Read Online City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s by Edmund White - Free Book Online
Authors: Edmund White
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recipesthat would sometimes take two days to execute— veau Prince Orloff or boeuf à la cuillère (in which a big square of beef was boiled, cooled, hollowed out, the minced meat then mixed with sautéed mushrooms and shallots and combined with a sauce, then reinserted into the beef shell and covered with Gruyère and heated up under the grill—or something like that; I can’t remember, I only did it once, and it was pretty dry). I realized that despite my therapist I probably wasn’t going to get married, and that I should start giving dinner parties to fill up my lonely evenings.
Much of my spare time was devoted to sex—finding it and then doing it. In those days before online hookups and backroom bars and outdoor sex, when there weren’t even very many gay bars, we had to seek out most of our men on the hoof. Back then people glanced back over their shoulders, though few do it now (or do I say that only because now I’m old and uncruisable?). Then we had to look back or we’d spend the night alone. The whole city was awash with desire and opportunities to satisfy it. Now people can afford to be arrogant and to scurry past one another haughtily, knowing they can always go online later, but then they were driven to tarry and gawk. Typically we’d walk up and down Greenwich Avenue and Christopher Street—not with friends, which might be amusing but was entirely counterproductive. No, only the lone hawk got the tasty rabbit.
If you looked back and he looked back as well, you’d pretend to scan the contents of a shop window. He’d do the same thing twenty yards down. You’d keep exchanging reciprocated glances at an ever-increasing rate. Then you might just smile simply and stroll toward him and he’d pull away from his window and the two of you would form your little conversational duo. If you were still afraid of being rejected or arrested or beat up, you might ask him the time or for a light. It was considered especially cheeky to ask for a light while you were already smoking. Usually you’d just say, “Do you live around here?”
If he was willing, you’d invite him back to your apartment, which in your mind you’d refer to as your trick pad, since he was the trick you’d just scored. Sometimes you’d trick more than once in an evening (“Oh, God, last night I was a real nympho, I tricked three times in a row, my cooze was oozing, must have been the full moon”). The way you could tell the difference between your friends and your lovers is that you never camped with a trick. When discussing him the next day, you might refer to him as “she,” but never to his face (“I thought she was so butch, but within seconds she had her legs in the air!”). As one of my friends said, “If God had wanted men to be fucked, he would’ve put a hole in their ass.”
We tried to trick every night, if we could do it efficiently, but we reserved the weekends for our serious hunting sorties. I’d clean my apartment carefully, change the sheets and towels, put a hand towel under the pillow (the “trick towel” for mopping up the come) along with the tube of lubricant (usually water-soluble K-Y). You might even “douche out”—sometimes, if you were a real “senior girl,” with a stainless-steel insertable nozzle attached to the shower. You’d buy eggs and bacon and jam and bread for toast, if you wanted to prove the next morning that you were “marriage material.” You’d place an ashtray, cigarettes, and a lighter on the bedside table. You’d lower the lights and stack the record player with suitable mood music (Peggy Lee, not the Stones) before you headed out on the prowl. All this to prove you were “civilized,” not just one more voracious two-bit whore. Once you’d landed a man, there was no way to know what he liked to do in bed. No frank discussions about who was a top and who was a bottom. Not yet any color-coded hankies in back jeans pockets or keys on the left or right. You usually
Much of my spare time was devoted to sex—finding it and then doing it. In those days before online hookups and backroom bars and outdoor sex, when there weren’t even very many gay bars, we had to seek out most of our men on the hoof. Back then people glanced back over their shoulders, though few do it now (or do I say that only because now I’m old and uncruisable?). Then we had to look back or we’d spend the night alone. The whole city was awash with desire and opportunities to satisfy it. Now people can afford to be arrogant and to scurry past one another haughtily, knowing they can always go online later, but then they were driven to tarry and gawk. Typically we’d walk up and down Greenwich Avenue and Christopher Street—not with friends, which might be amusing but was entirely counterproductive. No, only the lone hawk got the tasty rabbit.
If you looked back and he looked back as well, you’d pretend to scan the contents of a shop window. He’d do the same thing twenty yards down. You’d keep exchanging reciprocated glances at an ever-increasing rate. Then you might just smile simply and stroll toward him and he’d pull away from his window and the two of you would form your little conversational duo. If you were still afraid of being rejected or arrested or beat up, you might ask him the time or for a light. It was considered especially cheeky to ask for a light while you were already smoking. Usually you’d just say, “Do you live around here?”
If he was willing, you’d invite him back to your apartment, which in your mind you’d refer to as your trick pad, since he was the trick you’d just scored. Sometimes you’d trick more than once in an evening (“Oh, God, last night I was a real nympho, I tricked three times in a row, my cooze was oozing, must have been the full moon”). The way you could tell the difference between your friends and your lovers is that you never camped with a trick. When discussing him the next day, you might refer to him as “she,” but never to his face (“I thought she was so butch, but within seconds she had her legs in the air!”). As one of my friends said, “If God had wanted men to be fucked, he would’ve put a hole in their ass.”
We tried to trick every night, if we could do it efficiently, but we reserved the weekends for our serious hunting sorties. I’d clean my apartment carefully, change the sheets and towels, put a hand towel under the pillow (the “trick towel” for mopping up the come) along with the tube of lubricant (usually water-soluble K-Y). You might even “douche out”—sometimes, if you were a real “senior girl,” with a stainless-steel insertable nozzle attached to the shower. You’d buy eggs and bacon and jam and bread for toast, if you wanted to prove the next morning that you were “marriage material.” You’d place an ashtray, cigarettes, and a lighter on the bedside table. You’d lower the lights and stack the record player with suitable mood music (Peggy Lee, not the Stones) before you headed out on the prowl. All this to prove you were “civilized,” not just one more voracious two-bit whore. Once you’d landed a man, there was no way to know what he liked to do in bed. No frank discussions about who was a top and who was a bottom. Not yet any color-coded hankies in back jeans pockets or keys on the left or right. You usually
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