left—and on his right a burly guy in a blue pin-striped suit and slicked hair. Not the typical Max’s look—more businessman than artiste, in fact.
“I was just bullshitting,” Richard shouted. Hyperalert from the coke, he felt the pin-striped shoulder stiffen as their reflected eyes collided in the mirror.
“But I love the Pentards,” Nico shouted back. Halfway through her sentence some celebrity waltzed in, and everyone quit talking and swiveled to see who it was. The word “Pentards” detonated in the lull. “So sexy.”
The pinstripe was definitely eavesdropping. Richard’s high began to curdle. “Sexy but dangerous. Honestly, I really don’t . . .” He tried to douse his rising panic. What was the problem? No one straight ever came to Max’s—the pinstripe was probably just someone’s agent.
“You should take pictures of the guns before you deliver—when you deliver.” Nico, heedless, barreled on full steam. “Andy would publish—your big break, yes?”
The pinstripe’s eyes were probing Richard’s in the mirror. It was like a pickup—only he had a feeling it would end with him being fucked over instead of fucked. Time to eighty-six this joint.
“Gotta split. See ya round, babe.” Richard sprinkled some bills on the bar.
“Hold it, you.” The pinstripe swiveled to block him.
“Actually, I’d rather not.” Richard had a lot of practice at this. “I already have a boyfriend.”
“Yeah? And who’s he running guns for—the Pink Panther?” This was getting stickier by the second.
“I’d love to stay and chat.” Richard leaned in closer. “But you’re really not my type.” And with that he closed the gap between their faces, planted a kiss full on the guy’s mouth, hopped off his stool, and melted into the three-deep bar crowd. He was out the door and back on the street before the pinstripe was done swabbing off the saliva.
richard cut through Union Square Park—catty-corner to the bar—but the junkies were even scarier than being tailed by a gorilla, so he veered back to the avenue, took a left, a right, ducked into an alley, flattened himself in a doorway, checked both directions, and finally started to breathe again. How could he have been such an idiot? Richard assumed that anyone who made it into Max’s was some kind of hipster or wannabe—why crash the epicenter of cool if you weren’t cool yourself?—but instead, just his luck, he and Nico had plunked down next to the fucking mafia. Who else would wear such revolting cologne? Just the word “Uzi” gave that pin-striped prick a hard-on. By now he probably had Nico tied up in some back room where he and his ginzo goons were torturing her till she squealed. Fuck. Fuck and phooey.
Screw it. He was probably just trippy from all the shit he’d been ingesting. Richard gulped down the cold night air, shook his head clear, and squared his shoulders. Everything was going to be just fine. Now that he was sure he wasn’t being followed, he took his time getting home. Anyway, there was no place else to go. That was the thing about New York—you plummeted from somebody to nobody just by stepping through a door. Didn’t matter who you thought you were—out on the street even Andy was just another muthafucka. Gun muzzle in the small of your back. Hands down your pockets. Hiss in your ear. And you were done—picked clean and kicked to the curb with the rest of the nobodies. What the fuck? Richard’s new motto. What the fucking fuck. Being nobody just meant you could be anybody. Nothing to lose. He could head up to Times Square, hunch under an awning like James Dean, pick up some drunk horny closet-case conventioneer, take him for everything he was worth. He could ride the subway all night with a marble-covered notebook on his lap like a street poet. He could hit the park, cop some horse, bliss out under the trees. How did that Ginsberg poem go again? . . . angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night . . . The machinery of night was humming softly all around him. Wind licked the bones of the deserted streets while high above, in the ceilings of commerce, fluorescent tubes burned like Christmas. A century of soot caked every surface. Old bums serenaded the pavement at the top of their lungs. Night-shift pickpockets sized him up and passed him by. Not a single living organism aside from rats and maggots survived for long out here. If it weren’t for his record producer daddy, Richard would be just another maggot, sleeping in a doorway like the rest of the junkies—or even worse, slaving away beneath the eternal flame of industry. According to Kim, those were the only choices capitalism offered—slaver or slave—but Richard wasn’t buying it. Politics didn’t explain shit. Not anymore. Some new beat was surfacing, vibrating the city, bouncing off the sidewalk, humming in the subway, slamming the bodies on the dance floors. Heavy, monotonous, tranced-out, giddy. Nothing would change, nothing would last. Pleasure was all that counted. So everybody dance now. Richard loved it. His beat, his people, his body, his soul. So what if he was born rich? In this new world, no one judged you as long as you could dance. Lucky little ducky Dickie. Handsome, charming, friend of the famous or almost famous.
Friend? Really?
Richard stopped at the rail fence that surrounded the Church of St.-Mark’s-in-the-Bowery, a Federal-style dowager dressed in hippie tie-dye. If he had a friend, he could pick up the phone, laugh, cry, crash at his place, meet at a bar, or just stand under the portico of this lost village chapel shooting the breeze till the sun rose.
But, when you came right down to it, was there anyone in this whole humongous heartless city he could count on, except maybe—just maybe—little Sammy Stein?
it was one in the morning when he stumbled through the apartment door but Sam was still up. “Just finished!” he greeted Richard triumphantly. “How d’ya like this for a title? ‘Rich and Famous: F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Cult of Celebrity.’ AP English will never be the same.”
“You should have asked me for some pointers,” Richard said, collapsing on Sam’s mattress. “Celebrity is my destiny.”
“Wanna hear the first page?”
“Why don’t you just start with what you wrote after we did that J.”
Sam squeezed out half a smile, stood up from the littered table, and stretched his arms over his head, baring a strip of skinny boy waist where his T-shirt rode up. A little needle of envy pierced Richard. He had four years on Sam. His gut was still flat, his features finely chiseled, his head lustrous with black hair—but for how much longer? In Andy’s world, the first little bulge and you were over the hill—unless your pockets were bulging too. He wanted to lean over and twist the little sprigs curling out the top of Sam’s tighty whities. The kid was no baby, even if he acted like one half the time.
Sam sat down cross-legged on the mattress next to Richard. Bags pouched his eyes and discs of sweat stained the T-shirt under his pits, but he was stoked with the heat of creation. “I love this book,” he murmured, holding the tattered paperback clasped to his heart, “but the more I study it, the more I agree with Kim about the bullshit politics. There’s a passage she showed me about black people that I totally missed. Listen to this.” He thumbed until he found it:
As we crossed Blackwell’s Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry. “Anything can happen now we’ve slid over this bridge,” I thought; “anything at all. . . .”
Sam put down the book. “Can you believe he calls black men bucks? It’d be like me calling Tutu girl. At least Faulkner acknowledges racism—but with Fitzgerald it’s unconscious, totally taken for granted.”
“You’re gonna ace college, man.”
“Yeah, if I get in.” Sam stood up and started pacing.
“What a crock. Colleges will be competing for you. You’ll be beating them off with a stick.”
“Instead of just beating off, huh?”
“Good one, Sambo.”
“Hey muthafucka, you better not let Kim catch you talking that shit.”
“You think I’m scared of that little white-ass honky bitch?” Sam cracked his paperback on the crown of Richard’s head. Richard grabbed his forearm in both hands and twisted in opposite directions. Sam tore loose, got behind Richard, flung an arm under his chin, and put him in a headlock. Richard reached back with one hand and goosed Sam—whereupon they both toppled over. Richard was bigger by three inches and twenty pounds and within seconds he had Sam flat on his back with his knees pinning his shoulders. “Say uncle.”
“Fuck you.”
“Say uncle, Sammy!”
“Fuck your uncle.” Sam arched and tumbled Richard off him. They lay panting side by side for a minute.
“So where’s your girlfriend tonight?” Richard asked when he got his breath.
“Who knows.” Sam sighed and rolled over on his side. “She never tells me anything anymore.”
“So you’re just gonna mope around here waiting for her?”
“Unless you’ve got a better plan.”
The second they walked into the bar Sam knew it was a terrible idea. But when had he ever said no to Richard? “My treat—my choice—those are the rules.” So he tagged along, sidekick forever. And now look where he was. What was the name of this joint anyway? Rock Hard? The music was deafening. The sweat and smoke were asphyxiating. The bar was dark as a skull, but every two beats the dueling strobes captured and froze a hundred contorted bodies—all male. He heard them roar and felt them press against him. Warm flesh. Sticky leather. Belt buckles—or boners—jabbing his flanks. A hand locked around his forearm—Richard’s—and dragged him through the press. Shoulders parted. Miraculously, two empty stools appeared at the far end of the bar. Richard grabbed one and shoved the other under Sam. A big bald bartender in red leather and black body hair strobed into view and Richard waved Vs at him with both hands like Tricky Dick. “Two double vodkas!” he shouted over the music.
Richard pounded his but Sam sipped. He wasn’t a drinker. He didn’t want a repeat of New Year’s. You’re a reporter, he told himself. Just take it all in. It doesn’t mean anything. No one knows you’re here. By the third sip he was bobbing his head to the beat. He looked in the mirror behind the bar. Everyone lit in the strobe looked as if he’d been assembled in the same factory. Leather vest. Cropped head. Lean face. Hungry eyes. How do they tell one another apart? He dodged the eyes that tried to snag his. Richard was engrossed with the guy on his other side. Now what am I supposed to do? By the fifth sip he had to pee. He jabbed Richard with an elbow and screamed, “Bathroom,” in his ear. “In the rear,” Richard screamed back. The line snaked halfway across the back room. There must have been twenty guys waiting to empty their bladders—or whatever. At least the music was less assaulting. His gaze fell on the head of the guy in front of him—blond hair cut short and a deep furrow where head and neck fused. In gym class, when coach had them line up in squads, Sam always stood behind a kid with that same blond groove at the back of his head. Sean Rourke. Here? Now? No way. He turned—and both of them went crimson. “Sam?” “Sean?” Even in the dim light, Sam could see Sean’s eyes flicker like slot machine icons—then the tough-guy face cracked open in a grin.
“Don’t tell me—you’re here undercover—writing about the scene for the school rag. Or . . .” He winked.
Sam opened his mouth but nothing came out. Sean was part of the Irish gang that haunted the park by the Catholic church. His father sold cars at the local Chevy dealership; one of his older brothers had been captain of the football team. He and Sean had never been friends exactly—scrawny boys like Sam gave the Irish gang a wide berth—but the two of them had an understanding. One time in junior high, when their class had its turn in the stinky over-chlorinated pool and Sam dove in and his bathing suit slipped off his nonexistent hips and the other boys pointed and screamed “Stein’s a homo!”, Sean shut them up. God knows why.
“Listen, Stein.” Sean was bouncing from foot to foot. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“I’m not thinking anything except about my bladder.” They were standing next to each other now, shuffling toward the toilet. Sam caught Sean’s darting eyes, but he couldn’t read the expression. Shame? Merriment? Conspiracy? He’d never noticed how much Sean resembled the photo of Fitzgerald in profile on the back of The Great Gatsby.
“Very funny.” Sean was shaking his head. “I was about to say, I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me. But you know what? I don’t give a rat’s ass who you tell. It’s senior fucking spring. We’re free! At least I am.” And with that, Sean clapped an arm around Sam’s shoulders and with the other hand chucked him under the chin. “See you around, Sammy.” He pushed open the door of the john, turned to fire off one last grin, and disappeared.
richard found him sitting huddled on the curb outside the bar. “I thought maybe you found someone you fancied. Expand your horizons.”
“Just came out for a breath of air. It was so stifling in there.” I know what you’re thinking. And he knew what Sean was thinking.
“Totally.” Richard sat down next to him. “All those horny hunks in leather pants—I got kinda overheated myself.”
Sam bristled. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh c’mon, Sammy. Lighten up. Deep down, everybody’s queer.”
“Whatever you say, Richard.” Not a word about Sean—never. “But seriously. You actually like that place? You’re handsome—funny—cool—whatever. No one’s gonna say no to Richard Rines. But that bar was the dregs. So—” Sam groped for the word—“ugly.”
“Okay. Got it. Next time it’ll be the Russian Tea Room.” They walked a couple of blocks without speaking. Sam glanced at his friend’s perfect profile. Was he offended? Was it possible to offend Richard? In the streetlight the jagged scar next to his mouth looked etched in black. A plume of vapor billowed from his pursed lips. “Sam?” Richard broke the silence. “How old were you when my family moved to the neighborhood? Eight? Nine?”
“Something like that.”
Richard slowed the pace, heels scraping the sidewalk. “Remember Donna?”
Donna was Richard’s younger sister—Sam’s age, maybe a year younger. She’d been born with hydrocephalus—water on the brain, they called it, which made Sam think of the specimen bottles of pickled organs he’d once seen at the Smithsonian. The disease swelled her head grotesquely and shriveled her body to a pale limp specter. It killed her when she was nine. Sam’s mother made him write a condolence letter to Richard’s parents. He hadn’t thought about Donna in ages.
“Yeah, I remember,” Sam said softly. “You were, what, fourteen when she died?”
“Yeah. God, kids are so fucking mean at that age. There goes Donna Dumbo. What’s inside your head, Donna? You know why I always liked you, Sammy? Because you were nice to her. Remember the retarded class?” Sam remembered. “Everyone acted like those kids were contagious. But Donna said you used to hang out with them on the playground.”
“Because I was such a reject no one else would go near me.”
“No, Sam. You were nice. Nicer than me.” Richard stopped walking and propped his back against a lamppost. “There were times I wanted her to die. Lots of times. It was so embarrassing—the way everyone stared, like the whole family were freaks. When she got hurt she didn’t cry—she moaned. She didn’t even sound like a person. Every year her head got bigger and the rest of her shrank. It was all my parents ever talked about. I prayed that they’d get rid of her. And then it happened. They took her away to the hospital and she never came back. And I thought, Now no one’s gonna call me “freak brother” anymore. No one’s gonna point and laugh. Once Donna was gone, I could be cute. Cute Ricky. It’s all I ever wanted. Look how cute Richard is. What a hottie. Yeah. You have no idea how good that felt. To be looked at because you’re attractive and not some freak? So yeah, Sam, when I walk into a bar and every head turns, yeah.” He was breathing hard, staring at the sidewalk. “Freak brother is ancient history. Now it’s like Who’s that? Look at him. Hey, gorgeous. Okay? You get it now? I wanted her dead, Sam—and then she died. Now I think about her every day—except when I’m too fucked up to think.”
Sam was speechless. Richard had always been so wild, so physical. He was constantly in your face—hands all over you, chugging beer, cracking jokes, making trouble. It never occurred to Sam he was carrying all this darkness inside. A surge of heat rose inside him. “You knew you were my hero, right?” Sam waited but there was no answer. Richard pushed off from the lamppost and they started walking again. “When we were kids, I thought you were so—I don’t know—crazy. Dangerous. Like nothing mattered. Like you didn’t care what anyone thought. Free—you were so free.”
“Oh, c’mon, Sam.” The grief had evaporated and—boom!—just like that the snarky edge was back. “Why don’t you just admit you were in love with me.” He threw an arm around Sam’s shoulder and squeezed. “Or should we say are?”
“Sorry, pal, but you’re not my type.” Sam let the arm rest heavy on his shoulder.
“Oh, so you have a type?” Sam shrugged off the arm. “Ever done it with a guy?”
“Are you crazy? I was a virgin till Kim and I . . .”
“Ever wanted to?”
Long pause. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s weird—but when I got mugged in the subway up in Harlem? I kept thinking about Leon. . . .”
“Who’s Leon?”
“You know, Tutu’s grandson I told you guys about? It’s not like I’m attracted to him or anything. But the whole time I was stranded in the subway, I kept hoping he’d rush down and save me. You know, like a brother.”
“Soul brother.”
“Whatever.”
Half a block of silence. “So, what’s going on with you and Kim?” Sam only grunted so Richard pressed on, “It was nonstop boogie nights when you guys first moved in—but now it’s like a tomb out there.”
“She’s starting to scare me.” Sam’s voice was a thread. “She won’t even talk about what she’s doing anymore. It’s like I’m a spy.”
“You know you’re never going to hold her.” They were striding in step now, both their heads tilted down at the same angle. “She’s not the girlfriend type.”
Sam felt his mouth start to tremble. “Oh yeah? Well, I think she’s someone else’s girlfriend now. She barely looks at me.”
“You gotta let her go, man. Don’t make her hate you.”
“I thought she understood everything about me.” The words were coming out in gasps. “That first night—when I talked about Tutu and she told me about Delores. It was like whatever I thought, she’d thought before me. We just got each other. But now . . .” Sam gulped to get control of his voice.
Silence fell between them again. They were almost back to the apartment. “Okay, Sam, fast-forward five years—no, ten,” Richard tossed out. “What do you see yourself doing?”
Grateful for the change of subject, Sam answered without thinking: “Writing.”
“Duh.” Richard thudded him with a shoulder. “Everyone knows you’re gonna be a writer, dude. But about what? And who for?”
“That’s the thing,” Sam practically wailed. “I wanna be a writer—but honestly—deep down—I’m scared shitless that I don’t have anything to write about and never will.”
“What about that bar? Gay liberation—the next big thing.”
“Ugh.”
“What about Kim and the Panthers?”
“She’d kill me—she’s already totally paranoid about the FBI.”
“What about me?” Sam walked on, shaking his head. “Or Leon? What about Leon?”
“What about Leon?”
“You could write his story. ‘Leon Washington’ . . . ”
“Carter.”
“‘Leon Carter: The Secret Life of the Maid’s Son.’”
“Grandson.”
“Whatever. Think about it, Sam. Everyone’s always going on about power to the people—but who are the people? So you do a series of profiles of real people . . . starting with Leon.”
“What if he says no?”
“You’re never gonna know till you ask him, right? Don’t tell me you’re chicken.”
“Bock bock bah-gaw!” Sam cawed at the sky. But honestly, it wasn’t such a bad idea.