Death trick

20

"By the time I met Steve Kleckner, I wasn't tricking A whole lot," Billy Blount began. "Maybe once every five or six weeks. I used to, when I first came out in Albany. I was nineteen then, and God, in the summertime when SUNY was out, I'd be in the park almost every night. I was really man-crazy then, and pretty reckless, and some of the people I went home with you wouldn't believe kids, old guys, married guys, anything male. Sewickley Oaks was supposed to turn me straight, but when I came out of that place, I had the worst case of every-night fever you ever heard of.

"It wasn't just sex. At first it was, and I guess that was the most important part of it-I loved sex then, and needed it, quite a bit more than I do now-but after I joined the alliance in seventy, a big reason I wanted to meet people was to recruit them into the movement. That was probably part rationalization, I know-don't laugh-but at the time I was very serious about it. All the alliance people ever did was march up and down State Street, and I had this idea there were other gays in Albany who were ready to do more-maybe something like the FFF-and I was going to find these guys and get something going. I never did, though. The people I met were too young, or too old, they thought, or too scared, or too fucked up. I did meet some nice people, though, and I had a couple of relationships with guys I saw pretty regularly until either the other guy moved away or one or the other of us just lost interest and stopped calling. You know how that works.

"Anyway, this went on for-God, five years. Almost every night I was on the phone to somebody, or in the park-or in the bars; I'd started hitting the bars pretty regularly by then, even though I'm not much of a drinker. One night the Terminal, the next night the Bung Cellar Mary-Mary's it was back then- and the next night back to the park.

"It was a pretty messy and wild kind of life, I know, and I didn't really wise up until after I picked up some weird, awful NSU and it took me nine fucking weeks to shake it! God, the VD clinic tried everything-tetracycline, penicillin, Septra DS, the works-but for nine weeks whenever I pissed, it was like pissing needles. I always had these little plastic vials of pills in my pockets, and when I went dancing it sounded like castanets.

"It was really a very chastening experience, and after the NSU went away, whatever it was, I slowed down quite a bit. Maybe it was for the wrong reasons, but anyway I decided to start paying less attention to gay men's bodies and even more attention to their fucked-up minds. I tried to get the alliance moving-I was chairman of the political-action committee by then-but those guys are such a bunch of old ladies, I couldn't get them to budge. I wanted to zap the State Assembly and they wanted to put on luncheons. I saw that I was wasting my time with that DAR chapter they were running over there, so I dropped out. I almost went to California to join Kurt and the FFF, but they were having their own troubles by then and splitting up, so I decided to stay in Albany for a while longer.

"I was glad I stayed. I met Huey around that time, and then Frank. Also, I had a hot thing going for a while with a guy named Dennis Kerskie. He was going to help me start an FFF branch in the East, but unfortunately Dennis freaked out and took off for Maine to cleanse his intestinal tract, or some weird thing. Actually, it was just as well. Dennis could be pretty flaky, and I don't think he would have had the discipline for the things I wanted to do. I did meet Mark through Dennis, though, and I'm grateful for that.

"Anyway, by the time I met Steve Kleckner that night, I'd pretty much settled down. I was seeing Huey once a week-we had a nice, relaxed sexual friendship, nothing heavy-and I was seeing Frank once a week, but not too much else. Well, actually there was this one guy from Lake George I met in the park one night in August. Mark was staying at my place with a friend, so I took a chance and we went to my parents' place, and that turned into a very bad scene. Stu and Jane came home the next day unexpectedly and caught us smoking a joint in the front room without the vent on, and it got pretty ugly. After that I sort of swore off having sex with people I didn't know-it was just getting to be too much of a hassle-when Mark and I went out to Trucky's that night three weeks ago and I met this really neat guy. That was Steve Kleckner.

"It was funny-a couple of years ago I wouldn't have gone for Steve. He was sort of young and loose and goofy, and I usually went for more intense kinds of people, or guys who were savvy and cool, like Huey. But I guess somehow I was ready to just let go for a while and be a kid-I'd never done that when I was a kid-and I really fell for this happy-go-lucky young jock.

"At first I thought, oh Jesus, I really shouldn't. Not another involvement. I had the feeling right away that it might lead to something like that, and I was reluctant. My life was already going along pretty well-I had my job, which, shit job though it was, I enjoyed and it kept me solvent.

And I had my friends, Mark and Huey-and Chris, who was always there when I needed her.

And, of course, I had Frank, who gave me something nobody else could-I really don't want to go into that, if you don't mind; it's sort of embarrassing. Okay?"

I nodded. We'd come back to Zimka.

"Maybe all that sounds to you like kind of a crazy, fragmented life," Blount said, "but I was just thankful, even after nine years, to be out and on the loose and in charge of my own life. And anyhow, who is there really, gay or straight, who finds everything he wants in life in one place or in one person? I think it doesn't exist, and people who say they have it all-in a wife, or husband, or lover, or family, or great house or perfect job-those people are kidding themselves, and what they really mean is, they have the one or two things they want most, or that society approves of most, and to keep those couple of things they're willing to give up a lot of other things they'd love to have: variety, money, good sex, security, adventure, or whatever.

"Actually, I did have it all, in a way, even if it was spread all over town, and it would have been beautiful-damn near perfect-if I'd gotten my parents to accept me, too. That's the one thing I've never had, and-well, I guess that's the one thing I'm not going to have. You've met them, and you must have seen how hopeless they are. If I'd had a brother or sister, that might have taken some of the pressure off, but I didn't-I don't-so-what the hell. Fuck Stuart and Jane.

Just-fuck 'em."

He sat silently for a moment. Then he reached for another cigarette and offered me one. I declined. He lit his, dragged deeply, and exhaled. He went on.

"So anyway, I'm cool, right? I went out to Trucky's that night with Mark, and we were going to dance and maybe meet some people we know and go get something to eat, to the Gateway or out to Denny's, and then I guess I had it in the back of my head that I might call Frank later and see if he wasn't busy.

"But I met Steve Kleckner instead. I'd seen him around some, mostly through the glass in the DJ booth, and I'd always thought he was attractive, but I really didn't know him and hadn't thought much about him. He was off work that night, though, out at the bar, and acting kind of mellow and funny and having a real good time, and one of the bartenders who knows me a little introduced us.

"We clicked right away. You know how it is, probably, when two gay guys who are physically attracted to each other meet, and each is sort of up-and ready, even if you don't know it-and you're both a little high, and there's this warm, simpatico something that goes back and forth.

You're trading lines and laughing at the same things, and you recognize in the other person's stories of his life a lot of the downs and hassles you have yourself, and you know he's understanding yours, and then there's the sexual tension underneath it all that both feeds the closeness and makes it feel incomplete, and of course the atmosphere around you is saying do it, do it, do it.

"Well, that's what happened with Steve and me that night. We danced and drank and carried on and had a great time together, and then we left together to go do it, to make it complete.

"We left Trucky's around three. Mark had left earlier with this tall blond number he'd turned on to, and we rode into town in Steve's old junky-ass Triumph Herald. We had the top down, it was a warm night, and I remember the car making this awful racket, ka-bang, ka-bang, ka-bang as if there were firecrackers under the hood. Steve said it wasn't important, not to worry, the car always did that, something to do with a worn drive chain that would set him back three hundred to replace, and the car wasn't worth it, he'd just drive it till it quit."

The time had come to find out something. I said, "A question. Did you notice who left Trucky's around the time you and Steve left?"

He thought about it. Then: "No-I can't remember. Actually I was a little high, and I don't think I was noticing much of anything except Steve. I remember we sat in his car in the parking lot and kissed and messed around a little before we left. I suppose there were some people coming and going, but I don't remember who. Nobody hassled us, I know that."

"Then you wouldn't have noticed if another car had followed you?"

"Well, I supposed there wouldn't have been much traffic that time of night, but-no. I didn't.

Jesus, do you think one did?"

"Yeah, I do. Do you remember seeing a big, new gold-colored car in the parking lot when you and Kleckner went out?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I just can't remember. Whose car would that have been?"

"Frank Zimka's-a friend of Frank Zimka's car. With Zimka in it."

"Frank? I don't think Frank was out that night. No, he wasn't. I saw him in the morning. I went there-after it happened. Or did he tell you that? I suppose he did. You seem to have a knack for getting people to tell you things they're not supposed to repeat." I lowered my head contritely. "I owe Frank money," Blount said, "for the plane fare. Chris has part of it. She'll mail it to Frank when she gets back to Albany. So it won't have a Denver postmark."

"Kurt taught you that?"

"That one I figured out for myself."

"What did you and Kleckner talk about during the ride to his apartment? It would have taken fifteen minutes or so. Did Steve mention that he'd been depressed over the past few weeks? His friends say he had been."

"You know, as a matter of fact, he did mention that. He said he'd been down and I'd helped him climb out of it-that made me feel good-and he said he wasn't depressed anymore. Just older and wiser."

"Why? What did he know that he hadn't known before?"

"He didn't say. I might have asked him-I probably did. But he just said something about the ways of the world and then dropped it."

"Was he afraid?"

"Of what?"

"Of what he'd learned. Of the person, or people, it concerned."

"No. Not afraid, I wouldn't say. Just sad. Sad when he talked about it, but not sad after and not before. Steve was just feeling too good that night for anything to keep him down."

"So you arrived at Steve's apartment."

"Yes. We went in, and at first we stood in the living room for a long time kissing and groping around. We were both really hot, I remember, but we couldn't seem to quit long enough to make it to the bedroom. You know how that is, right?"

"Right."

"Pretty soon our clothes were off, and we started back toward the bedroom. I remember Steve turned on the radio when we went by it."

"Disco 101?"

"Sure."

Sex music. The year before I'd gone home with someone who'd put on some old Nat Adderley records, and I was so disoriented I could hardly remember where I was and what I was supposed to do. Though gradually it came back.

"So you made it to the bed. Were the lights on?"

"In the living room, a lamp, I think. There was some light coming into the bedroom from that.

And in the bedroom, a blue light on the ceiling. I remember the blue light-at one point when Steve was groping around beside the bed for the grease, he reached up and pulled the light string with his toes. And then he left the light on. A very dim blue light. It was nice- Steve was nice the whole thing was-" It hit him. He covered his face with his hands and silently shook.

I waited.

After a time he looked at me and said quietly, "You know, I haven't had sex with anybody since that night. I sleep with Kurt, and sometimes he holds me, but-" He shrugged. Tears slid down his cheeks.

I said, "Look-Billy-we could wait until tomorrow to do this. But it'll be better for you, I think, if we get it done now."

He wiped his face with his bath towel. "I know," he said. "Let's get it over with. I want to get this over with." He tossed the towel away, then sat with his face leaning against his open hand, his palm covering one dark eye.

I said, "There's a ground-level window beside that bed. Do you remember it?"

"Yeah. I do. I remember the breeze on my ass and my shoulders. It was a warm night, but by then I guess it had cooled off. I remember the window."

"There's a shade on the window. Was it up or down?"

"It was-the shade was down, but it was flapping against the windowsill-or the screen, I think there was a screen-and sometime, I'm not sure when, Steve reached over and put the shade up so that it wouldn't flap." His face went white. "Christ! Do you think somebody was-?"

I said, "Yes, I think someone was a few feet away from you and Steve, in the alleyway, watching and listening. And probably waiting."

Blount was breathing heavily now, angry, embarrassed, experiencing the fright and rage he'd have felt that night if he had known.

"After sex, then, you lay together for a time?"

"For a while. I don't know how long. He-Steve's head was on my chest. Yes, and then he fell asleep. I remember I had to move him off me when I went to the bathroom. I can't sleep, see, until I take a shower after sex. It's weird, I know, but-God, somebody was out there! All that time. Jesus!" "How long were you in the shower?" "A long time, probably. I do that. Then I sleep like a rock." "You were planning to stay, to sleep with Steve?" "Sure. I didn't have to work the next day. Of course." "After your shower you came back into the bedroom." He looked away, breathing hard again, and I could see him girding himself.

"Yeah. I came back then. I was starting to get back in bed when I saw it-the blood." There were beads of sweat on his forehead, and he blinked and repeatedly choked back the emotion as he described it.

"The sheet was up over Steve-I'd pulled the sheet over him because of the cool breeze when I'd gone into the bathroom, and it was still there when I got back. But the sheet was wet- soaking wet. All over his chest I could see this wetness, purplish in the blue light. At first I couldn't figure it out-I was dog tired, and I was still a little high. I thought, crap, what'd we spill, what is this stuff?

"Then I touched it, and somehow I knew right away it was blood, and I thought, oh shit, one of us has screwed up his rectum in some dumb way. But I thought it couldn't have been me, I'd just been in the shower and I was fine, and then it hit me all at once.

"I yanked the sheet away, and there it was-all this blood oozing out of Steve's chest. I got dizzy and I thought I was going to pass out. I just kept saying Steve, Steve, Steve, and I leaned down and I touched his face and shook his head, but all the time I was doing it, I could see he wasn't moving or breathing, and I knew he was dead.

"Then I just stood there looking at him. For a minute, maybe, or five, I don't really know how long, I stood there thinking what is this? What happened? I looked around the room, and it was the same as when I left it, except blood was coming out of Steve's chest, and he was dead.

"Then I guess I thought no, he can't be dead, and I started thinking a little, and I felt for his pulse.

I felt his wrist, and under his jaw, and I couldn't find a pulse, and I was starting to feel his groin when I smelled it. The shit-Steve had shit himself. I almost passed out again. I sat down on the floor, and then-there was the knife. Whoever had done it had dropped the knife, and it was right there, wet and purplish in the blue light."

I said, "You didn't touch it?"

"No. I guess I was already thinking, without even knowing I was. In fact, that's when I really started thinking. I thought, they'll think I did it, everybody will, and I'll go to prison again."

"Again?"

"Sewickley Oaks. It's all the same. Except maybe in real prisons they don't strap you down and zap you till you think you're going to fly apart-muscles and bones and brains exploding all over the ceilings and walls. Or maybe in the worst prisons that's what they do do, Attica or in the South."

"They did that? At Sewickley Oaks?"

With a look of the most intense loathing, he nodded once.

I said, "What happened next?"

"I–I got dressed and I walked out of the apartment, up Hudson."

"When you left the apartment, was the window screen in or out? It's a portable, adjustable screen.

I've seen it. When you left, where was it? Try to remember."

He tried, but he couldn't.

"But the screen wasn't on the bed, or on the floor where you could see it?"

"No. I don't think it was. No."

"What about the apartment door-when you went out. Open or closed?"

"It was locked. From the inside. I had to turn the bolt."

"Then you walked up Hudson."

"As soon as I got outside, the unreality of it hit me again, and I thought no, he can't be dead, and I thought maybe I'd been wrong and he was really still alive. There was a phone booth just a couple of houses up, on the corner at Hudson and Dove, so I called the police-started to call, but I didn't know Steve's address. I walked back to the apartment, memorized the address, and then went back and called. I said to go to the address, but I didn't say who I was."

"I know. It's on tape."

He grunted and shook his head. His T-shirt was soaked through with sweat, and droplets were now falling from his nose and chin.

"So you walked to Zimka's then? Up Hudson and through the park?"

"I knew I had to get out of Albany fast. I really didn't even understand what the fuck had happened, but I did know it was something horrible and I'd be blamed for it, and I had no choice but to run. No choice that I could see."

"And Zimka was home when you got there?"

"He was asleep. I had to bang on the door for-I don't know. A long time."

"How do you know he'd been asleep?"

Blount looked confused. "Because he said he was. He looked it. It was six in the morning. Did he tell you he wasn't?"

"No, he told me the same thing."

"But you don't believe it?"

"No. Maybe. I don't know."

"I don't get it. You keep saying suspicious things about Frank-you said he was in Trucky's parking lot that night when we left. Do you think Frank had something to do with- what happened?"

"Probably. It's not clear yet. Keep going. What happened next?"

"Frank borrowed a car and drove me to New York. I thought they might already be looking for me at the Albany airport, though I suppose they wouldn't have been watching that soon. Frank lent me the plane fare, and when I arrived out here, I called Kurt. I knew I could count on him, and I was right; he's been great. Look-what makes you think Frank is mixed up in this? Crazy old Frank. Frank is usually so whacked out he couldn't hurt a fly on downers."

I said, "Tell me about Frank. About you and Frank. Embarrassing or not, it's important that I know."

He looked away. "What's to tell? He's a trick-a friend I trick with. I like him. He likes me. We get it off together."

"Jerk-off buddies? That's not the way Frank sees it. It's not the impression I get."

He looked at the wall and said nothing.

I said, "Eddie Storrs and Frank Zimka are the same person, aren't they?"

He sat there, his chest rising and falling, his face desolate-willfully empty, it seemed. He gave a choked laugh, then fell silent again. Finally, he looked at me and said, "No. They're not the same.

Not really. The terrible truth is, there are two of them."