"No problem," said Lou. "All women are really lesbians. "
Royce stared at him for a moment. Then he began to laugh.
"I wouldn't expect you to understand. But the first experience of physical tenderness that any woman has is with her mother. "
"Gee, I'm sure glad my old aunt Hortensia didn't know that. She would be surprised. Hey, Alice. Are you a dyke?"
Lou went pale, and lines of shadow encircled his mouth.
"Yes," said Alice, the camera.
"Well, I'm a faggot, but it doesn't mean everyone else is. "
Lou launched himself from the bed, in a fury. He was on his feet, and shouting, flecks of spit propelled from his mouth.
"You do not use demeaning language here!" His voice cracked.
Alice had been working nine hours, and now she was alone, on the night shift. She had been watching, silently, for nine hours. Now, she wanted to talk.
"I had a girlfriend once who was straight," she said. "No matter how hard she tried, women just didn't bring her off. Mind you, that's better than those lust lesbians. They just want your body. Me, I'm totally dedicated to women, but it's a political commitment. It's something I decided. I don't let my body make my decisions for me. "
"Yeah, I know what you mean," said Royce. "It's these lust faggots, I can't stand. " He cast his eyes about him at the Boys, and they chuckled.
"We do not use the word ‘dyke' in this station," said Lou.
Royce looked rather sad and affectionate, and shook his head. "Lou. You are such a prig. Not only are you a prig. You are a dumb prig. "
The floor seemed to open up under my feet with admiration. Only Royce could have said that to Lou. I loved him, even though I did not love myself. The Boys chuckled again, because it was funny, and because it was true, and because it was a little bit of a shock.
"Alice," said Lou. "He has just insulted women. "
"Funny," said Alice. "I thought he'd just insulted you. "
Lou looked like he was in the middle of a nightmare; you could see it in his face. "Alice is being very tolerant, Royce. But from now on, you talk to and about the women with respect. If you want to live here with us, there are a few ground rules. "
"Like what?"
"No more jokes. "
Royce was leaning against the bar at the foot of our bed, and he was calm, and his ankles were crossed. He closed his eyes, and smiled. "No more jokes?" he asked, amused.
"You mess around with the women, you put us all in danger. You keep putting us in danger, you got to go. "
"Lou," said Alice. "Can I remind you of something? You don't decide who goes on the trains. We do. "
"I understand that, Alice. " He slumped from the shoulders and his breath seeped out of him. He seemed to shrink.
"Lou," said Royce. "I think you and I are on the same side?" It was a question.
"We'd better be," said Lou.
"Then you do know why I talk to the women. "
"Yeah," said Lou. " You want to show off. You want to be the center of attention. You don't want to take responsibility for anything. "
He didn't understand. Lou was dangerous because he was stupid.
"I've been a prison guard," said Royce, carefully. "I know what it's like. You're trapped, even worse than the prisoners. "
"So?" He was going to make Royce say it, in front of a camera. He was going to make him say that he was talking to the Grils so that they would find it hard to kill us when the time came.
"I'm talking to the women, so that they'll get to know us," said Royce, "and see that there is a place for gay men within the revolution. They can't know that unless we talk to them. Can they?"
Bull's-eye again. That was the only formulation Lou was ever likely to accept.
"I mean, can they, Lou? I think we're working with the women on this thing together. There's no need for silence between us, not if we're on the same side. OK, so maybe I do it wrong. I don't want to be the only one who does all the talking. We all should talk to them, Lou, you, me, all of us. And the women should feel that they can talk with us as well. "
"Oh yeah, I am so bored keeping schtum," said Alice.
Lou went still, and he drew in a deep breath. "OK," he said. "We can proceed on that basis. We all communicate, with each other and with the cameras. But Royce. That means no more withdrawing. No more going off in a corner. No more little heart to hearts on the mound. "
"I didn't know that was a problem, Lou. There will be no more of those. "
"OK, then," said Lou, murmurous in defeat. Royce strode toward him, both hands outstretched, and took Lou's hand in both of his.
"This is really good, Lou. I'm really glad we talked. "
Lou looked back at him, looking worn and heavy, but he was touched. Big Lou was moved, as well, and he gave a slightly forlorn flicker of a smile.
So Royce became head of the Station.
He gave me a friendly little nod, and moved his things away from our bed. He slept in Tom's; Tom never did. It didn't matter, because I still had my little corner of goodness, even if we didn't talk. Royce was still there, telling jokes. I was happy with that because I knew that I had deserted him before he had deserted me; and I understood that I was to be the visible victory he gave to Lou. None of that mattered. Royce had survived. I didn't cry the first night alone; I stopped myself. I didn't want the Boys to hear.
Things started to change. The cameras stopped looking at us on the john. We could see them turn and look away. Then one morning, they were just hanging, dead.
"Hey, Rich!" Harry called me. It was me and Harry, unloading the food cart, as winter finally came. Harry was hopping up and down in front of the camera. He leapt up and tapped it, and the warm-up light did not even go on.
"They've turned it off, Rich! the camera's off. It's dead!"
He grabbed my arms, and spun me around, and started doing a little dance, and I started to hoot with laughter along with him. It was like someone had handed you back part of your pride. It was like we were human enough to be accorded that again.
"Hey Royce, the camera in the john's off!" shouted Harry, as we burst through the canteen doors with the trolley.
"Maybe they're just broken," said Gary, who was still loyal to Lou.
"Naw, man, they'd be telling us to fix it by now. They've turned it off!"
"That so, Alice?" Royce asked the camera in the canteen.
"Oh. Yeah," said Alice. Odd how a mechanical voice could sound so much more personal than a real one, closer somehow, as if in the middle of your ear.
"Thanks, Alice. "
"'S OK," said Alice, embarrassed. "We explained it to the Wigs. We told them it was like pornography, you know, demeaning to us. They bought it. Believe me, you guys are not a lovely sight first thing in the morning. "
I could see Royce go all alert at that word "Wig," like an animal raising its ears. He didn't mention the Wigs again until later that afternoon.
"Alice, is our talking ever a problem for you?"
"How d'you mean?"
"Well, if one of the Wigs walked in. "
Alice kind of laughed. "Huh. They don't get down this far. What do you know about them, anyhow?"
"Nothing. Who are they?"
"Mind your own business. The people who run things. "
"Well if someone does show up and you want us to shut up, just sneeze, and we'll stop talking. "
"Sneeze?"
"Well, you could always come right out and say cool it guys, there's someone here. "
"Hey Scarlett," said Alice. "Can you sneeze?"
"Ach-ooo," said Miss Scarlett, delicately.
"Just testing, guys," said Alice.
Big Lou hung around, trying to smile, trying to look like somehow all this was going on under his auspices. Nobody was paying attention.
The next day, the train didn't show.
It was very cold, and we stood on the platform, thumping our feet, as the day grew more sparkling, and the shadows shorter.