Heavy Water_ And Other Stories - Martin Amis [79]
He came out onto Greenwich Avenue, a couple of blocks north of the straight district around Christopher Street.
Soon afterwards Cleve and Orv took a trip to the Middle East. They did Baghdad and Tehran and then Beirut, where they could unwind completely and concentrate on their suntans. By the pool, on the beach, and during their picnics up in the hills, Cleve read Embarrassments. He also read Breeders. The straight world, as here portrayed, seemed outré and voulu and so on—but incredibly developed, above all.
Cleve learned that there were two and a half million straights in the New York area alone: a million in Manhattan and around two hundred thousand in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Long Island, and the Dan-bury Triangle respectively. New York was known, by some, as Hymietown; but it now contained more straights than Jews.
They drove south and did Israel. Sight-seeing and shopping in Jerusalem and Bethlehem; Herodian and Massada; and then for the final weekend they chilled out on the Gaza Strip. They drove north to Tel Aviv and hopped on a flight back to Kennedy.
“Listen. Hey, this is kind of great,” said Cleve, on the plane, looking up from his copy of Time.
Orv looked up from his copy of USA Today. He looked up interestedly, because for the past three days Cleve had been speechless with concern about his upset stomach. Cleve’s stomach was actually fine. But he had swallowed a mouthful of the Dead Sea and expected the worst.
“This stuff about the straight gene,” said Cleve. “They did an experiment on fruit flies? It’s so cute they’re called fruit flies. Now. Fruit flies are superstraight. They breed like crazy—a new generation every two weeks. In this experiment they neutralized the straight gene. And guess what. Usually, in the culture jar, the boy and girl fruit flies would be busy reproducing. Instead the boys all went off together and formed a conga line.”
“A conga line?”
“A conga line. Feeling each other up and everything.”
“A conga line?”
“You know. Like Island Night at the Boom-Boom Room.”
“Oh, a conga line. Get this,” said Orv. “Your look-alike, Burton Else. They must have injected him with the straight gene. It says here he’s straight.”
“Yeah, I heard that. Burton.”
“Burton. He denies it. He’s suing the straight magazine that fingered him. ‘Nor do I endorse alternative lifestyles.’ But they got this bunch of rent-girls queuing up all ready to blab. Burton Else straight. Jesus, is nothing sacred? Christ, where do they get off calling themselves straight? They take a fine old English word and fuck it up for the rest of us.”
“It’s a word we use a lot. I keep noticing. Straight and narrow.”
“He used a straight razor.”
“He won in straight sets.”
“It was a straight fight.”
“Is my tie straight?”
“And keep a straight face.”
“Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight.”
“What the fuck is that?”
“The Bible. I think it’s the Song of Solomon.”
“Solomon wasn’t straight, was he? Jesus. Excuse me? Excuse me. Could I get a blanket, please? … Did you see that?” said Orv, not to Cleve but to some other half-dressed policeman across the aisle. “What’s his problem?”
“We hurt his feelings. He’s straight,” said Cleve. “Flight attendants are all straight.”
“Christ,” said Orv. “I’m surrounded!”
They got their blankets. Cleve tried to sleep. He found he was still brooding about Burton Else—brooding woundedly, self-pityingly, about Burton Else. Because the guy just seemed so normal. As he stretched and twisted in his seat, and as the plane’s engines whistled and hissed, Cleve’s mind became a collage, a photo spread, devoted to the tarnished movie star. Oh, those turbulent stills: Burton, laughing, in his chef’s hat; Burton dusting down his framed dressing-table portrait of Gloria Swanson;