I've just had the most extraordinary experience. I read the book from which the above quotation is taken, John Rechy's City Of Night. It's a story of one young man's journey through the sexual underworld in the late '50s. A section of it was first published in 1958, but the completed book came out in 1962. The year before I was born.
It's a fascinating, enchanting, moving and distressing account of sexual compulsion and loneliness, of camaraderie and cruelty among the street hustlers and queens of urban America. Gus van Sant modelled much of My Own Private Idaho on it. What is so astonishing to me is that in my own way I've "discovered" a similar life, followed a similar pattern. I've even written about the same sort of people in vaguely similar situations, though without Rechy's florid panache. In his world, (full of "scattered junkies, small-time pushers, teaheads, sad panhandlers, occasional, lonely, exiled nymphos and fruits with hungry eyes"), most of the sex that goes on is paid for; although a character in the book does comment - "You notice lately in the park how many guys want to go with them for free?" which is perhaps a clue that some change was in the air.
I've never been homeless, I've never hustled on the streets, and I am not saying that his and my life were the same; but so much of the flavour of his world is familiar to me. I steered well clear of that scene when I was young, in the early '80s; although I became friends with many of the "Quay queens" who used to ply their trade in Burgh Quay; bitchy, hard-as-nails, and raucously funny.
The Hirschfeld Centre was where I met them; they were barred from the only two Dublin "gay" pubs at the time, Rice's and Bartley Dunne's, being too blatant for the comfort of the landlords. We were, after all, criminals then; not even kissing was allowed in public. It was a situation not too far removed from Rechy's world. In many ways, I am only now beginning to see the damage that that can do to self-esteem and confidence.
late-night cruising
Street hustlers I may have avoided; but I was certainly part of the late-night cruising world, where guys would meet for free, night after night. Here's Rechy on the inhabitants of that world: ". . . they're resigned to finding nothing but a momentary sex experience. Maybe it isn't that they don't want something more; maybe they've just given up on finding anything beyond sex, and they're even afraid to ask "Can I see you again?" They'll look for someone else rather than possibly hearing the answer "No" - an answer just as frightened perhaps as their own question. So they resign themselves to the brief contacts. Now they look for the people who "don't care" . . .'
I've been there, as loyal and ever-patient readers will know. In the nineties, however, the arena for such fleeting contacts has expanded to include telephone lines and the Internet. Hustlers have bought mobile phones and moved off the streets. The bars, however, don't seem to have changed one bit: this is New Orleans, 1958:
Most of the malehustlers are dressed in their ordinary clothes - the studiedly carelessly open shirts, the casual jackets, the levis, the khaki pants . . .
leather boys
At the heart of City Of Night, however, is the central character's attempt to discover and define love, despite spending most of his time and energy fleeing from it. In a climactic scene, set in New Orleans at Mardi Gras time, he finally meets someone who is interested in getting to know him, and who dares him to love and be loved. Love is defined by the stranger thus:
Just the absence of loneliness. That's love enough. in fact, that can be the strongest kind of love. When you don't believe it's even possible, then you substitute sex. Life becomes what you fill in with between orgasms.
Heartbreakingly, Rechy's character chooses against loving this man, and returns to the "grinding" streets. There is a gritty truth to his choice, for the characters are too damaged, the world is too cold, and vulnerability is too frightening for men to bear. Remind yourselves of the films of the period - A Taste Of Honey, The Leather Boys.
But how much has changed? In my experience, not all that much, if one judges the world in terms of how damaged people can be, or how easy it is for men to talk about their vulnerability and neediness. I've met too many men who loathe themselves, who balk still at the challenge to love. I've known and loved prostitutes with such low self-esteem that they seek destruction rather than relationship. In Rechy's day, it was through alcohol and drugs; nowadays, enough unprotected sex will do the trick. Pre-AIDS, he wrote this, with uncanny prescience:
The world was revealing its death to me by the process of slow discovery: the slowly gnawing loss of innocence.
And yet, enough has changed, too. One can spend too much time in the dark. It is possible now to choose love. I do. n