< PreviousJack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK 194Jim Stewart Maybe some miracle would pull off the show. There had recently been the case of a show in a gallery on Market Street where buckets of red paint had been splashed on the paintings because some group or another had deemed the works politically incorrect. The news hit the art world. Out of the debacle the art- ist got a show in New York. My hopes rose when one of the post card reception invitations was returned in an envelope. The bare breasts of the dominatrix photo had big red Xs drawn on them. On the back in angry red letters I was castigated for bringing such “Trash” to a Filipino family neighborhood. I sensed the writer was not Filipino, but rather another advocate of political correct- ness. I really should have titled the show “Trash.” Alas, there were no buckets of red paint. No show in New York. The night of the opening reception, 544 Natoma was packed. Lou wrote “Cheap Hotel” backwards from behind a sheet strung across the stage. Some feat! His stage performance paintings were greeted with great applause. So were the drag queen performances and Kabuki theater pieces. By the end of the month I hadn’t sold enough works to cover my expenses. I wasn’t sure what to do with the stack of matted and framed photos. Henry, an All-American Boy from Wisconsin, came into Fe- Be’s one afternoon as I sat nursing a scotch on the rocks. “Have you seen this?” he said, as he held out a copy of the Bay Area Reporter. He was shaking the weekly bar rag so much for emphasis that nobody could possibly have read what he was pointing to. “It’s lifted from a New York gay rag. It says right here, ‘Gay pneumonia’ is hitting the New York community. Have you heard of this? Gay pneumonia?” He looked first at the bartender who had come up to take his order, then at me, then back again. The bartender shook his head and raised his eyebrows at Henry. “Draft,” Henry said to the bartender. “Gay pneumonia? How could there be such a thing? Pneu- monia can’t know if you’re gay or not,” I said. “It says right here, ‘gay pneumonia,’” Henry said as he stabbed his thick forefinger at the weekly issue of B.A.R.Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK Folsom Street Blues195 “There was an article last week on ‘gay cancer.’ I thought the same thing,” the bartender said, as he set down Henry’s beer. “How can cancer know if you’re gay or not?” He glanced at me. “Another?” he said, as he looked at my empty glass. I nodded. “Let me see that,” I said to Henry. “Where are they getting this from anyway?” The bartender set down my fresh scotch on the rocks and returned to washing glasses. I sat sipping scotch at the kitchen table in the back of the flat one afternoon, wondering what direction to steer my life. I was 39 and out of a job. There was a loud pounding on the door. I crept to the front and peeked out the drapes. It was Jim Moss. “Come in, come in,” I said. How you been?” “Busy,” Moss said. Jim Moss was a fantasy photographer whose work had been published in Drummer. “I bet,” I said. “I’ve seen a couple of issues of your new maga- zine, Folsom. Hot.” “Thanks,” he said. “That’s what I came over to talk about.” I hope it’s not photos, I thought. After the disappointment of my show at 544 Natoma I wanted to lay low in that department for awhile. I had nothing new to offer. “I want to show you something,” Moss said. We headed for the kitchen table. “Slide that over here,” Moss said as we sat down at the table. I slid my beveled antique coke mirror with the single-edged razor blade on it across the table in front of Moss. He opened a bindle and scraped a quarter of the white powder onto the mirror with the razor blade. He carefully refolded the bindle and laid it on the table. He proceeded to divide the blow into four equal lines. “You first,” he said. I picked up a silver straw by the side of the mirror and snorted two of the lines. “Ahhh. Great,” I said. I handed Moss the silver straw. He snorted the two remaining lines. We both lit a cigarette. “Scotch?” I said.Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK 196Jim Stewart “No. No alcohol. I’ve quit drinking,” Moss said. “It was get- ting out of control.” I glanced at the melted ice and pale scotch in my glass on the table. I left it there. “Now, what I wanted to show you,” he said, as he opened the manila envelope he had brought with him. He pulled out three fine-point ink drawings and laid them on the table. They were various angles of a leather-clad motorcycle rider. One was reflected in the mirror of the motorcycle. I had once done a photo of Ron Clute like that, under the Leatherneck sign, as a promo piece for Allan Lowery’s bar. “Hot,” I said. I looked at the signature. It rang no bells. I wasn’t sure where I fit into all this. “What I need,” Moss said, “is someone to write a story to go with these drawings. I want it as hot and crisp as the drawings. No more than six pages, double spaced.” He drew on his cigarette and slowly French-inhaled. “Can you do that?” I eyed the watery scotch and French-inhaled my Marlboro. “Yes.” “I’ll pay you $100. If I like it. You’ll be published in the next issue of my Folsom magazine.” “And if you don’t like it?” “You’ll be out your time but free to publish it, without the drawings, wherever you want.” “Deal,” I said. We both stood up and shook hands. “Oh, keep that to get you started,” Moss said. He nodded at the generous remains in the bindle on the table. “No charge.” He left. I dumped the watery scotch in the sink, put two fresh ice cubes in my glass, and filled it with Cutty Sark. Two days later I’d snorted the rest of the bindle, emptied the bottle of scotch, burned through three packs of Marlboros, and had a six-page story about a young biker’s initiation into fist- fucking in a hunting cabin in Michigan. I walked the story over to Jim Moss’s place on Folsom Street. Jim Moss had a bright green parrot at his place. As soon as I came in the bird flew freely about the room several times before Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK Folsom Street Blues197 returning nervously to its cage. Piles of parrot shit decorated the newly refinished hardwood floor. I sat on a lone high metal stool, hoping the bird liked me. Moss sat reading my fisting tale at his metal army desk, the only other piece of furniture in the all-white room. He finished and stood up. “Well, to tell you the truth,” Moss said. Here it comes, I thought, the verbal rejection slip. “It’s the best damn piece of writing anyone’s ever submit- ted to me,” Moss said. He laid the manuscript on his desk and unlocked one of its drawers. He handed me a 100-dollar bill. It was curled slightly and I detected a white residue along one edge. The parrot emerged from its cage, then flew around the room a couple of times before leaving its deposit near the cage. “Can I make a copy?” I said, nodding at the copier on the desk. “Sure.” By the time I finished copying my fisting story Moss had four lines laid out on a mirrored tile on the desk. We completed the usual ritual. I headed for Fe-Be’s. Henry was at Fe-Be’s. By the time I sat down at the bar there was a scotch on the rocks waiting for me. “Remember that article on ‘gay cancer’ that was in the B.A.R. last week?” Henry said. “Who could forget?” the bartender said. He lit my cigarette. I tipped well. “Well, there’s more to it than we thought,” Henry said. He lit his own cigarette. I sipped my scotch. “The mainline press has picked up on it,” he said. “‘Gay’ pneumonia turns out to be something called Pneumocystis pneumonia and ‘gay’ cancer is something called Kaposi’s sarcoma.” “Cancer and pneumonia can’t know somebody’s gay,” I said. “Well, health officials seem to think so. They’re lumping the two together and calling it GRID.” “GRID,” I said. “What’s that mean?” “Gay-Related Immune Deficiency.” Henry signaled for another round of drinks. The bartender obliged.Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK 198Jim Stewart “What’s this?” Henry said, picking up the manila envelope with the copy of my story inside. “It’s a dirty story I wrote.” “Oh, a dirty story. I love dirty stories. Can I read it?” “Maybe. What’s it worth to you?” I felt a little plastic coke dispenser being slipped into my hand. “Just don’t lose it,” I said. “It’s the only copy I have.” About a week later, Jim Moss dropped by the house to show me the printer’s galley proof for my story. The print was curved to follow the shape of the ink drawings of the biker. It looked very professional. It looked hot! It was my first story in print. Well, almost in print. We shared a couple of lines at the kitchen table in celebration. Moss spotted the Cutty Sark bottle on the counter. He said he had to leave. He was still on the wagon. I headed for Fe-Be’s. Henry was at the bar. “You look pretty glum,” I said. “What happened?” “My roommate found a couple of spots on his chest this morning.” “You don’t mean…” “They’re not sure. They did some tests. We should know by next week sometime.” “Henry, I’m so sorry…” I didn’t know what more to say. I bought him a drink. This time it was my turn to slip a little plastic dispenser into Henry’s hand. “Something else. You’re going to hate me,” he said. “What?” “I left your story on the bus. I’m sorry, but there was so much on my mind.” “Don’t worry. It’s going to be published soon. Then there’ll be copies everywhere.” A week later I ran into Jim Moss. He looked pretty glum too. “All right,” I said. “What happened? You fall off the wagon?” “I’m broke. I don’t even have the rent.” “What about Folsom magazine?” I said.Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK Folsom Street Blues199 “Dead. I have no money to put out the next copy. The last issue was the last issue.” The afternoon wind came down Folsom Street with fog and a chill. “Don’t worry,” Moss said. “I’m not asking for the hundred bucks back I paid you for your story.” I snorted a laugh at the idea he would ask such a thing. I nudged Moss into the sheltered doorway of an empty building there on Folsom Street and pressed my plastic coke dispenser into his hand. “Thanks,” he said. I’d been out of work since January. My finances were in sham- bles. I’d turn 40 in less than six months. My last photo show had been a flop. My first short story to be published was not going to be published after all. I lit up a cigarette, laid out two lines on my mirror, and freshened my glass with Cutty Sark. By the time the drink was finished and the coke was gone, I’d made up my mind. In the past I’d always sought solace in academe during times of personal change. Both when my marriage was disintegrating and when I was coming out to myself as a gay man, I had headed for campus. Grad school provided structure with a certain bohe- mian zest. By 1982, my life had shifted. My 18 months at the River was a line of demarcation. Although they were hard to pinpoint, there were subtle changes in my post-River life South of Market. Like Hemingway’s Paris of the 1920s, my existential San Francisco had been a specific place, during a specific time, and populated with specific people. Then things changed. The very zeitgeist of that life changed. I was on the cusp of being a newly minted 40-year-old man. A man I wasn’t sure of yet, but one who was suddenly concerned with job benefits, heath insurance, and a retirement pension. After much letter writing, phone queries, and filling out of forms, it was settled. I would return to Western Michigan Uni- versity for a second master’s degree. This one in library science. It was time for a mid-life career change. Train travel intrigued me. I had ridden many trains in Europe. My rail travel here had been limited to a few trips Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK 200Jim Stewart between Kalamazoo and Chicago. Now I wanted to experience a cross country train trip. I packed up what was left of my goods and shipped them via motor freight to Michigan. Two suitcases I’d take on the train. The smaller one held a few clothes and a toothbrush. The larger rather ratty brown leather suitcase held my camera, photo negatives, and contact sheets. I was taking no chances it would be lost en route. How do you say goodbye to San Francisco? You never can. I wanted to leave town quietly, promising myself I’d return. My last night in the City I spent at the Caldron, a piss palace a couple of blocks away on Natoma. In the morning Wil Rutland, a lanky North Carolinian I’d run into several times at the Caldron, drove me in his 1959 red Cadillac convertible to the Transbay Termi- nal at Mission and First. The sun was out. The top was down. I boarded a bus that took me over the Oakland Bay Bridge to the Amtrak station and a train bound for Chicago. Next >