Beach Reading Read online

Page 15


  “There were a ton of ‘em earlier, but most of the guys left once Arlo’s audience was all inside and the thing started,” Barry said. “You’ll see them later on the news.”

  “They probably went to the Moscone Center,” Patrick said. “But don’t worry. Barry and I faxed a copy of our collage to the Mayor’s Office, especially to his gay liaison, and another one to the chief of police.”

  “And every member of the board of supervisors, the fire department, all the newspapers… if Patrick hadn’t stopped me I would have sent one to the SPCA!” Barry said. “Even Michael Jackson’s lawyers would have a hard time defending Montgomery with those photographs.”

  “Then why aren’t the police doing something about it?” Tim frowned and scratched his head. “We’ve got to find a way inside there. That’s all there is to it. Where’s that map? There’s gotta be a side door someplace. Come on!”

  They headed west between guards on their left and the line of police on their right. “Hey Tim! What’s up?” Tim turned toward the sound of the voice and recognized a man who was an occasional customer at Arts. He was in a uniform and guarding the last set of doors with a butch-looking woman.

  “Wayne Friday, what are you doing here?” Tim asked.

  “We were hired to do security. What does it look like? We’re better off out here than inside where we can hear all their antigay crap. This is my partner Birdie Fuller. Birdie, this is Tim. He works at one of my favorite restaurants in town.”

  Tim quickly introduced his friends. “We’ve got to get inside, Wayne.”

  “But the protest is going on out here,” Birdie said. “You’re not exactly dressed like them, though. You guys look like you’re on your way to Sunday school.”

  Tim motioned for Barry to turn around so that he could open his backpack and pull out one of the flyers. “Here… look at this… can you let us in?”

  “Holy shhhhh…” Wayne started to say.

  “No, we can’t let anybody in!” Birdie cut him off, but Wayne already had the door open. Birdie took one look at the flyer and let out a whistle before she handed it back to Tim and stood back to let the three of them pass.

  “Whoa! Wait a minute!” Tim said. “I just realized something. I know who two of these kids in the pictures are. They’re right over there, the blonde twins. Their names are Joseph and John. I helped their little brother Luke into an ambulance a few minutes ago. Give me that backpack, Barry. You two guys go over to where all those boys are kneeling in a circle. Find these two—Joseph and John—tell them they have to come right away. Make up something, anything, just go get them and meet me backstage.”

  Tim thought he’d studied the map well enough to find his way to a side door near the stage, but he got turned around and stopped to find the map again and have another look. The hallways were set up with tables selling religious books and literature, T-shirts, caps and flag lapel pins, music CDs and DVDs of Arlo Montgomery’s sermons. Tim ran down the hallway and heard footsteps in close pursuit. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Tim could hear a tenor soloist in the middle of a rousing gospel song and the string section of musicians sounded like they were directly above his head when two uniformed SFPD officers caught up with him. He dropped Barry’s heavy pack and thought about making a run for it, but he’d come too close to give up their plan now. Tim reached inside and pulled out a handful of the flyers. He handed them to the policemen and watched for their reaction.

  “We already saw these down at the station. That’s why we’re here, to see about this whole mess with the preacher, but who are you?” The policemen glared at Tim.

  “Who are all of you? What are you doing here? No one is allowed backstage except my staff. Where are my bodyguards?” Arlo Montgomery’s voice was powerful, but his stature was far less imposing than Tim expected. Even in the semi-darkness his make-up showed and he appeared to be a gaunt little man swallowed up in his velvet robes.

  “We’re here from the San Francisco Police Department investigating a tip regarding sexual misconduct with juveniles. Those of your bodyguards who were unwilling to co-operate have already been taken into custody.”

  “It’s a lie! All of it! Dave Anderson put you up to this, didn’t he! He embezzled my money and now he’s trying to cover his tracks!”

  “This is the first I’ve heard the name, but we’ll check him out too. Here’s what you ought to be more concerned about, Reverend.” The policeman thrust one of the flyers in Arlo Montgomery’s face.

  “You don’t believe that filth, do you? Anybody can doctor up a photograph nowadays.”

  “The originals are in the bottom of this bag,” Tim said and started digging for them.

  “They’re fakes! Forgeries!”

  “No, they’re not, Reverend Arlo!” It was Joseph, one of the blonde twins. He and his brother John crowded into the low-ceilinged space beneath the stage with Barry and Patrick right behind them.

  “You boys keep your mouths shut!”

  “But you always said you liked our mouths, Pastor Montgomery,” John smirked. “You said our mouths were just as good as…”

  “Shut up! It’s blasphemy!”

  “But he didn’t like our mouths as much as he liked some other things…” John’s twin brother Joseph snarled his words like a knife plunging deeper and they all watched Arlo Montgomery cringe.

  The audience cheered for the gospel singer and the timpanist started a deep bass drum roll followed by a trumpet fanfare. Smoke started billowing from the fog machine. Tim shouted to Patrick and Barry, “Come on, you guys! We’ve got work to do!”

  They found a set of wooden stairs that led up to the stage behind the drummer. They ran through the wings until they reached the main floor in front of the audience. Tim looked up to see that every seat in the cavernous auditorium was full now. Harley had been right about the handicapped section. It was front and center, flanked with three rows of cushioned armchairs on either side. Tim recognized the faces of men in the audience that he’d only seen on television or in the newspapers. There was a former governor, at least a dozen Republican congressmen from several western states, a former mayor and chief of police and even a few minor movie stars.

  Tim started handing out flyers row by row, but the audience was so focused on the stage that most people took one and passed the rest along the row without looking down to see what they held in their hands. Tim glanced at his watch. It was midnight and the fog machine kicked into high gear right on schedule as the platform rose in the center of the stage. The smoke dissipated enough for Arlo Montgomery to appear where he was supposed to, but he was sputtering obscenities that were broadcast from his lapel microphone through the sound system. And he was wearing handcuffs, flanked on either side by one of San Francisco’s finest.

  Patrick and Barry had spread out to work the sides of the room and the flyers swept through the crowd like bad drugs at a rock concert. Instead of the usual chorus of Amens and cheers that he was used to, Arlo Montgomery was pelted with boos and the shouting of words rarely heard at a Christian gathering. Then they started throwing things—plastic water bottles, crumpled programs and food wrappers. The policemen hustled Arlo toward the brass section and down the back steps off the stage, but not before one overzealous homophobe in the audience threw his Bible at him. It came spinning through the air as if in slow motion and landed with a thud across the back of the reverend’s lacquered hair.

  Twenty minutes later Tim managed to find his cohorts out in front on Grove Street. They headed north across the Civic Center Plaza behind a small group of gay guys with signs reading: BIGOTS GO HOME! They had to go out of their way to escape the rush of angry crowds that were still pouring out of the building. Tim smelled freshly mown lawns and thought he detected a trace of teargas amid the marijuana smoke of another group of protesters. Their signs read: MARIJUANA IS MEDICINE! and SAFE ACCESS NOW!

  Tim and Barry and Patrick were still laughing as they sat down to catch their breath
on the steps of City Hall. They watched the charter buses on McAllister Street begin to start up and get ready to pull away.

  “You know, it’s true what they always say—a picture is worth a thousand words!” Patrick grinned.

  “It’s a good thing for him, too, “Barry said. “He’ll be safer in jail than out here with all those right-wing nut cases after they found out he was screwing around with young boys. They would have lynched him from the flagpole right in front of City Hall!”

  ”Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Tim agreed, “but I still don’t know why Dave left me those pictures. There must have been some other way to stop him.”

  Patrick said, “If it weren’t for the photographs, no one would have believed it. They would have thought it was all a lie and he was being persecuted. Arlo Montgomery’s followers would have made him into a martyr. I mean… it’s not like he was a priest. He didn’t have the whole Catholic Church hierarchy behind him. It took those pictures to make them see the truth and admit to themselves that they’d been duped.”

  Barry added, “Maybe next time they won’t be so quick to follow every fake that comes along offering salvation. Arlo might have scammed millions, but I don’t know what he’ll do now. Even if he claimed he was on drugs and went into rehab it’s going to cost him all the money he has and then some. Just think of the lawyers’ fees if he’s ever going to get out of a long prison term.”

  “According to Dave, I don’t think he has the money,” Tim said. “He might be able to use whatever profit they took in tonight, but Dave ran off with the rest. I probably shouldn’t have torn up the pictures with Dave in them, but I didn’t want to be reminded. That’s another thing I don’t understand… why Dave didn’t destroy them first.”

  “Maybe he was testing you, Tim,” Patrick said.

  “Yeah, maybe… and maybe I’ll never know for sure.” Tim had sat down beside Patrick and Barry and put his head in his hands. He felt a mix of emotions, but most of all he was relieved that it was all over.

  A black stretch limousine rounded the corner from McAllister and crept down Polk Street toward the main steps of City Hall. “I wonder what they’re still doing out here,” Tim said. “I thought all the rich big-shots were the first ones to flee the scene.”

  The three of them started walking toward Market Street. “Do you want to catch a cab back to the Castro together, maybe have a beer or something to celebrate?” Barry asked. “We’ve got plenty of time to make last call somewhere.”

  “I thought you’d be going to the Moscone Center, Tim,” Patrick said.

  “Nah,” Tim said. “I would have liked to, but I’ve got to work the brunch shift with you and Artie tomorrow morning. Besides, do you know what those tickets cost? And they’re twice as much at the door as they were in advance.”

  The limousine crept to a stop beside them and one of the tinted rear windows slid open a few inches, but they couldn’t see inside. A deep voice shouted, “Tim! Tim Snow! Come here! We’ve been looking for you.”

  Tim felt a chill down his spine and hurried his pace. “Come on you guys! Let’s get out of here!” Tim was sure that Dave Anderson was out of the country by now and they had all witnessed Arlo Montgomery being hauled away. Who could still be out here wanting to get even with him? Who would dare try anything? The police were nearby and the TV crews and cameramen were still packing up their gear. Tim and Patrick and Barry got as far as the statue of Abraham Lincoln when the limo caught up to them again and pulled over to the curb.

  The driver got out and walked around the front toward them. Tim thought of Corey for a moment. Was this the kind of fear he lived with every day? Hell, at least Corey had bodyguards. All Tim had were these couple of guys in their thrift-store suits posing as homophobic conservatives for one night. They didn’t look very tough right now with their neckties undone and their dress shirts unbuttoned halfway. “Holy shit!” Tim said. “Now what do we do?” He wondered if they should try to make a run for the nearest police car or just let out a yell and hope someone heard them.

  Chapter 15

  As the limousine window glided all the way down they could smell a whiff of marijuana smoke and then they heard a tenor voice singing, “You make me feel… mighty real” to a disco beat. Another voice—that of a woman—said, “Timothy Snow! I’m so glad we found you. We went by the restaurant, but Artie and Arturo told us you’d already left.”

  Tim breathed a sigh of relief. He was only being paranoid and he hadn’t even smoked any pot since the single toke off that cab-driver’s pipe. Harley Wagner and Vanessa Caen were in the back of the limousine. The chauffer had only gotten out to come around and open the door for him.

  “Harley, Vanessa…what are you doing out here? You scared me to death!” Tim sputtered. “What’s with this limo, anyway?”

  “It’s Vanessa’s last night in town,” Harley explained. “She’s flying back to New York tomorrow afternoon. I think I can get by without her nursing me anymore, though she’s been a life-saver.”

  “Harley, it’s been no trouble at all and you know it!” she protested.

  “I wanted to show her a nice evening, so I booked us a limo. We took a long drive up the coast this afternoon, had champagne and watched the sunset from the top of Mount Tamalpais and then ate dinner with some old friends in Belvedere.”

  “An old beau of Harley’s, it was. He was one of my dance students a hundred years ago,” Vanessa said. “Someone phoned them after dinner and they said to turn on the news, so we heard all about what happened down here at the Men’s cult. Harley and I had the same thought, that we had to come and try to find you, Tim.”

  Harley said, “Say, Tim… don’t leave your friends on the sidewalk. Won’t you boys join us?”

  “Where are you going?” Barry asked, although he and Patrick were already climbing in over Vanessa’s knees.

  “To the Moscone Center,” Harley said. “Where else?”

  “Are you sure you’re up for it, Harley?” Tim asked. “We don’t have tickets.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world!” Harley said, lighting another joint. “Here… have a hit… and the tickets are on me.”

  The limousine pulled into the parking area off Howard Street. The banner that had been trailing the biplane over the city all week was now suspended between the flagpoles.

  Dance Celebrate Remember

  A Tribute To Sylvester’s Birthday

  Moscone Center Saturday

  The mirror ball Tim had first seen emerge from a bank of clouds above Twin Peaks as he sat on Harley’s deck on Clementina Street was now suspended from a crane over the entrance. It splattered colored lights over Howard Street and their shoulders as they all went inside and rode the escalators down into the teeming dance floor.

  Harley bought a round of drinks and they toasted to the demise of Arlo Montgomery. “I’ll raise a glass to all of you boys,“ Vanessa said, “but I hate to think such an evil man was gay all along!”

  “We don’t call guys like him ‘gay,’ exactly,” Patrick said. “He was a pervert, all right, but we don’t want to claim a pederast who abuses young boys any more than the Catholics would want to claim him if he were a priest.”

  “Right on!” said Barry. “I was raised Catholic.”

  Harley and his sister found a perch at one side of the dance floor where they could see everything. Vanessa said, “This is a perfect spot and we can watch your jackets for you boys if you’d like to go dance. The line at the coat check area is a mile long.”

  Tim nearly forgot about Jason that evening. At least he didn’t get around to finding the bar where Jason was working. The place was huge and Tim was too busy dancing! This was right where he wanted to be, in the center of the dancers at the core of the pulsing beat.

  Barry, Tim and Patrick found their co-worker Jake on the dance floor and maneuvered toward him and his friends. Most of Jake’s friends were bare-chested to show off their tattoos. Tim pulled off his white dress shirt and stuck i
t though one of the belt loops of his jeans as the DJ segued into Sylvester’s old hit Can’t Stop Dancing!

  Groups of men caressed each another, pulled together and pushed apart, slapping asses like high school jocks in a locker room, all of them so hot and so high. Tim saw a sea of strangers and recognized some faces he’d seen around since the first day he arrived in San Francisco. At one point columns of smoke appeared across the middle of the dance floor, swirling from floor to ceiling. In the middle of each column a muscular man arose wearing a silver jockstrap and waving an enormous silver fan above his head. The fans moved the fog and the balloons and falling confetti. They reflected the colored lights in their folds as the fan dancers shook the sweat off their bodies.

  Tim wouldn’t criticize Vanessa’s friends who created the spectacle for Arlo Montgomery’s impressive arrival onto the stage at the “Men’s Revival” meetings, but whoever designed the special effects for this party had them beat hands down! Tim wondered for a moment whether he was dreaming again as dozens of mirrored balls spun and dazzled above their heads.

  There must have been thousands of men here, some of whom Tim had only seen on dance floors, many with whom he had shared more intimate moments, but there was nowhere in the world he had ever felt safer than right here in the middle of them. The “medicinal” marijuana that grew on Harley’s South of Market deck had to be some of the best in the world or Tim was simply at the prime of his life. In this one rare moment of clarity he recognized and appreciated himself. He lost all track of time and danced as if there were no gravity, no floor beneath his feet. The rhythm matched his pulse and he became the melody. As stoned as he was, he also felt loved and embraced by the universe and he thought he now understood the ancient power of tribal drums.

  Tim lifted his arms and closed his eyes. Someone reached around him from behind, tugged his nipples and ground his pelvis against Tim’s ass. Tim looked down at the familiar hands and craned his neck to give Jean-Yves a wet kiss. Tim closed his eyes again and another pair of hands covered Jean-Yves’ fingertips from in front. They slid down his sides and pulled him into another man’s hairy chest. It was Matthew, the bartender from Harley’s party last night. “Do you two know each other?” Tim tried to ask, but the music was too loud to talk and they just smiled. Matthew pulled Tim’s face to his own and pressed Tim’s lips apart with his tongue. The three of them moved as one with Tim sandwiched in the middle.