GRID
A RENDEZVOUS BY THE MOON FLOAT. WORDS 7800
Then it was called GRID: General Reduction Immune Defences.
Very soon it will mean Gay Related Immune Deficiences. yet
The dire ballade of discrimination had yet to begin
The sun that broke through the fog steadily unveiled that 29 of June 1980: its gorgeous features gave the towering Transamerica pyramid an extensive command of the city sprucing up for a parade. Banners and flags flaunted their colors along the two-mile trek from Market Street to City Hall. Pamphlets were given to passersby exhorting them to fight for Gay Liberation, the cause which in recent years had enjoyed triumphs beyond their wildest hopes. . More than 30,000 people marched between thousands of spectators. Gays from around the nation were heading for the great show. Communities from all over America were represented: Catholics, Episcopalians, Mormons, and atheists, all advanced beneath their insignias. Everyone seemingly wanted the benediction of his own god: for Blacks God had to be Black, for the Chinese Chinese, for the Jews Jewish and for gays He had to be gay.
The different contingents also clearly identified all the various professions in which homosexuals were present: lawyers, dentists, labor officials, doctors, clerks, musicians, actors, masons, there wasn't one category which was not represented. Lesbian moms, gay dads, fledgling teenagers uncertain about their tendencies, they were all there. And again the different contingents proved how homosexuality was indeed international. Blacks, Latinos, African Americans, Indians marched that day in the City of the Rainbow which had been elected the capital of that psychedelic world, revealing the kaleidoscopic diversities of gay life. The rainbow flag had become the standard of California gays. Thousands waved that day in the hands of a glaring multitude. They all felt pride in themselves as they demonstrated how tangible their dream had become. The great homophile Mecca received them all, and all were anxious to storm the fabled bathhouses, the ultimate symbols of their newly-won freedom, the gargantuan sex emporiums. When the great Bulldog Baths float appeared at the Civic Center escorted by an army of young men pimp-rolling along, the crowd began to cheer. The Dykes on Bikes zipped by between the floats, all wearing punctilious galeas which made them look like lobes of mandibulate insects and, after the Dykes on Bikes, the Ducks on Trucks, noisy, flashing, masculine in the extreme. Of course Sister Mary Bam Bam was there too. Cowboys from the Reno Gay Rodeo were prancing on their mounts waving flags from both Nevada and California. Droves came from Phoenix, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, carrying the symbols of the Far West. Lassoes, sombreros, boots and spurs appeared in the vast sprawl of a vivid crowd gamboling in the uninterrupted sound of California Here I Come. The sudden promise of freedom had imbued their dumb horniness with innocence and excess, confidence and hubris. But a new contingent was making its entrance that day among the crowd. Healthy carriers were called�what did it mean? nobody knew exactly--The first victims of their own success were they, flaunting a fitness which would soon proved to be the most mischievous element in their haughty bearings: brawny skins turned to the future like an armor. Bisexuals too were there, sporting an anomaly within another anomaly, possibly the most dangerous one from the medical standpoint: tragic go-betweens who bridged the way between gays and heteros. After the great parade they all would meet at bathhouses.... What they didn't know was that a new infectious agent was elbowing its way through the great pageant of lust pushing to reach its own place at the edges of those magic holes bathhouses had become famous for, silently preparing the thousand of deaths, two, three, four, or even five years away. Most of the paraders knew little or nothing about the strange deaths occurring with increasing frequency. Those who did care by now were viewing those deaths professionally, as they did all kinds of medical phenomena, but the very name GRID was still only letters of an alphabet suddenly gone astray.
As the parade unfolded Ravic Moon became confused, his brain swam in a mixture of fatigue and despondency. John had given him rendezvous by the moon float-- a moon dressed in black seemingly courting another moon dressed in white. He kept walking along the float stunned by the large number of homosexuals, all seemingly wrapped into the dubious renderings of promiscuity. That idea of John of wanting to write a book on GRID....
Suddenly, as he was being pushed by the crowd down Castro Street behind the dramatic moon-float, he heard someone call: "John! John!" Nothing worth noticing, until he heard "Hey, Mr. Party!" from someone on the big float.
"Hey, kid, I was looking you up." John was suddenly behind him. Eerie surrealistic atmosphere. Pot was in the air. How could he be called kid by his pal? Furthermore he was feeling very much looked upon because of his tight-fitting English tweed.
"Ehy John, you wanted me to come up here to see this crowd of homosexuals? " Ravic had not expected the parade.
"Here is where one can perceive the magnitude of the phenomenon. In L A is more scattered."
"We keep seeing more and more new cases in LA. By the way, who's that freak calling you from the float?"
The man on the float kept calling: a frail creature, covered by garlands on headgear that looked like an upended flowerpot, was waving and throwing kisses and petals at random.
"He's the guy who's taking us around this evening. His name is Larry The Snafu."
"The Snafu? Sounds appropriate."
"He's a hairdresser who does actors."
Still following the float we had ended in front of a preacher who was announcing the greatest discovery of the millennium-- which had not yet been accomplished, but was around the corner: it was, it was! that of being conceived through rectal intercourse! the old-time war between uterus and sphincter would soon be won by the latter. So it seemed, so it seemed!
"Crazy town" said John. "This evening I take you to see the famous bathhouses, the Paradises of Free Sex. What I�ve read is so farfetched I hardly believed such places exist."
They met Larry Snafu at the Badland Saloon, a few blocks off Castro Street. The man, was an ensemble of curly hair, doe-like eyes, flapping eye lashes, purple lips with a strong proclivity to purse, necklaces, high heels and Nero's garments.
"Mr. Hamilton, shall we just say John? Oh, you're Doctor Moon. Oh, where did you get this outfit you wear. A doctor in tweed oh, ah oh oh!" He looked as excited as a kid who didn't know which pastry to choose. "Doctors are in great demand right now with all these strange things going on. I'm not joking. My own physician just died. It�s a pity because he could diagnose hemorrhoids through a suit of armor!" The inconspicuous creature flitted from Ravic to John.
"You're terrific," confirmed Larry Snafu following some vagary of his mind. Ah! tac! one of his high heels suddenly caught in a crack in the street had snapped. He returned to his flat trailed by an undistinguished chirping. When he came back he wore another pair of high heel shoes. Perhaps the artificial height gave him extra self-assurance. He was obnoxious: that vulpine nose, that slender jaw like a reverse spat, that spindly frame and besides, he constantly adjusted his hair in what was more a nervous contraction of the arm than a necessity.
"Oh, this evening you're going to see the r e a l face of San Francisco!"
"Face?" asked John.
The Snafu was taken aback and after a pause said: "Ah, you're funny! Right, you're right, I ought to have used another feature. Ah, don't let me, pleeeease, don't.... Ah, Ah! the most fantastic town in the world. See that gorgeous guy over there...."
"Larry, show us around. We don't care about seeing guys in the street. We want to be where the action is," said John whose sneezing seemed to be particularly nagging that evening.
"The action, the action! My God! talk about action. Wow! You, with all that sneezing. You might not look very healthy.... A healthy look is the best credit card in San Francisco these days. Wow!" Charging his words with innuendo, the young gay man contorted his small features, condensing them all in the insect-sharpness of his eyes.
"I only have an allergy," said John.
"Allergy...Your nose looks like an abomination of Gulliver bogged down by the Lilliputians" commented the Snafu boy. Allergy. You should be careful. You know, here we're all a bit paranoid."
John didn't pay him any attention. Ravic was very much focused on his cigarette.
"Where shall we begin?" asked John.
"You want to see some real hard stuff? What about the fist-fuckers in Folsom Street? Wow! But Folsom might be a little too risqu� for you guys from L A" The Snafu pondered. "Let's start with something tamer. The Glories Holes. That's a nice treat, my friends. It pledges to offer the most hazardous sex in the world. But that's the rub! Wow! Taxi, taxi!"
"Do you have lots of venereal disease in this city?" Ravic had read how San Francisco was known for its cases of shigellosis, syphilis and gonorrhea.
"Venereal diseases. That's history, doctor. Now uhhhu, the pimple spots are spreading. The little flowers of sin!" said the Snafu emitting little yelps of merriment.
"I heard that people die from those little pimple spots."
"Oh! Die! What a big word. We die because there are too many of us. We need space, we can't breathe anymore in San Francisco. My God, we're choking. Here we are. You see, you see how crowded it is. But don't worry, with me you shall bypass all the people in line. Oh, it's crazy! Driver, stop here."
The South of The Market Club, better known as the Glories Holes. The Snafu must have been a personality of some sort for he was cheered by many standing in line.
"All those people waiting in line... " Ravic noted
"Having waited in line two hours people expect to find other people naked and cooperative waiting for them. Rest assured of that," specified the Snafu.
Suddenly the whole street smelled of George perfume. A group of elegant women walked by. What gave them away were their guttural voices, their laughter and their calloused wrinkled heels.
"What are the pimple spots Larry mentioned?" asked John as the Snafu disappeared inside the club.
"They are Kaposi Sarcoma John. Something we can live without."
"Do they have anything to do with the GRID?"
"They're. "
Now the Snafu-boy was signaling them to come in. Both signed their names to get inside.
"Hey, you better buy one of these," suggested Larry.
"What's this?"
"Crisco, don't you know what Crisco is? My friends from L A don't use Crisco? You must be pretty scratched," the Snafu smiled roguishly as he talked to Maria, a girl who was writing down the names of the new guests. Another cross-dresser. Crisco was a lubricant tainted with amyl used in fist-fucking, the sexual hazard so in vogue among the aficionados. John an Ravic were taken for two gays; Larry Snafu, too, thought they were gays or he wouldn't have brought them inside those shrines.
"Now you belong to the heaven of sex. Cali-fornication wonderland. Follow me. But once we're in, you're on your own."
What Larry led them into was a paper-mach� copy of the public bathhouses used in Roman times. The atmosphere, spiced by stereo music, was imbued with morbid red light which further mellowed an intricate grid of plywood booths.
Having recommended them to the waiter, Larry kept to his word: "Now you're on your own, my friends." We were suddenly deprived of those weasel eyes.
"Don't you wear a rubber?" Ravic asked out of a basic knowledge of hygienic precaution.
"C'mon, you don't become gay to wear a condom. Wow!" Then the he winked: "I've got my own special hole. Someone is always waiting for me there. Wow!" Finally the flotsam chirped off.
They were given a table by the balcony at a point from which they could enjoy the view of three booths.
"What are those fellows leaning against the wall doing?" asked John.
"I'll tell you in a moment," In spite of the feeble light, Ravic had noticed some holes in the walls of the cubicles. Man! Those were real holes! The holes were there! Patrons put their organs through those holes and waited until they got in tune with someone on the other side. "See that guy with the face against the wall. Look on the other side..."
"Oh my. You're right. He looks like a gargoyle. Don't tell me he's waiting for...."
"What else?"
They could hardly talk. Each cubicle had three walls and could host three guests, each having the right to one hole. Another three guests could be accommodated on the other side of the plywood wall.
"The hole acts as a go-between...." said John. "It connects the one giver to the one taker. A primitive form of pandering."
"Who's the giver and who's the taker?"
"Well, that's never been established. What are you going to have?" We ordered scotch.
As they eyes adjusted to the softness of the light they better could perceive what was going on in the cubicles.
"Look how many weenies are hanging out of those holes, Jee-zus." John couldn't get enough of the view, ludicrous to the point of being hilarious. Just underneath them, a man arrived and, with absolute ease, took out his prick and placed it into a hole in such a way that we could see it emerge from the other side! A hole that acted as an anticipated form of seduction, the board of plywood hiding all features except the two which met through a hole. Most likely the people connected to each other in the most intimate of ways would never get to know the full of each other. What truly met were anatomical parts, not people. The variegated route of love.
"He gives it with its peanut and takes it back from behind. The double dealer" John said rabidly taking notes on one of his postcards.
Now they saw something once again unexpected: it was no longer a penis and a sphincter using the services of this new version of The Go Between... Now a mouth too had its part in the play. The mouth! the great depository of kisses. A mouth on one side of the wall and penis on the other.
"I don't think this has ever existed before."
"My... I can very well visualize a secret agent moving in and out of those holes! A secret agent with the semblance of a virus," said John, his voice hoarse as he watched the traffic in the booths, his mind already building up the main character of the book he had taken into his head to do.
"A virus as a small fish swimming in the great river of human sperm."
"Wow. Cigarette?"
"Oh yes, give me one" The cloack-flop sound from the great cigarette-case.
"Having fun?" The Snafu was watching from the balcony. He was wearing new pants in the form of a nosegay. "All cocks are primed for action, all cocks are primed for action. Wow!"
"We haven't even started yet," answered John.
"Haven't you had enough?" Ravic asked, more depressed than disgusted.
"A writer should be infused...." the eternal line.
"I know there are better places than the booths. But the booths are fun once in a while. The thrill of the unknown!" said the Snafu-boy vanishing again.
They decided to take a look at the ground floor, the arena! Along the dark corridors a crowd of youths wobbled to the rhythm of disco music. It couldn't even been said that the presence of women was missed, for there were many of these and all attractive. Of course, they were actually transvestites.
Sex was indeed all around: the whole place smelled of sex. Detached from feelings and linked to the logic of folly, sex was rehearsed here as basic scrimmage, oozing an odor like a blend of flesh and disinfectant. Hygiene was having everything heavily disinfected.
"Wasn't it nice?" asked the Snafu as they ran into each other.
"Lovely" Ravic answered in desperation
"No one can really be sure who is covering who," said John. He had always deemed himself to be a man in the fast lane: in that context Ravic saw him as an old curmudgeon.
"That's the fun!" pointed out the Snafu. "You see, sex should be anonymous. If you personalize it it might turn into love and that's kinky."
"Of course, of course......"
It was a great moment when they stepped out of the place, but the evening was just beginning.
"Have you ever seen anything like that?" said John, disconcerted.
"This time I'm going to charge you fifty percent of your royalties...." Ravic said.
"We accomplished something though. I definitely shall make the virus come into mankind right through those holes. What's the name of the place we've just been?"
"The Glories Holes. Hard to see any glory.."
The next stop was a club called the Black and the Blue. There too the Snafu was well known and we passed by the cold stare of the house attendants with ease. This new place was done in masculine style. Rather than the usual papier-mach� Roman statues a huge motorcycle was hanging from the ceiling and young musclemen in leather thongs stood around the bar. The music was 2001's Thus Spake Zarathustra' repeating over and over. In the balconies and on the stairs all sorts of orgies were taking place in an atmosphere made sinister by the sordid metal pieces and scraps of engines hanging everywhere. A dark multitude of limbs dovetailing into each other matched a silent hysteria of buttocks wriggling, surfacing and disappearing in an intoxication of light and shade.
"It's really gargantuan," said the Snafu. It seemed that the bigger a place was, the more fascinating was thought to be.
" John, please, leave me out of this.." Ravic felt a sudden need of fresh air, of water, of stars in the sky.
John and the Snafu followed him.
Out of the cab they ran into a couple of mimes --they were actually three: Adam, Eve and the snake in the Garden of Eden. The snake --dressed in jeans by Calvin Klein-- was trying to dissuade Adam from eating the apple: the way he winked and leered slyly out at the onlookers! The snake was trampling on the apple, in point of fact the most unpopular fruit of San Francisco.
Someone gave them a pamphlet. On it was written: I make love to you. You make love to me. We make love to him. He makes love to us. We all make love to each other.
"See you at the Fairmont John. "
"Oh, wait a minute. You�re not going to leave me alone. "
The evening was over. Just for the Snafu it was merely beginning.
Later, as he was taking in the view of the city, Ravic was somehow depressed. What he has seen was nothing less than an all gay male subculture enthralled with the idea of having sex in the most anonymous of ways. The desolate outcropping of cement jutting out above Castro Street engulfed him in an ominous sensation of something unknown and terrifying seeping into the fabric of society, bearing witness to the birth of a disease mysteriously emerging from the core of the earth. He made a ball of the pamphlet he found in his pocket and tossed it in the air, beyond the sordid facts of the world, the fetid quickenings of lust, the world's dullest core.
to City Hall.. Pamphlets were given to passersby exhorting them to fight for Gay Liberation, the cause which in recent years had enjoyed triumphs beyond their wildest hopes. Its aim was to increase the momentum of the movement so that homosexuals could be recognized and gain the rights of a specific minority group.
For the city it was the major event of the year. More than 30,000 people marched between thousands of spectators. Gays from around the nation were heading for the great show. Communities from all over America were represented: Catholics, Episcopalians, Mormons, and atheists, all advanced beneath their insignias. Everyone seemingly wanted the benediction of his own god: for Blacks God had to be Black, for the Chinese Chinese, for the Jews Jewish and for gays He had to be gay.
The different contingents also clearly identified all the various professions in which homosexuals were present: lawyers, dentists, labor officials, doctors, clerks, musicians, actors, masons, there wasn't one category which was not represented. Lesbian moms, gay dads, fledgling teenagers uncertain about their tendencies, they were all there. And again the different contingents proved how homosexuality was indeed international. Blacks, Latinos, African Americans, Indians marched that day in the City of the Rainbow which had been elected the capital of that psychedelic world, revealing the kaleidoscopic diversities of gay life. The rainbow flag had become the standard of California gays. Thousands waved that day in the hands of a glaring multitude. They all felt pride in themselves as they demonstrated how tangible their dream had become. The great homophile Mecca received them all, and all were anxious to storm the fabled bathhouses, the ultimate symbols of their newly-won freedom, the gargantuan sex emporiums. When the great Bulldog Baths float appeared at the Civic Center escorted by an army of young men pimp-rolling along, the crowd began to cheer. The Dykes on Bikes zipped by between the floats, all wearing punctilious galeas which made them look like lobes of mandibulate insects and, after the Dykes on Bikes, the Ducks on Trucks, noisy, flashing, masculine in the extreme. Of course Sister Mary Bam Bam was there too. Cowboys from the Reno Gay Rodeo were prancing on their mounts waving flags from both Nevada and California. Droves came from Phoenix, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, carrying the symbols of the Far West. Lassoes, sombreros, boots and spurs appeared in the vast sprawl of a vivid crowd gamboling in the uninterrupted sound of California Here I Come. The sudden promise of freedom had imbued their dumb horniness with innocence and excess, confidence and hubris. What they didn't know was that a new infectious agent was elbowing its way through the crowd, pushing to reach its own place in the great pageant of lust. But a new contingent was making its entrance that day among the crowd. Healthy carriers were called�what did that mean, nobody knew exactly--The first victims of their own success were they, flaunting a fitness which would soon proved to be the most mischievous element in their haughty bearings: brawny skins turned to the future like an armor. Bisexuals too were there, sporting an anomaly within another anomaly, possibly the most dangerous one from the medical standpoint: tragic go-betweens who bridged the way between gays and heteros. After the great parade they all would meet at bathhouses where the infectious agent waited for them at the edges of those magic holes, silently preparing the thousand of deaths, two, three, four, or even five years away. Most of the paraders knew little or nothing about the strange deaths occurring with increasing frequency. Those who did care by now were viewing those deaths professionally, as they did all kinds of medical phenomena. The very name GRID was still only letters of an alphabet suddenly gone astray.
As the parade unfolded Ravic wasn�t so much in a pleasant mood anymore. He was confused, his brain swam in a mixture of fatigue and despondency. He had found the moon float-- a moon dressed in black seemingly courting another moon dressed in white--but not a trace of his friend. He had wondered if John hadn�t forgotten the rendezvous. He should have given him a call. He kept walking along the float without any enthusiasm, actually stunned by the large number of homosexuals, all. wrapped into the lurid renderings of promiscuity. Were man and woman gradually evolving into a hitherto unknown specimen? Was this a transition moment in which Nature was working in order to change the Homo Sapiens of today into the Super Homo of tomorrow? Homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality, nosexuality, which will be the tendency that will redefine this Super Homo? Although he could understand their euphoria, he could not understand the parade. What was all that hoop-la for? all that haughtiness about being the dead branch of a tree? What could be flaunted about being dead? The pyramid of social structure proved to be rotten to its very bone
Suddenly, as he was being pushed by the crowd down Castro Street behind the dramatic moon-float, he heard someone call: "John! John!" Nothing worth noticing, until he heard "Hey, Mr. Pater!" from someone on the big float.�After his In Nomine Patris John had been renamed Mr. Pater by those who thought that those two Latin words were the beginning of Pater Noster !Alas
"Hey, kid, I was looking for you." John was suddenly behind him. Eerie surrealistic atmosphere. Pot was in the air. How could he be called kid by his own pal?
"It was about time... " was all that Ravic could say. They stood one moment in front of each other as the gigantic moon wheeled by. He was sneezing terribly, the first thing that Ravic noticed. His prominent nose was reduced to a pulpy marshmallow squashed into the center of his patrician face. But apart from that he hadn�t changed: his blonde hair flowing in waves, the dimple cleaving his chin and the small scar at the end of his mouth appearing and disappearing into his smile giving out an innocence he had never outgrown.
"Why did you want me to come all the way up here for? "
"I'm fiddling with an idea and wanted to have your opinion. Did you hear about this terrible thing which kills homosexuals?"
"I�ve seen some cases in the hospital where I work. It�s something obnoxious a monster with no head or tail. "
"I intend to write book about it. A disease that kills through other diseases. It�s fascinating in a way. See, here in San Francisco one can perceive the magnitude of the phenomenon. In L A is still very scattered."
"Oh, we keep seeing more and more new cases. By the way who's that freak calling you from the float?"
The man on the float kept calling: a frail creature, covered by garlands on headgear that looked like an upended flowerpot:, was waving and throwing kisses and petals at random.
"He's the guy who's taking us around this evening," said John, waving back.. "His name is Larry The Snafu."
"The Snafu? It sounds appropriate."
"He's a hairdresser who does actors."
Still following the float they had ended in front of a preacher who was announcing the greatest discovery of the millennium-- which had not yet been accomplished, but was around the corner: it was, it was! that of being conceived through rectal intercourse! the old-time war between uterus and sphincter would soon be won by the latter. So it seemed, so it seemed!
"Crazy town" said John. "This evening I take you to see the famous bathhouses, the Paradises of Free Sex. "
"What I�ve read is so farfetched I hardly believed such places exist."
They met Larry Snafu at the Badland Saloon, a few blocks off Castro Street. The man, was an ensemble of curly hair, doe-like eyes, flapping eye lashes, purple lips with a strong proclivity to purse, necklaces, high heels and Nero's garments.
"Mr. Hamilton, shall we just say John? Oh, you're Doctor Moon." He looked as excited as a kid who didn't know which pastry to choose. "Doctors are in great demand right now with all these strange things going on. I'm not joking. My own physician just died. It�s a pity because he could diagnose hemorrhoids through a suit of armor!" The inconspicuous creature flitted from Ravic to John. .
"You're terrific," confirmed Larry Snafu following some vagary of his mind. Ah! tac! one of his high heels suddenly caught in a crack in the street had snapped. He returned to his flat trailed by an undistinguished chirping. When he came back he wore another pair of high heel shoes. Perhaps the artificial height gave him extra self-assurance. He looked at his friends as if they were a couple of midgets, although he was much shorter than they were. Ravic couldn't disguise his contempt: that vulpine nose, that slender jaw like a reverse spat, that spindly frame. He constantly adjusted his hair in what was more a nervous contraction of the arm than a real necessity.
"Oh, this evening you're going to see the r e a l face of San Francisco!"
"Face?" asked John.
The Snafu was taken aback and after a pause said: "Ah, you're funny! Right, you're right, I ought to have used another feature. Ah, don't let me, pleeeease, don't.... Ah, Ah! the most fantastic town in the world. See that gorgeous guy over there...."
"Larry, show us around. We don't care about seeing guys in the street. We want to be where the action is," said John whose sneezing seemed to be particularly nagging that evening.
"The action, the action! My God! talk about action. Wow! You, with all that sneezing. You might not look very healthy.... A healthy look is the best credit card in San Francisco these days. Wow!" Charging his words with innuendo, the young gay man contorted his small features, he actually condensed them all in the insect-sharpness of his eyes..
"I only have an allergy," said John.
"Allergy...Your nose looks like an abomination of Gulliver bogged down by the Lilliputians" commented the Snafu boy. Allergy. You should be careful. You know, here we're all a bit paranoid."
John didn't pay him any attention. Ravic was ready to kick him in the butt. He regretted having come all the way to San Francisco to be among that crowd.
"Where shall we begin?" asked John.
"You want to see some real hard stuff? What about the fist-fuckers in Folsom Street? Wow! But Folsom might be a little too risqu� for you guys from L A" The Snafu pondered. "Let's start with something tamer. The Glories Holes. That's a nice treat, my friends. It pledges to offer the most unusual sex in the world. And the most dangerous. But that's the rub! Wow! Taxi, taxi!"
"Do you have lots of venereal disease in this city?" Ravic had read how San Francisco was known for its cases of shigellosis, syphilis and gonorrhea.
"Venereal diseases. That's history, doctor. Now uhhhu, the pimple spots are spreading. The little flowers of sin!" said the Snafu emitting little yelps of merriment.
"I heard that people die from those little pimple spots."
"Oh! Die! What a big word. We die because there are too many of us. We need space, we can't breathe anymore in San Francisco. My God, we're choking. Here we are. You see, you see how crowded it is. But don't worry, with me you shall bypass all the people in line. Oh, it's crazy! Driver, stop here."
The South of The Market Club, better known as the Glories Holes. The Snafu must have been a personality of some sort for he was cheered by many standing in line.
"All those people waiting in line," noted Ravic.
"Having waited in line two hours people expect to find other people naked and cooperative waiting for them. Rest assured of that," specified the Snafu.
Suddenly the whole street smelled of George perfume. A group of elegant women walked by. What gave them away were their guttural voices, their laughter and their calloused wrinkled heels.
"What are the pimple spots Larry mentioned?" asked John as the Snafu disappeared inside the club.
"That's what many people would like to find out."
"Do they have anything to do with the GRID?"
"They're one of the most common symptoms. What I see here is an all gay male subculture enthralled with the idea of having sex in the most anonymous of ways. "
Now the Snafu-boy was signaling them to come in. Both signed their names to get inside.
"Hey, you better buy one of these," suggested Larry.
"What's this?"
"Crisco, don't you know what Crisco is? My friends from L A don't use Crisco? You must be pretty scratched," the Snafu smiled roguishly as he talked to Maria, a girl who was writing down the names of the new guests. Another cross-dresser. Crisco was a lubricant tainted with amyl used in fist-fucking, the sexual hazard so in vogue among the aficionados. Ravic and John were taken for two gays; Larry Snafu, too, thought they were gays or he wouldn't have brought them inside these shrines.
"Now you belong to the heaven of sex. Cali-fornication wonderland. Follow me. But once we're in, you're on your own." His words hinted at a certain form of privacy. Alas.
What Larry led them into was an exact copy of the public bathhouses used in Roman times. The atmosphere, spiced by stereo music, was imbued with morbid red light which further mellowed an intricate grid of plywood booths.
Having recommended his friends to the waiter, Larry kept to his word: "Now you're on your own, my friends, " he announced winking his weasel-like eyes.
"Don't you wear a rubber?" asked Ravic out of his basic knowledge of hygienic precaution.
"C'mon, you don't become gay to wear a condom. Wow!" Then he winked: "I've got my own special hole. Someone is always waiting for me there. Wow!" He finally chirped off.
John and Ravic were given a table by the balcony at a point from which they could enjoy the view of three booths.
"What are those fellows leaning against the wall doing?" asked John.
"I'll tell you in a moment," said Ravic who, in spite of the feeble light, had noticed some holes in the walls of the cubicles. Man! Those were real holes. For Christ sake the holes were there! Patrons put their organs through those holes and waited until they got in tune with someone on the other side. "See that guy with the face against the wall. Look on the other side..."
"Oh my. You're right. He looks like a gargoyle. Don't tell me he's waiting for...."
"What else?"
So taken were they by the view, they could hardly talk. Each cubicle had three walls and could host three guests, each having the right to one hole. Another three guests could be accommodated on the other side of the plywood wall.
"The hole acts as a go-between...." said John. "It connects the one giver to the one taker. A primitive form of pandering. "
"Who's the giver and who's the taker?"
"Well, that's never been established. What are you going to have?" They ordered scotch.
By now their eyes had adjusted to the softness of the light and could better perceive what was going on in the cubicles.
"Look how many weenies are hanging out of those holes, Jee-zus." John couldn't get enough of the view, which was somehow hilarious. But Ravic too was pretty taken by it. Just underneath them, a man arrived and, with absolute ease, took out his prick and placed it into a hole in such a way that they could see it emerge from the other side! A hole that on one side acted as an anticipated form of seduction, the board of plywood hid all features except for the two which met through a hole. Most likely those connected to each other in the most intimate of ways would never get to know the rest of each other. What truly met were anatomical parts, not people. The variegated route of love.
"He gives it with its peanut and takes it back from behind The double dealer.." John said rabidly taking notes on one of his postcards. His eyes gloating.
Now they saw something they didn't expect. It was no longer a penis and a sphincter playing in the new version of The Go Between... Now a mouth too had its part in the play. The mouth! the great depository of kisses. .
"I don't think this has ever existed before."
"My... I can very well visualize a secret agent moving in and out of those holes! A secret agent with the semblance of a virus," said John, his voice hoarse as he watched the traffic in the booths, his mind already building up the picture of what he had taken into his head to do.
"A virus as a small fish swimming in the great river of human sperm."
"Wow. Cigarette?" the writer was excited.
"Yes, give me one" The cloack-flop sound from the great cigarette-case, like a relic from another time.
"Having fun?" The Snafu was watching from the balcony. Now he was wearing new pants in the form of a nosegay. "All cocks are primed for action, all cocks are primed for action. Wow!"
"We haven't even started yet," answered John.
"Haven't you had enough?" asked Ravic, depressed more than disgusted.
"A writer should be infused...." the eternal line.
"I know there are better places than the booths. But the booths are fun once in a while. The thrill of the unknown!" said the Snafu-boy vanishing again.
They decided to take a look at the ground floor, the arena! Along the dark corridors a crowd of youths wobbled to the rhythm of disco music. It couldn't even been said that the presence of women was missed, for there were many of these and all attractive. Of course, they were actually transvestites. Wherever there was a hole they saw the same scene of somebody pressing against the wall, back and forth, while on the other side somebody was doing the same.
"Oh, you're divine! Oh, I know who it is, I recognize you ..." They heard the chirping from the Snafu paying compliments to someone who... couldn't see him. "Sex, sex, sex! Wow!"
Sex was indeed all around: the whole place smelled of sex. Detached from feelings and linked to the logic of folly, sex was rehearsed here as basic scrimmage, oozing an odor like a blend of flesh and disinfectant. Hygiene was having everything heavily disinfected.
"Wasn't it nice?" asked the Snafu as they ran into him on the balcony.
"Lovely," answered Ravic giving a last look to the traffic inside the cubby-holes.
"No one can really be sure who is covering who," said John. He had always deemed himself to be a man in the fast lane, but now he saw himself as an old curmudgeon, unable even to conceive of doing something like that with his own body.
"That's the fun!" pointed out the Snafu. "You see, sex should be anonymous. If you personalize it it might turn into love and that's kinky."
"Of course, of course......"
It was a great moment when they stepped out of the place.
To see complete story contact [email protected]
Then it was called GRID: General Reduction Immune Defences.
Very soon it will mean Gay Related Immune Deficiences. yet
The dire ballade of discrimination had yet to begin
The sun that broke through the fog steadily unveiled that 29 of June 1980: its gorgeous features gave the towering Transamerica pyramid an extensive command of the city sprucing up for a parade. Banners and flags flaunted their colors along the two-mile trek from Market Street to City Hall. Pamphlets were given to passersby exhorting them to fight for Gay Liberation, the cause which in recent years had enjoyed triumphs beyond their wildest hopes. . More than 30,000 people marched between thousands of spectators. Gays from around the nation were heading for the great show. Communities from all over America were represented: Catholics, Episcopalians, Mormons, and atheists, all advanced beneath their insignias. Everyone seemingly wanted the benediction of his own god: for Blacks God had to be Black, for the Chinese Chinese, for the Jews Jewish and for gays He had to be gay.
The different contingents also clearly identified all the various professions in which homosexuals were present: lawyers, dentists, labor officials, doctors, clerks, musicians, actors, masons, there wasn't one category which was not represented. Lesbian moms, gay dads, fledgling teenagers uncertain about their tendencies, they were all there. And again the different contingents proved how homosexuality was indeed international. Blacks, Latinos, African Americans, Indians marched that day in the City of the Rainbow which had been elected the capital of that psychedelic world, revealing the kaleidoscopic diversities of gay life. The rainbow flag had become the standard of California gays. Thousands waved that day in the hands of a glaring multitude. They all felt pride in themselves as they demonstrated how tangible their dream had become. The great homophile Mecca received them all, and all were anxious to storm the fabled bathhouses, the ultimate symbols of their newly-won freedom, the gargantuan sex emporiums. When the great Bulldog Baths float appeared at the Civic Center escorted by an army of young men pimp-rolling along, the crowd began to cheer. The Dykes on Bikes zipped by between the floats, all wearing punctilious galeas which made them look like lobes of mandibulate insects and, after the Dykes on Bikes, the Ducks on Trucks, noisy, flashing, masculine in the extreme. Of course Sister Mary Bam Bam was there too. Cowboys from the Reno Gay Rodeo were prancing on their mounts waving flags from both Nevada and California. Droves came from Phoenix, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, carrying the symbols of the Far West. Lassoes, sombreros, boots and spurs appeared in the vast sprawl of a vivid crowd gamboling in the uninterrupted sound of California Here I Come. The sudden promise of freedom had imbued their dumb horniness with innocence and excess, confidence and hubris. But a new contingent was making its entrance that day among the crowd. Healthy carriers were called�what did it mean? nobody knew exactly--The first victims of their own success were they, flaunting a fitness which would soon proved to be the most mischievous element in their haughty bearings: brawny skins turned to the future like an armor. Bisexuals too were there, sporting an anomaly within another anomaly, possibly the most dangerous one from the medical standpoint: tragic go-betweens who bridged the way between gays and heteros. After the great parade they all would meet at bathhouses.... What they didn't know was that a new infectious agent was elbowing its way through the great pageant of lust pushing to reach its own place at the edges of those magic holes bathhouses had become famous for, silently preparing the thousand of deaths, two, three, four, or even five years away. Most of the paraders knew little or nothing about the strange deaths occurring with increasing frequency. Those who did care by now were viewing those deaths professionally, as they did all kinds of medical phenomena, but the very name GRID was still only letters of an alphabet suddenly gone astray.
As the parade unfolded Ravic Moon became confused, his brain swam in a mixture of fatigue and despondency. John had given him rendezvous by the moon float-- a moon dressed in black seemingly courting another moon dressed in white. He kept walking along the float stunned by the large number of homosexuals, all seemingly wrapped into the dubious renderings of promiscuity. That idea of John of wanting to write a book on GRID....
Suddenly, as he was being pushed by the crowd down Castro Street behind the dramatic moon-float, he heard someone call: "John! John!" Nothing worth noticing, until he heard "Hey, Mr. Party!" from someone on the big float.
"Hey, kid, I was looking you up." John was suddenly behind him. Eerie surrealistic atmosphere. Pot was in the air. How could he be called kid by his pal? Furthermore he was feeling very much looked upon because of his tight-fitting English tweed.
"Ehy John, you wanted me to come up here to see this crowd of homosexuals? " Ravic had not expected the parade.
"Here is where one can perceive the magnitude of the phenomenon. In L A is more scattered."
"We keep seeing more and more new cases in LA. By the way, who's that freak calling you from the float?"
The man on the float kept calling: a frail creature, covered by garlands on headgear that looked like an upended flowerpot, was waving and throwing kisses and petals at random.
"He's the guy who's taking us around this evening. His name is Larry The Snafu."
"The Snafu? Sounds appropriate."
"He's a hairdresser who does actors."
Still following the float we had ended in front of a preacher who was announcing the greatest discovery of the millennium-- which had not yet been accomplished, but was around the corner: it was, it was! that of being conceived through rectal intercourse! the old-time war between uterus and sphincter would soon be won by the latter. So it seemed, so it seemed!
"Crazy town" said John. "This evening I take you to see the famous bathhouses, the Paradises of Free Sex. What I�ve read is so farfetched I hardly believed such places exist."
They met Larry Snafu at the Badland Saloon, a few blocks off Castro Street. The man, was an ensemble of curly hair, doe-like eyes, flapping eye lashes, purple lips with a strong proclivity to purse, necklaces, high heels and Nero's garments.
"Mr. Hamilton, shall we just say John? Oh, you're Doctor Moon. Oh, where did you get this outfit you wear. A doctor in tweed oh, ah oh oh!" He looked as excited as a kid who didn't know which pastry to choose. "Doctors are in great demand right now with all these strange things going on. I'm not joking. My own physician just died. It�s a pity because he could diagnose hemorrhoids through a suit of armor!" The inconspicuous creature flitted from Ravic to John.
"You're terrific," confirmed Larry Snafu following some vagary of his mind. Ah! tac! one of his high heels suddenly caught in a crack in the street had snapped. He returned to his flat trailed by an undistinguished chirping. When he came back he wore another pair of high heel shoes. Perhaps the artificial height gave him extra self-assurance. He was obnoxious: that vulpine nose, that slender jaw like a reverse spat, that spindly frame and besides, he constantly adjusted his hair in what was more a nervous contraction of the arm than a necessity.
"Oh, this evening you're going to see the r e a l face of San Francisco!"
"Face?" asked John.
The Snafu was taken aback and after a pause said: "Ah, you're funny! Right, you're right, I ought to have used another feature. Ah, don't let me, pleeeease, don't.... Ah, Ah! the most fantastic town in the world. See that gorgeous guy over there...."
"Larry, show us around. We don't care about seeing guys in the street. We want to be where the action is," said John whose sneezing seemed to be particularly nagging that evening.
"The action, the action! My God! talk about action. Wow! You, with all that sneezing. You might not look very healthy.... A healthy look is the best credit card in San Francisco these days. Wow!" Charging his words with innuendo, the young gay man contorted his small features, condensing them all in the insect-sharpness of his eyes.
"I only have an allergy," said John.
"Allergy...Your nose looks like an abomination of Gulliver bogged down by the Lilliputians" commented the Snafu boy. Allergy. You should be careful. You know, here we're all a bit paranoid."
John didn't pay him any attention. Ravic was very much focused on his cigarette.
"Where shall we begin?" asked John.
"You want to see some real hard stuff? What about the fist-fuckers in Folsom Street? Wow! But Folsom might be a little too risqu� for you guys from L A" The Snafu pondered. "Let's start with something tamer. The Glories Holes. That's a nice treat, my friends. It pledges to offer the most hazardous sex in the world. But that's the rub! Wow! Taxi, taxi!"
"Do you have lots of venereal disease in this city?" Ravic had read how San Francisco was known for its cases of shigellosis, syphilis and gonorrhea.
"Venereal diseases. That's history, doctor. Now uhhhu, the pimple spots are spreading. The little flowers of sin!" said the Snafu emitting little yelps of merriment.
"I heard that people die from those little pimple spots."
"Oh! Die! What a big word. We die because there are too many of us. We need space, we can't breathe anymore in San Francisco. My God, we're choking. Here we are. You see, you see how crowded it is. But don't worry, with me you shall bypass all the people in line. Oh, it's crazy! Driver, stop here."
The South of The Market Club, better known as the Glories Holes. The Snafu must have been a personality of some sort for he was cheered by many standing in line.
"All those people waiting in line... " Ravic noted
"Having waited in line two hours people expect to find other people naked and cooperative waiting for them. Rest assured of that," specified the Snafu.
Suddenly the whole street smelled of George perfume. A group of elegant women walked by. What gave them away were their guttural voices, their laughter and their calloused wrinkled heels.
"What are the pimple spots Larry mentioned?" asked John as the Snafu disappeared inside the club.
"They are Kaposi Sarcoma John. Something we can live without."
"Do they have anything to do with the GRID?"
"They're. "
Now the Snafu-boy was signaling them to come in. Both signed their names to get inside.
"Hey, you better buy one of these," suggested Larry.
"What's this?"
"Crisco, don't you know what Crisco is? My friends from L A don't use Crisco? You must be pretty scratched," the Snafu smiled roguishly as he talked to Maria, a girl who was writing down the names of the new guests. Another cross-dresser. Crisco was a lubricant tainted with amyl used in fist-fucking, the sexual hazard so in vogue among the aficionados. John an Ravic were taken for two gays; Larry Snafu, too, thought they were gays or he wouldn't have brought them inside those shrines.
"Now you belong to the heaven of sex. Cali-fornication wonderland. Follow me. But once we're in, you're on your own."
What Larry led them into was a paper-mach� copy of the public bathhouses used in Roman times. The atmosphere, spiced by stereo music, was imbued with morbid red light which further mellowed an intricate grid of plywood booths.
Having recommended them to the waiter, Larry kept to his word: "Now you're on your own, my friends." We were suddenly deprived of those weasel eyes.
"Don't you wear a rubber?" Ravic asked out of a basic knowledge of hygienic precaution.
"C'mon, you don't become gay to wear a condom. Wow!" Then the he winked: "I've got my own special hole. Someone is always waiting for me there. Wow!" Finally the flotsam chirped off.
They were given a table by the balcony at a point from which they could enjoy the view of three booths.
"What are those fellows leaning against the wall doing?" asked John.
"I'll tell you in a moment," In spite of the feeble light, Ravic had noticed some holes in the walls of the cubicles. Man! Those were real holes! The holes were there! Patrons put their organs through those holes and waited until they got in tune with someone on the other side. "See that guy with the face against the wall. Look on the other side..."
"Oh my. You're right. He looks like a gargoyle. Don't tell me he's waiting for...."
"What else?"
They could hardly talk. Each cubicle had three walls and could host three guests, each having the right to one hole. Another three guests could be accommodated on the other side of the plywood wall.
"The hole acts as a go-between...." said John. "It connects the one giver to the one taker. A primitive form of pandering."
"Who's the giver and who's the taker?"
"Well, that's never been established. What are you going to have?" We ordered scotch.
As they eyes adjusted to the softness of the light they better could perceive what was going on in the cubicles.
"Look how many weenies are hanging out of those holes, Jee-zus." John couldn't get enough of the view, ludicrous to the point of being hilarious. Just underneath them, a man arrived and, with absolute ease, took out his prick and placed it into a hole in such a way that we could see it emerge from the other side! A hole that acted as an anticipated form of seduction, the board of plywood hiding all features except the two which met through a hole. Most likely the people connected to each other in the most intimate of ways would never get to know the full of each other. What truly met were anatomical parts, not people. The variegated route of love.
"He gives it with its peanut and takes it back from behind. The double dealer" John said rabidly taking notes on one of his postcards.
Now they saw something once again unexpected: it was no longer a penis and a sphincter using the services of this new version of The Go Between... Now a mouth too had its part in the play. The mouth! the great depository of kisses. A mouth on one side of the wall and penis on the other.
"I don't think this has ever existed before."
"My... I can very well visualize a secret agent moving in and out of those holes! A secret agent with the semblance of a virus," said John, his voice hoarse as he watched the traffic in the booths, his mind already building up the main character of the book he had taken into his head to do.
"A virus as a small fish swimming in the great river of human sperm."
"Wow. Cigarette?"
"Oh yes, give me one" The cloack-flop sound from the great cigarette-case.
"Having fun?" The Snafu was watching from the balcony. He was wearing new pants in the form of a nosegay. "All cocks are primed for action, all cocks are primed for action. Wow!"
"We haven't even started yet," answered John.
"Haven't you had enough?" Ravic asked, more depressed than disgusted.
"A writer should be infused...." the eternal line.
"I know there are better places than the booths. But the booths are fun once in a while. The thrill of the unknown!" said the Snafu-boy vanishing again.
They decided to take a look at the ground floor, the arena! Along the dark corridors a crowd of youths wobbled to the rhythm of disco music. It couldn't even been said that the presence of women was missed, for there were many of these and all attractive. Of course, they were actually transvestites.
Sex was indeed all around: the whole place smelled of sex. Detached from feelings and linked to the logic of folly, sex was rehearsed here as basic scrimmage, oozing an odor like a blend of flesh and disinfectant. Hygiene was having everything heavily disinfected.
"Wasn't it nice?" asked the Snafu as they ran into each other.
"Lovely" Ravic answered in desperation
"No one can really be sure who is covering who," said John. He had always deemed himself to be a man in the fast lane: in that context Ravic saw him as an old curmudgeon.
"That's the fun!" pointed out the Snafu. "You see, sex should be anonymous. If you personalize it it might turn into love and that's kinky."
"Of course, of course......"
It was a great moment when they stepped out of the place, but the evening was just beginning.
"Have you ever seen anything like that?" said John, disconcerted.
"This time I'm going to charge you fifty percent of your royalties...." Ravic said.
"We accomplished something though. I definitely shall make the virus come into mankind right through those holes. What's the name of the place we've just been?"
"The Glories Holes. Hard to see any glory.."
The next stop was a club called the Black and the Blue. There too the Snafu was well known and we passed by the cold stare of the house attendants with ease. This new place was done in masculine style. Rather than the usual papier-mach� Roman statues a huge motorcycle was hanging from the ceiling and young musclemen in leather thongs stood around the bar. The music was 2001's Thus Spake Zarathustra' repeating over and over. In the balconies and on the stairs all sorts of orgies were taking place in an atmosphere made sinister by the sordid metal pieces and scraps of engines hanging everywhere. A dark multitude of limbs dovetailing into each other matched a silent hysteria of buttocks wriggling, surfacing and disappearing in an intoxication of light and shade.
"It's really gargantuan," said the Snafu. It seemed that the bigger a place was, the more fascinating was thought to be.
" John, please, leave me out of this.." Ravic felt a sudden need of fresh air, of water, of stars in the sky.
John and the Snafu followed him.
Out of the cab they ran into a couple of mimes --they were actually three: Adam, Eve and the snake in the Garden of Eden. The snake --dressed in jeans by Calvin Klein-- was trying to dissuade Adam from eating the apple: the way he winked and leered slyly out at the onlookers! The snake was trampling on the apple, in point of fact the most unpopular fruit of San Francisco.
Someone gave them a pamphlet. On it was written: I make love to you. You make love to me. We make love to him. He makes love to us. We all make love to each other.
"See you at the Fairmont John. "
"Oh, wait a minute. You�re not going to leave me alone. "
The evening was over. Just for the Snafu it was merely beginning.
Later, as he was taking in the view of the city, Ravic was somehow depressed. What he has seen was nothing less than an all gay male subculture enthralled with the idea of having sex in the most anonymous of ways. The desolate outcropping of cement jutting out above Castro Street engulfed him in an ominous sensation of something unknown and terrifying seeping into the fabric of society, bearing witness to the birth of a disease mysteriously emerging from the core of the earth. He made a ball of the pamphlet he found in his pocket and tossed it in the air, beyond the sordid facts of the world, the fetid quickenings of lust, the world's dullest core.
to City Hall.. Pamphlets were given to passersby exhorting them to fight for Gay Liberation, the cause which in recent years had enjoyed triumphs beyond their wildest hopes. Its aim was to increase the momentum of the movement so that homosexuals could be recognized and gain the rights of a specific minority group.
For the city it was the major event of the year. More than 30,000 people marched between thousands of spectators. Gays from around the nation were heading for the great show. Communities from all over America were represented: Catholics, Episcopalians, Mormons, and atheists, all advanced beneath their insignias. Everyone seemingly wanted the benediction of his own god: for Blacks God had to be Black, for the Chinese Chinese, for the Jews Jewish and for gays He had to be gay.
The different contingents also clearly identified all the various professions in which homosexuals were present: lawyers, dentists, labor officials, doctors, clerks, musicians, actors, masons, there wasn't one category which was not represented. Lesbian moms, gay dads, fledgling teenagers uncertain about their tendencies, they were all there. And again the different contingents proved how homosexuality was indeed international. Blacks, Latinos, African Americans, Indians marched that day in the City of the Rainbow which had been elected the capital of that psychedelic world, revealing the kaleidoscopic diversities of gay life. The rainbow flag had become the standard of California gays. Thousands waved that day in the hands of a glaring multitude. They all felt pride in themselves as they demonstrated how tangible their dream had become. The great homophile Mecca received them all, and all were anxious to storm the fabled bathhouses, the ultimate symbols of their newly-won freedom, the gargantuan sex emporiums. When the great Bulldog Baths float appeared at the Civic Center escorted by an army of young men pimp-rolling along, the crowd began to cheer. The Dykes on Bikes zipped by between the floats, all wearing punctilious galeas which made them look like lobes of mandibulate insects and, after the Dykes on Bikes, the Ducks on Trucks, noisy, flashing, masculine in the extreme. Of course Sister Mary Bam Bam was there too. Cowboys from the Reno Gay Rodeo were prancing on their mounts waving flags from both Nevada and California. Droves came from Phoenix, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, carrying the symbols of the Far West. Lassoes, sombreros, boots and spurs appeared in the vast sprawl of a vivid crowd gamboling in the uninterrupted sound of California Here I Come. The sudden promise of freedom had imbued their dumb horniness with innocence and excess, confidence and hubris. What they didn't know was that a new infectious agent was elbowing its way through the crowd, pushing to reach its own place in the great pageant of lust. But a new contingent was making its entrance that day among the crowd. Healthy carriers were called�what did that mean, nobody knew exactly--The first victims of their own success were they, flaunting a fitness which would soon proved to be the most mischievous element in their haughty bearings: brawny skins turned to the future like an armor. Bisexuals too were there, sporting an anomaly within another anomaly, possibly the most dangerous one from the medical standpoint: tragic go-betweens who bridged the way between gays and heteros. After the great parade they all would meet at bathhouses where the infectious agent waited for them at the edges of those magic holes, silently preparing the thousand of deaths, two, three, four, or even five years away. Most of the paraders knew little or nothing about the strange deaths occurring with increasing frequency. Those who did care by now were viewing those deaths professionally, as they did all kinds of medical phenomena. The very name GRID was still only letters of an alphabet suddenly gone astray.
As the parade unfolded Ravic wasn�t so much in a pleasant mood anymore. He was confused, his brain swam in a mixture of fatigue and despondency. He had found the moon float-- a moon dressed in black seemingly courting another moon dressed in white--but not a trace of his friend. He had wondered if John hadn�t forgotten the rendezvous. He should have given him a call. He kept walking along the float without any enthusiasm, actually stunned by the large number of homosexuals, all. wrapped into the lurid renderings of promiscuity. Were man and woman gradually evolving into a hitherto unknown specimen? Was this a transition moment in which Nature was working in order to change the Homo Sapiens of today into the Super Homo of tomorrow? Homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality, nosexuality, which will be the tendency that will redefine this Super Homo? Although he could understand their euphoria, he could not understand the parade. What was all that hoop-la for? all that haughtiness about being the dead branch of a tree? What could be flaunted about being dead? The pyramid of social structure proved to be rotten to its very bone
Suddenly, as he was being pushed by the crowd down Castro Street behind the dramatic moon-float, he heard someone call: "John! John!" Nothing worth noticing, until he heard "Hey, Mr. Pater!" from someone on the big float.�After his In Nomine Patris John had been renamed Mr. Pater by those who thought that those two Latin words were the beginning of Pater Noster !Alas
"Hey, kid, I was looking for you." John was suddenly behind him. Eerie surrealistic atmosphere. Pot was in the air. How could he be called kid by his own pal?
"It was about time... " was all that Ravic could say. They stood one moment in front of each other as the gigantic moon wheeled by. He was sneezing terribly, the first thing that Ravic noticed. His prominent nose was reduced to a pulpy marshmallow squashed into the center of his patrician face. But apart from that he hadn�t changed: his blonde hair flowing in waves, the dimple cleaving his chin and the small scar at the end of his mouth appearing and disappearing into his smile giving out an innocence he had never outgrown.
"Why did you want me to come all the way up here for? "
"I'm fiddling with an idea and wanted to have your opinion. Did you hear about this terrible thing which kills homosexuals?"
"I�ve seen some cases in the hospital where I work. It�s something obnoxious a monster with no head or tail. "
"I intend to write book about it. A disease that kills through other diseases. It�s fascinating in a way. See, here in San Francisco one can perceive the magnitude of the phenomenon. In L A is still very scattered."
"Oh, we keep seeing more and more new cases. By the way who's that freak calling you from the float?"
The man on the float kept calling: a frail creature, covered by garlands on headgear that looked like an upended flowerpot:, was waving and throwing kisses and petals at random.
"He's the guy who's taking us around this evening," said John, waving back.. "His name is Larry The Snafu."
"The Snafu? It sounds appropriate."
"He's a hairdresser who does actors."
Still following the float they had ended in front of a preacher who was announcing the greatest discovery of the millennium-- which had not yet been accomplished, but was around the corner: it was, it was! that of being conceived through rectal intercourse! the old-time war between uterus and sphincter would soon be won by the latter. So it seemed, so it seemed!
"Crazy town" said John. "This evening I take you to see the famous bathhouses, the Paradises of Free Sex. "
"What I�ve read is so farfetched I hardly believed such places exist."
They met Larry Snafu at the Badland Saloon, a few blocks off Castro Street. The man, was an ensemble of curly hair, doe-like eyes, flapping eye lashes, purple lips with a strong proclivity to purse, necklaces, high heels and Nero's garments.
"Mr. Hamilton, shall we just say John? Oh, you're Doctor Moon." He looked as excited as a kid who didn't know which pastry to choose. "Doctors are in great demand right now with all these strange things going on. I'm not joking. My own physician just died. It�s a pity because he could diagnose hemorrhoids through a suit of armor!" The inconspicuous creature flitted from Ravic to John. .
"You're terrific," confirmed Larry Snafu following some vagary of his mind. Ah! tac! one of his high heels suddenly caught in a crack in the street had snapped. He returned to his flat trailed by an undistinguished chirping. When he came back he wore another pair of high heel shoes. Perhaps the artificial height gave him extra self-assurance. He looked at his friends as if they were a couple of midgets, although he was much shorter than they were. Ravic couldn't disguise his contempt: that vulpine nose, that slender jaw like a reverse spat, that spindly frame. He constantly adjusted his hair in what was more a nervous contraction of the arm than a real necessity.
"Oh, this evening you're going to see the r e a l face of San Francisco!"
"Face?" asked John.
The Snafu was taken aback and after a pause said: "Ah, you're funny! Right, you're right, I ought to have used another feature. Ah, don't let me, pleeeease, don't.... Ah, Ah! the most fantastic town in the world. See that gorgeous guy over there...."
"Larry, show us around. We don't care about seeing guys in the street. We want to be where the action is," said John whose sneezing seemed to be particularly nagging that evening.
"The action, the action! My God! talk about action. Wow! You, with all that sneezing. You might not look very healthy.... A healthy look is the best credit card in San Francisco these days. Wow!" Charging his words with innuendo, the young gay man contorted his small features, he actually condensed them all in the insect-sharpness of his eyes..
"I only have an allergy," said John.
"Allergy...Your nose looks like an abomination of Gulliver bogged down by the Lilliputians" commented the Snafu boy. Allergy. You should be careful. You know, here we're all a bit paranoid."
John didn't pay him any attention. Ravic was ready to kick him in the butt. He regretted having come all the way to San Francisco to be among that crowd.
"Where shall we begin?" asked John.
"You want to see some real hard stuff? What about the fist-fuckers in Folsom Street? Wow! But Folsom might be a little too risqu� for you guys from L A" The Snafu pondered. "Let's start with something tamer. The Glories Holes. That's a nice treat, my friends. It pledges to offer the most unusual sex in the world. And the most dangerous. But that's the rub! Wow! Taxi, taxi!"
"Do you have lots of venereal disease in this city?" Ravic had read how San Francisco was known for its cases of shigellosis, syphilis and gonorrhea.
"Venereal diseases. That's history, doctor. Now uhhhu, the pimple spots are spreading. The little flowers of sin!" said the Snafu emitting little yelps of merriment.
"I heard that people die from those little pimple spots."
"Oh! Die! What a big word. We die because there are too many of us. We need space, we can't breathe anymore in San Francisco. My God, we're choking. Here we are. You see, you see how crowded it is. But don't worry, with me you shall bypass all the people in line. Oh, it's crazy! Driver, stop here."
The South of The Market Club, better known as the Glories Holes. The Snafu must have been a personality of some sort for he was cheered by many standing in line.
"All those people waiting in line," noted Ravic.
"Having waited in line two hours people expect to find other people naked and cooperative waiting for them. Rest assured of that," specified the Snafu.
Suddenly the whole street smelled of George perfume. A group of elegant women walked by. What gave them away were their guttural voices, their laughter and their calloused wrinkled heels.
"What are the pimple spots Larry mentioned?" asked John as the Snafu disappeared inside the club.
"That's what many people would like to find out."
"Do they have anything to do with the GRID?"
"They're one of the most common symptoms. What I see here is an all gay male subculture enthralled with the idea of having sex in the most anonymous of ways. "
Now the Snafu-boy was signaling them to come in. Both signed their names to get inside.
"Hey, you better buy one of these," suggested Larry.
"What's this?"
"Crisco, don't you know what Crisco is? My friends from L A don't use Crisco? You must be pretty scratched," the Snafu smiled roguishly as he talked to Maria, a girl who was writing down the names of the new guests. Another cross-dresser. Crisco was a lubricant tainted with amyl used in fist-fucking, the sexual hazard so in vogue among the aficionados. Ravic and John were taken for two gays; Larry Snafu, too, thought they were gays or he wouldn't have brought them inside these shrines.
"Now you belong to the heaven of sex. Cali-fornication wonderland. Follow me. But once we're in, you're on your own." His words hinted at a certain form of privacy. Alas.
What Larry led them into was an exact copy of the public bathhouses used in Roman times. The atmosphere, spiced by stereo music, was imbued with morbid red light which further mellowed an intricate grid of plywood booths.
Having recommended his friends to the waiter, Larry kept to his word: "Now you're on your own, my friends, " he announced winking his weasel-like eyes.
"Don't you wear a rubber?" asked Ravic out of his basic knowledge of hygienic precaution.
"C'mon, you don't become gay to wear a condom. Wow!" Then he winked: "I've got my own special hole. Someone is always waiting for me there. Wow!" He finally chirped off.
John and Ravic were given a table by the balcony at a point from which they could enjoy the view of three booths.
"What are those fellows leaning against the wall doing?" asked John.
"I'll tell you in a moment," said Ravic who, in spite of the feeble light, had noticed some holes in the walls of the cubicles. Man! Those were real holes. For Christ sake the holes were there! Patrons put their organs through those holes and waited until they got in tune with someone on the other side. "See that guy with the face against the wall. Look on the other side..."
"Oh my. You're right. He looks like a gargoyle. Don't tell me he's waiting for...."
"What else?"
So taken were they by the view, they could hardly talk. Each cubicle had three walls and could host three guests, each having the right to one hole. Another three guests could be accommodated on the other side of the plywood wall.
"The hole acts as a go-between...." said John. "It connects the one giver to the one taker. A primitive form of pandering. "
"Who's the giver and who's the taker?"
"Well, that's never been established. What are you going to have?" They ordered scotch.
By now their eyes had adjusted to the softness of the light and could better perceive what was going on in the cubicles.
"Look how many weenies are hanging out of those holes, Jee-zus." John couldn't get enough of the view, which was somehow hilarious. But Ravic too was pretty taken by it. Just underneath them, a man arrived and, with absolute ease, took out his prick and placed it into a hole in such a way that they could see it emerge from the other side! A hole that on one side acted as an anticipated form of seduction, the board of plywood hid all features except for the two which met through a hole. Most likely those connected to each other in the most intimate of ways would never get to know the rest of each other. What truly met were anatomical parts, not people. The variegated route of love.
"He gives it with its peanut and takes it back from behind The double dealer.." John said rabidly taking notes on one of his postcards. His eyes gloating.
Now they saw something they didn't expect. It was no longer a penis and a sphincter playing in the new version of The Go Between... Now a mouth too had its part in the play. The mouth! the great depository of kisses. .
"I don't think this has ever existed before."
"My... I can very well visualize a secret agent moving in and out of those holes! A secret agent with the semblance of a virus," said John, his voice hoarse as he watched the traffic in the booths, his mind already building up the picture of what he had taken into his head to do.
"A virus as a small fish swimming in the great river of human sperm."
"Wow. Cigarette?" the writer was excited.
"Yes, give me one" The cloack-flop sound from the great cigarette-case, like a relic from another time.
"Having fun?" The Snafu was watching from the balcony. Now he was wearing new pants in the form of a nosegay. "All cocks are primed for action, all cocks are primed for action. Wow!"
"We haven't even started yet," answered John.
"Haven't you had enough?" asked Ravic, depressed more than disgusted.
"A writer should be infused...." the eternal line.
"I know there are better places than the booths. But the booths are fun once in a while. The thrill of the unknown!" said the Snafu-boy vanishing again.
They decided to take a look at the ground floor, the arena! Along the dark corridors a crowd of youths wobbled to the rhythm of disco music. It couldn't even been said that the presence of women was missed, for there were many of these and all attractive. Of course, they were actually transvestites. Wherever there was a hole they saw the same scene of somebody pressing against the wall, back and forth, while on the other side somebody was doing the same.
"Oh, you're divine! Oh, I know who it is, I recognize you ..." They heard the chirping from the Snafu paying compliments to someone who... couldn't see him. "Sex, sex, sex! Wow!"
Sex was indeed all around: the whole place smelled of sex. Detached from feelings and linked to the logic of folly, sex was rehearsed here as basic scrimmage, oozing an odor like a blend of flesh and disinfectant. Hygiene was having everything heavily disinfected.
"Wasn't it nice?" asked the Snafu as they ran into him on the balcony.
"Lovely," answered Ravic giving a last look to the traffic inside the cubby-holes.
"No one can really be sure who is covering who," said John. He had always deemed himself to be a man in the fast lane, but now he saw himself as an old curmudgeon, unable even to conceive of doing something like that with his own body.
"That's the fun!" pointed out the Snafu. "You see, sex should be anonymous. If you personalize it it might turn into love and that's kinky."
"Of course, of course......"
It was a great moment when they stepped out of the place.
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