Sacrament

CHAPTER V

i

Did you meet the mystical Bethlynn Reichle?'Adrianna wanted to know when Will told her about Patrick. They were brunching at Cafe Flore on Market Street the following day: spinach frittatas, home fries and coffee. Will told her no, there'd been neither sight nor mention of the woman.

'According to Jack, he sees her every other day practically. Jack thinks it's all pretty phony. And of course she charges a fortune for an hour of her precious time.'

'I can't imagine Pat falling for anything too airy-fairy.'

'I don't know. He's got that fey Irish streak in him. Anyway, she's given him these chants he has to repeat four times a day, which Jack swears are Zulu.'

'What the fuck does Jack know about Zulu? He was born and bred in Detroit.'

'He says it's a race memory.' Will made a despairing face. 'Glenn's got a great new word, by the way, which is kind of appropriate. Lucidiots. That's what he calls people who talk too fast, seem to be perfectly lucid

-and are, in fact, idiots. I like that. Where'd he get it from?'

'It's his. He made it up. Words beget words. That's the cri du jour.'

'Lucidiots,' Will said again, most entertained. 'And she's one of them, huh?'

'Bethlynn? For sure. I haven't met her, but she's gotta be. Oh, now ... I shouldn't be telling you this, but Pat asked me if it'd be in appalling taste if he ordered a cake for the party shaped like a polar bear.'

'To which you said?'

'Yes. It would be in appalling taste.'

'To which he said: good.'

'Right.'

'Thanks for the warning,'

ii

That night, around eleven or so, he decided to forgo a sleeping pill and go out for a drink. It was Friday, so the streets were alive and kicking, and on the five-minute walk up Sanchez to 16th he met the appreciative eyes of enough guys to be certain he could get lucky tonight if the urge took him. Some of that cockiness was knocked out of him, however, when he stepped into The Gestalt, a bar which according to Jack (whom he'd called for the inside scoop) had opened two months before and was the hot place for the summer. It was filled to near capacity, some of the customers locals here for a casual beer with friends, but many more geared up and wired for the weekend. In the old days there had been certain tribal divisions in the Castro: leather men had their wateringholes, drug aficionados, theirs; the preppie boys had gathered in a different spot to the hustlers, the queens, especially the older guys, would never have been seen in a black bar, or vice versa. Here, however, there were representatives of every one of those clans, and more. Was that a man in a rubber suit, leaning against the bar sipping his bourbon? Yes it was. And the guy waiting his turn at the pool table, his nose pierced and his hair carved in concentric circles, was he the lover of the Latino man in the well-cut suit who was making a bee-line for him? To judge by their smiles and kisses, yes. There was even a good proportion of women in the throng; a few, Will thought, straight girls come to ogle the queers with their boyfriends (this was a risky business; any boyfriend who agreed to the trip was probably half-hoping to be gang-banged on the pool table), the rest lesbians (again, of every variation, from the kittenish to the moustached). Though he was a little intimidated at the sheer exuberance of the scene, he was too much of a voyeur to leave. He eased his way through the crowd to the bar, and found a niche at the far end where he had a wide-angle view of the room. Two beers in, and he started to feel a little more mellow. Excepting a few glances cast his way nobody took much notice of him, which was fine, he told himself, just fine. And then, as he was ordering a third beer (his last for the night, he'd decided) somebody stepped up to the bar beside him and said: 'I'll have the same. No I won't. I'll have a tequila straight up. And he's paying.'

'I am?' said Will, looking around at a man maybe five years his junior, whose present hapless expression he vaguely knew. Narrowed brown eyes watched him under upturned brows, a smile, with dimples, waited in readiness for when Will said

'Drew?'

'Shit! I shoulda taken the bet. I was with this guy-' He glanced back down the bar at a husky fellow in a leather jacket; the guy waved, obviously chomping at the bit for an invitation to join them. Drew looked back at Will, 'He said you wouldn't recognize me after all this time. I said betcha. And you did.'

'It took a moment.'

'Yeah. Well ... the hairline's not what it used to be,' Drew said. A decade and a half before, when they'd had their fling, Drew had sported a curly clump of golden brown hair that hung over his forehead, its most ambitious curls tickling the bridge of his nose. Now it was gone. 'You don't mind?' he said. 'The tequila, I mean? I wasn't even sure it was you at first. I mean I heard ... well, you know what you hear. I don't know half the time what to believe and what not to believe.'

'You heard I was dead?'

'Yeah.'

'Well,' said Will, clinking his beer can against Drew's brimming glass of tequila. 'I'm not.'

'Good,' Drew said, clinking back. 'Are you still living in the city?'

'I just returned.'

'You bought a house on Sanchez, right?' Their affair had preceded the purchase, and upon its cooling they'd not remained friends. 'Still got it?'

'Still got it.'

'I dated somebody on Sanchez, and he pointed it out to me. "That's where the famous photographer lives".' Drew's eyes widened at the quoted description. 'Of course, I didn't know who. Then he told me and I said

-oh, him.'

'No, I was really proud,' Drew said, with sweet sincerity. 'T don't keep up with art stuff, you know, so I hadn't really put two and two together. I mean, I knew you took pictures, but I just remembered seals.'

Will roared with laughter. 'Christ, the seals!'

'You remember? We went to Pier 39 together? I thought we were going to get buzzed and watch the ocean, but you got obsessed with the seals. I was so pissed off.' He emptied half his tequila glass in one. 'Funny, the things that stick in your head.'

'Your buddy's waving at you, by the way,' Will said.

'Oh, Lord. It's a sad case. I had one date with him and now every time I come in here he's all over me.'

'Do you need to get back to him?'

'Absolutely not. Unless you want to be on your own? I mean, you've got the pick of the crowd here.'

'I wish.'

'You're still in great shape,' Drew said. 'I'm kinda running to seed here.' He looked down at a belly that was no longer the washboard it had been. 'It took me an hour to put these jeans on, and it'll take me twice as long to get 'em off.' He glanced up at Will. 'Without help, that is,' he said. He patted his stomach. 'You took some pictures of me, do you remember?'

Will remembered: a sticky afternoon of beef-cake and baby-oil. Drew had been quite the muscle-boy back then, competition standards, and proud of it. A little too proud perhaps. They'd broken up on Hallowe'en Night, when he'd found Drew stark naked and painted gold from head to foot, standing in the back yard of a house on Hancock like an ithyphallic idol surrounded by devotees.

'Have you still got those pictures?' Drew asked.

'Oh, I'm sure. Somewhere.'