Read Online Harlan's Race by Patricia Nell Warren - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Patricia Nell Warren
Tags: gay, romance, novel
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beside us in the moonlight.
Then the first thunderheads hid the moon.
Thoughts of the second sniper intruded on my thoughts of Vince. Who was out there in the dark dunes, watching us drive away?
At The Pines, Steve gave Rowdy a tip big enough for an ounce of weed.
It had been several years since police stopped harassing us here. The boardwalk led toward flourishing shops and nightspots in the marina. Tea Dance was over, and houses blazed with light — not many piss-elegant gays forewent the electricity that back-to-the-land straights did without in Davis Park. Singles and pairs — mostly butch men, here in The Pines — crisscrossed everywhere in the dark. They walked hand in hand, shared kisses, wore what they liked — mostly jeans and Frye boots — said what they felt, lived the Life.
At the Pines marina, crowded ferries were still coming
in.
We sat at an outdoor table. Steve, Marian and Angel ate seafood fresh from the bay. My stomach was so full of butterflies that I could only manage half a dozen oysters. Marian was too well brought-up to stare, but she looked thoughtful. Here was the sexual reality that her college had defended. Was my sister having second thoughts?
The dance floor of the Sandpiper Club was packed with Beautiful People. Same-sex couples had won the legal right to dance together. Everybody was moving like a Broadway chorus line, in a dance called the Hustle. I gazed impassively at the scene, remembering my own clubbing days in ’60s New York. Cold-steel sex in parks and movie theaters. Relentless drinking and drugs. Vice raids on the hustlers’ bars and dance bars. Bruises from beatings. Our new freedom was so fragile — if a Richard Mech burst into the Sandpiper tonight with a submachine gun, he could fell a whole field of homosexuals like ripe corn.
Vince wasn’t here. The well-heeled Pines was not his taste. More likely he was partying in Cherry Grove, where the crowd was younger.
My wild hair and beard got some frowns — the well-barbered look was “in”. Nobody recognized me except activist George Rayburn — the very guy who’d said, “We shouldn’t have to protect ourselves.” He did a double take, as I pulled him aside. George was an old friend of Billy’s father.
“Well, well,” he said. “I do declare. Nobody’s guarding your precious body tonight. Does this mean I get my chance?”
I ignored his barb.
“Yeah,” I said casually. “Off security for good.”
George wouldn’t leave it alone. “Sweetie, I know you scorn fashion,” he said, fingering my beard. “But isn’t this going too far?”
‘Who’s Mario Vitti?”
“His dad owns half of Jersey City. He and Vince are probably getting high at a house party right now. They hit the discos late... make a grand entrance.”
“How late is chic these days?”
“Around 2. Did Steve talk to you about the other problem?”
‘Yeah.”
‘You gonna put your move on Vince?”
“Politically, I’ll do what I can.”
“One Vince shooting people will set us back five hundred years. By the way, I need you for a march coming up. We need every gay who is nationally known to —”
“Forget it,” I interrupted him. “I need time out from being a target.”
“Other people will lose their Billys, and their Bonnies, if enough of us don’t fight.”
“I’ll write stuff, do fundraising. Even lick stamps. Anything but the podium.”
Rayburn shrugged, and walked off.
Just after midnight, our quartet walked onward into Cherry Grove. In those days, The Grove was smaller than The Pines — gayer, noisier, artsier, more women, more drag queens, more people of color, more of whom were viewed as “trash” by some upscale Pines gays. Grove houses were tinier, homier, funkier, crowded closer together. There wasn’t even a police station in The Grove. We checked out the Blue Whale. Then we killed an hour in a small disco, the Monster. Vince didn’t show up.
As we walked, Steve and I explained things to
Then the first thunderheads hid the moon.
Thoughts of the second sniper intruded on my thoughts of Vince. Who was out there in the dark dunes, watching us drive away?
At The Pines, Steve gave Rowdy a tip big enough for an ounce of weed.
It had been several years since police stopped harassing us here. The boardwalk led toward flourishing shops and nightspots in the marina. Tea Dance was over, and houses blazed with light — not many piss-elegant gays forewent the electricity that back-to-the-land straights did without in Davis Park. Singles and pairs — mostly butch men, here in The Pines — crisscrossed everywhere in the dark. They walked hand in hand, shared kisses, wore what they liked — mostly jeans and Frye boots — said what they felt, lived the Life.
At the Pines marina, crowded ferries were still coming
in.
We sat at an outdoor table. Steve, Marian and Angel ate seafood fresh from the bay. My stomach was so full of butterflies that I could only manage half a dozen oysters. Marian was too well brought-up to stare, but she looked thoughtful. Here was the sexual reality that her college had defended. Was my sister having second thoughts?
The dance floor of the Sandpiper Club was packed with Beautiful People. Same-sex couples had won the legal right to dance together. Everybody was moving like a Broadway chorus line, in a dance called the Hustle. I gazed impassively at the scene, remembering my own clubbing days in ’60s New York. Cold-steel sex in parks and movie theaters. Relentless drinking and drugs. Vice raids on the hustlers’ bars and dance bars. Bruises from beatings. Our new freedom was so fragile — if a Richard Mech burst into the Sandpiper tonight with a submachine gun, he could fell a whole field of homosexuals like ripe corn.
Vince wasn’t here. The well-heeled Pines was not his taste. More likely he was partying in Cherry Grove, where the crowd was younger.
My wild hair and beard got some frowns — the well-barbered look was “in”. Nobody recognized me except activist George Rayburn — the very guy who’d said, “We shouldn’t have to protect ourselves.” He did a double take, as I pulled him aside. George was an old friend of Billy’s father.
“Well, well,” he said. “I do declare. Nobody’s guarding your precious body tonight. Does this mean I get my chance?”
I ignored his barb.
“Yeah,” I said casually. “Off security for good.”
George wouldn’t leave it alone. “Sweetie, I know you scorn fashion,” he said, fingering my beard. “But isn’t this going too far?”
‘Who’s Mario Vitti?”
“His dad owns half of Jersey City. He and Vince are probably getting high at a house party right now. They hit the discos late... make a grand entrance.”
“How late is chic these days?”
“Around 2. Did Steve talk to you about the other problem?”
‘Yeah.”
‘You gonna put your move on Vince?”
“Politically, I’ll do what I can.”
“One Vince shooting people will set us back five hundred years. By the way, I need you for a march coming up. We need every gay who is nationally known to —”
“Forget it,” I interrupted him. “I need time out from being a target.”
“Other people will lose their Billys, and their Bonnies, if enough of us don’t fight.”
“I’ll write stuff, do fundraising. Even lick stamps. Anything but the podium.”
Rayburn shrugged, and walked off.
Just after midnight, our quartet walked onward into Cherry Grove. In those days, The Grove was smaller than The Pines — gayer, noisier, artsier, more women, more drag queens, more people of color, more of whom were viewed as “trash” by some upscale Pines gays. Grove houses were tinier, homier, funkier, crowded closer together. There wasn’t even a police station in The Grove. We checked out the Blue Whale. Then we killed an hour in a small disco, the Monster. Vince didn’t show up.
As we walked, Steve and I explained things to
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