So the next and last section I'm going to read from you
is towards the end of the book.
But it takes place before the book starts.
So there's no spoilers.
It's not really a spoilery kind of book.
And this section.
So some of the book is pretty straightforward,
linear narrative, a story.
And then there are these fairy tale sections interspersed,
and then there are a few other sections
that are homages to particular writers.
This is a section that's an homage to Joe Brainard which
many of you will recognize, who came up with this form,
I remember, and there's a homage to John Ritchie
and other writers who have been just--
I don't say more about that.
This is the Joe Brainard section.
Or one of them.
Paul remembered staking out the cubbyhole with Tony Pinto
because Madonna and Sandra Bernhard had once
had a date there in 1987, or kissed or something.
Paul remembered staying up late to watch Madonna
on David Letterman, never daring to believe anything gay
would happen on television.
Paul remembered Hudson Street in the rain.
Paul remembered the porn store around the corner,
looking at vintage physique magazines, those long gone men
in leopard skins and posing jocks.
Paul remembered Tony Pinto making muscles
to distract the shopkeeper while Paul stuffed
an old Drummer down his pants.
Paul remembered three packs of old gay porn mags,
the good ones on the outside and the crappy third stuffed
in the middle like a grab bag.
The newsprint stories and letters
signed, a reader in San Diego, or Horny Midshipman.
Paul remembered Blueboy, Numbers, Honcho, Freshman.
Paul remembered the case of the tape
Tony Pinto made for him the second time they met,
Tony's scratchy handwriting marking out the song
titles, original artists in parentheses
when the song was a cover.
Who said gay men always had beautiful handwriting?
Tony Pinto had spent his boyhood rolling six sided dice
and sketching elves, and it showed.
Paul remembered "Bizarre Love Triangle"
and "A Little Respect."
And "There's More To Love Than Boy Meets Girl."
Paul remembered the first Saturday of the month dances
at Columbia, crashing the Ivy League,
being early, walking around the block 10 times,
the Greek diner in Morningside Heights, cheap bad coffee.
Paul remembered coffee breath.
Paul remembered C. Howard's violent mints.
Paul remembered the night he met Tony Pinto
smoking on the steps of Earl Hall trying
to tell who belonged.
Tony Pinto stretching out his Gumby arms
in a terrible imitation of a voguer.
Paul remembered lights up, finding his stashed coat.
Paul remembered the meatpacking district,
clubs which changed sex, according to the night.
Clit Club Fridays, Meat Saturdays, or Jackie 60.
Same cinder block walls painted black.
Paul remembered four AM bagels with bright pink lox
flavored cream cheese at the bakery on the corner.
Paul remembered the Christopher Street Pier
at night, 14-year-old queers in tube tops and short shorts,
cigarette cherries reflected in the oily water.
Paul remembered saying, how fast they grow up,
and Tony Pinto shaking his head and, saying, kids,
what are you going to do?
Paul remembered drinking at Max Fish with Tony's street goth
friends from Fordham walking, west for miles with Tony
until they hit the water, sitting
on a broken concrete pylon and kissing for hours, hands
down each other's pants even though Tony
had a serious boyfriend of two months.
Paul remember the sunburn Tony got at Pride that year,
how their older friends carried sunblock.
Tony's wounded red brown chest and back
like a soldier wearing pukka beads.
Some older lesbian with a crew cut and a squeeze tube of aloe
vera sitting in the shade on the steps of a church which was
really a bar, far enough away from the fray in the shade,
laying Tony across his lap so he could think "Tony lay across
my lap like a Pietá."
And Tony's serious boyfriend of two months rounding the corner
laughing.
Paul remembered giving Tony back.
Paul remembered sharing grilled cheese sandwiches
with Tony and that girl, what was her name?
Glynis, yes, Glynis with the gay mom,
from the rap group for gay teens at the center.
The three of them college kids, older, not from the city.
Maybe a little too old to be in a rap
group, but officially still teens, still youth.
Paul remembered the working group he joined because Tony
Pinto was joining, meeting at an apartment of a much older gay
man with a job and a leather couch and crudité in the living
room while they made plans to die in the street.
Paul remembered the aching hall of the center, those Monday
night meetings in the belly of the whale,
the incomprehensible reports from the treatment action group
and the meeting's incomprehensible response,
which Tony Pinto called the grown ups fighting.
Paul remembered carrying store-bought frozen soup
to a man he didn't know with Rina somewhere in Gramercy, one
of those high rises that made him feel like he was
in the 1970s Poland, leaving the soup on the dusty kitchen
island, feeding the man's tropical fish
while Rina changed the sheets on his hospital bed.
All the while Days of Our Lives continued
as if nothing were different.
Paul remembered the men lined up in green plastic chairs
at the center, young men with canes and liver spots.
Paul remembered the cheery rattle of the day of the week
pillbox compartments.
Paul remembered the smell of orange medicine
soap, sulfur and sweet, the gash on his palm
from a fruit salad can lid--
how was it possible to get a fruit salad injury?--
wanting the sliced cherry.
Glimmer of fear in the eyes of the receptionist at the center
who sent him to the free clinic, fear of his blood
now contaminating the can.
Paul remembered colored condoms.
Paul remembered a condom stretching over him
like a balloon animal unlubricated, Tony squeezing
out two free packets of Probe.
Paul remembered Tony's pockets, his backpack, always
full of giveaways and liberated rolls of toilet paper
from restaurant bathrooms.
Tony stopping in the foyer of every bar to fill up,
the top of the cigarette machine,
wherever they kept the bowl, Tony collecting condoms
in all flavors and colors and brands, like baseball cards.
His shock and horror at the condom
stapled into the Bimbox page: "straight acting, straight
looking, WM seeks same."
Not because he didn't agree that self hating homosexuals should
fuck off and die, but because that exact condom was wasted,
and some proud and out queer might need it.
Paul remembered flannel shirts with the sleeves cut off.
Paul remembered Tony's black leather motorcycle jacket
with its rectangular stickers bragging FREQUENTLY FEMME
and BASICALLY BUTCH and SAFE SEX STUD
in neon green, his black hair shagging
over the collar like a Portuguese Leif Garrett.
How was anything ever so smooth as Tony's just slightly too
long hair?
Paul remembered Tony's serious boyfriend
of two months, then three, four, five, David, unsuitable David,
the WASPy Jewish guy who'd played lacrosse at Andover
and loved John Cheever.
Older but recognizable to Paul, his easy law
school ways, his embarrassing obsession
with any dark-skinned man.
How he'd settled for Tony Pinto who was not dark enough.
How he cheated on Tony Pinto over and over again.
And once at a demo outside St Patrick's
run his index finger down Paul's chest,
down to his navel, dipping then turning away
from Paul who was enraged, flattered, humiliated,
and never mentioned it to Tony.
Paul remembered asking this friend Jimmy--
how proud he felt to say his friend Jimmy about Jimmy
Batelli, the kindest and most handsome man in ACT UP,
an older man who preferred older men,
and that he'd allowed himself to be befriended by Paul
was a miracle--
Paul remembered asking Jimmy Batelli where he'd been,
why he'd missed some meeting, and Jimmy
shrugging oh, another memorial service, darling, you know.
Jimmy turning away from Paul kindly even in his despair.
Paul's relief to be so young, his 19th year a talisman,
the word containing the word teen and self-protection
from what those older guys, those memorial wary men
in their 20s, 30s, 40s, what they were losing.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]