Any Way the Wind Blows - E. Lynn Harris [12]
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Despite my better judgment, I decided to go to an OS (old sissies) dinner party with Wylie. The party was just what I expected, a bunch of old unattractive sissies with boy-toy dates, putting on airs and drinking too much. There was only one woman, and she was wearing a big blond wig and a tight dress that held life-threatening breasts.
The party was in a brownstone on Strivers Row that would have been spacious except for all the antiques this man had crammed in there. The host, Lester Williams, owned several dry cleaners in Harlem and the Bronx. He was a tall, thin, balding man, with bad teeth and humming breath. I noticed just how stank his breath was when he came up to me and moved his eyes over my body like a barcode scanner.
“So what do we have here?” Lester said to me while balancing a cigarette in one hand and a wineglass in the other.
“Are you talking to me?”
“Baby, as good as you look, who wouldn’t want to talk to you?”
I was looking good in my white leather pants and body-hugging, pumpkin-colored sweater. Lester was standing closer to me than I felt was socially acceptable, but I let it go since he was the host.
“That sounded like a compliment, so I guess I should say thank you,” I said.
“Oh baby, I only tell the truth. I’ll get right back with you, but I see some of the other guests have arrived. Now, if you need anything, just wink, and I’ll feel it, no matter what part of the house I’m in.”
“Thank you, but I’m not that hard to please.”
“And neither am I, especially after a few cocktails,” Lester said, dissolving into laughter and swooping across the room with a feline quickness.
I always felt a certain sadness when I went to parties like this, because in many ways they predicted my future. Being old, gay and alone. Most of the older gay men who had survived the AIDS crisis had lost lovers and friends. The only way it seemed they could enjoy male companionship was by flaunting their material possessions. I saw many of them cruising Mount Morris Park with furs and jewels, hoping for quick sex with some young boy exploring his sexuality or a blue-collar married man looking for anonymous sex. Sometimes I despised straight folks for having so many options for real love.
I asked the bartender for a glass of red wine, and gave a polite smile to two men. One young, one old, one pretty great-looking, and the other so-so. They were also talking about some of the popular television shows.
“Have you seen Queer as Folk?” the younger man asked.
“I watched it once,” his friend said. “I think they should call it Queer as White Folks, since I haven’t seen any black people on the show. Last time I checked, there were black men in Pittsburgh.”
“I guess it really is a homo version of Friends, since there aren’t any black people living in New York on that show either.”
“At least on Will and Grace you see black folks every once in a while. When I heard Gregory Hines was going to be on the show I got so excited, ’cause I thought Will had jungle fever. But I ain’t mad at Grace for having the fever.”
I walked around slowly, sipping my wine and watching Wylie and Lester move from group to group as Jill Scott’s amazing and soulful voice covered the room. When I’d finished my wine, I was heading back to the bar when Lester rang the dinner bell. A crystal one, of course.
When the server lifted the steel covers off the entrée, I realized Wylie had had one cocktail too many. His voice didn’t sound like the professional