Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [94]
“I knew what he meant. Jesus, it’s not the way to eat. I mean, there are people out there starving to death, begging to have a meal like this. We’re fortunate enough to have the food and we can’t sit down and eat it because we have two fools that can’t keep their mouths off each other long enough for us to do that. I was bitter as hell about it.”
Frank sighed, and stayed silent for a few moments, looking into the memory of that time. “Dad just had too damn many rules,” he said after a bit. “He’d make ten thousand rules, knowing that nobody could obey them all. That way there was always something he could punch you for. And after MacLaren’s, Gary really loved to trespass on Dad’s authority.”
Gary began missing more and more meals. In many ways, he had already quit our home, and his father’s rules were now something to be refused at any cost.
GARY HAD FOUND HIMSELF quite a life outside the house. As the counselor at MacLaren’s had surmised, Gary’s school relationships didn’t figure much into it. Gary’s new friends were boys whom he had met during his time in reform school, or older and more experienced associates of these friends.
In particular, Gary started keeping company with those who lived by night. In those days, in the lower part of downtown Portland, there was a bar that catered primarily to a homosexual clientele. Because the police didn’t see the customers as a violent or criminally inclined group—and because most vice cops felt stigmatized by having to make gay arrests—it was also rumored as a safe place for teenagers to frequent, as long as their fake ID was credible and they didn’t make trouble. This bar became one of Gary’s favorite hangouts. Though he would later proclaim loud and hard that he had never been involved in the homosexual activities that are common to prison life, I’ve found men who would swear otherwise. I’ve also talked to people who went to this bar with him, who saw him sitting in corner booths, stealing kisses with other young men, or letting the older ones rest a hand on his tight jeans. A man named John used to hang out at the bar, and he took a special interest in Gary and his crowd. John would let the boys bring their girlfriends to his downtown apartment and hold all-night parties, and later, when Gary and some of the others began stealing regularly and needed to hide their goods, John sometimes let them use his place for that too. In exchange for these favors, Gary and the other boys would flip coins, and the loser of the toss would have to suck off John, and sometimes a friend or two of his as well.
Despite his gay flirtations, Gary began to get something of a name for his prowess with young women. Reportedly, they liked the cool way he looked and dressed, and some of them appreciated the ease with which he could come up with not only booze, but also marijuana, cough medicine, and speed tablets. In any case, if a girl went out with Gary, according to some of my brother’s friends, they knew it was a fuck date. That was his reputation. Either they would put out, or they would get stuck out on some far distant road, walking the long and scary walk back to their homes alone. Sometimes, Gary and another friend would make a date with a couple of girls, then they would go steal a car, pick up their dates, and take them out on a rural road. Gary would take one in the front seat while his friend would do the other in the back. Then the girls would climb over the seats and repeat the rite with the other guy. Gary was known as being pretty direct, his friends said. “He didn’t like to waste much time,” according to one crony. “Gary would say something like, ‘Okay, how about letting me fuck that pussy of yours now?’ Most of the girls didn’t mind him talking like that. That’s what they hung out with him for.”
THE NIGHT ACTION started getting heavier. Gary began breaking into pharmacies