which nothing in the world justified.
In the library one night as I sit in the reading room surrounded by serene-masked people like relics from a distant world, a handsome youngman said hello to me. He sat at the same table. Noticing that he kept smiling and looking at me—at the same time that I felt his leg sliding against mine—I left Sharply, I resented that youngman. His gesture had an implied attraction within the world of mutually interested men. While I could easily hang out with other youngmen hustling the same streets (although, since Pete, I seldom did for more than a few minutes, preferring to be alone), with them there was a knowledge—verbally proclaimed—that we were hunting scores, not each other. With this youngman just now, there had been the indication that he felt he could attract me to him as clearly as he had been attracted to me....
The youngman followed me outside. As I cut across Bryant Park, I heard his steps quicken to approach me.
“I’d—like to meet you,” he said, the last words hurried as if he had rehearsed the sentence in order to be able to speak it.
“Im going to go eat now,” I said, avoiding even looking at him.
“All right if I sit with you and just talk?” he asked me. He was masculine in appearance, in actions. He could not have been over 20. But already there was a steady, revealing gaze in his eyes.
We went to a cafeteria. As we sat there, he told me he was a student at a college, he lived with his parents. On weekends he worked at the library.... Throughout his conversation, there were subtle references to the homosexual scene, which I didnt acknowledge.... Afterwards, for about an hour, talking easily, we walked along the river.
“I’d like to go to bed with you,” he said bluntly. “We could rent a room somewhere.”
Remembering Pete with a sense of utter helplessness, and surprising myself because of the gentleness with which I answered this youngman, I said:
“Youve got me all wrong.”
In the following days (on this unfloating island with that life that never sleeps—in this city that seems to generate its energy from all the small, sleepy towns of America, sapped by this huge lodestone: the fugitives lured here by an emotional insomnia: gathered into like or complementary groups: in this dazzling disdainfully heaven-piercing city), in those following days, I discovered Third Avenue, the East 50s, in the early morning, where figures camped flagrantly in the streets in a parody stagline; the languid “Hi” floating into the dark, the feigned unconcern of the subsequent shrug when you dont stop....
And there was Howard Thomson’s restaurant on 8th Street in the near-dawn hours. They gathered then for the one last opportunity before the rising sun expelled them, bringing the Sunday families out for breakfast
I discovered the bars: on the west side, the east side, in the Village; one in Queens—appropriately—where males danced with males, holding each other intimately, male leading, male following—and it was in that bar that I first saw flagrantly painted men congregate and where a queen boy-girl camped openly with a cop.... But because most of those bars attracted large numbers of youngmen who went there to meet others like themselves for a mutual, nightlong, unpaid, sexsharing—or for the prospect of an “affair”—the bars made me nervous, then; and, largely, I avoided them.
The restlessness welled insatiable inside me .
I discovered the jungle of Central Park—between the 60s and 70s, on the west side. In the afternoons, Sundays especially, a parade of hunters prowled that area—or they would sit or lie on the grass waiting
In the library one night as I sit in the reading room surrounded by serene-masked people like relics from a distant world, a handsome youngman said hello to me. He sat at the same table. Noticing that he kept smiling and looking at me—at the same time that I felt his leg sliding against mine—I left Sharply, I resented that youngman. His gesture had an implied attraction within the world of mutually interested men. While I could easily hang out with other youngmen hustling the same streets (although, since Pete, I seldom did for more than a few minutes, preferring to be alone), with them there was a knowledge—verbally proclaimed—that we were hunting scores, not each other. With this youngman just now, there had been the indication that he felt he could attract me to him as clearly as he had been attracted to me....
The youngman followed me outside. As I cut across Bryant Park, I heard his steps quicken to approach me.
“I’d—like to meet you,” he said, the last words hurried as if he had rehearsed the sentence in order to be able to speak it.
“Im going to go eat now,” I said, avoiding even looking at him.
“All right if I sit with you and just talk?” he asked me. He was masculine in appearance, in actions. He could not have been over 20. But already there was a steady, revealing gaze in his eyes.
We went to a cafeteria. As we sat there, he told me he was a student at a college, he lived with his parents. On weekends he worked at the library.... Throughout his conversation, there were subtle references to the homosexual scene, which I didnt acknowledge.... Afterwards, for about an hour, talking easily, we walked along the river.
“I’d like to go to bed with you,” he said bluntly. “We could rent a room somewhere.”
Remembering Pete with a sense of utter helplessness, and surprising myself because of the gentleness with which I answered this youngman, I said:
“Youve got me all wrong.”
In the following days (on this unfloating island with that life that never sleeps—in this city that seems to generate its energy from all the small, sleepy towns of America, sapped by this huge lodestone: the fugitives lured here by an emotional insomnia: gathered into like or complementary groups: in this dazzling disdainfully heaven-piercing city), in those following days, I discovered Third Avenue, the East 50s, in the early morning, where figures camped flagrantly in the streets in a parody stagline; the languid “Hi” floating into the dark, the feigned unconcern of the subsequent shrug when you dont stop....
And there was Howard Thomson’s restaurant on 8th Street in the near-dawn hours. They gathered then for the one last opportunity before the rising sun expelled them, bringing the Sunday families out for breakfast
I discovered the bars: on the west side, the east side, in the Village; one in Queens—appropriately—where males danced with males, holding each other intimately, male leading, male following—and it was in that bar that I first saw flagrantly painted men congregate and where a queen boy-girl camped openly with a cop.... But because most of those bars attracted large numbers of youngmen who went there to meet others like themselves for a mutual, nightlong, unpaid, sexsharing—or for the prospect of an “affair”—the bars made me nervous, then; and, largely, I avoided them.
The restlessness welled insatiable inside me .
I discovered the jungle of Central Park—between the 60s and 70s, on the west side. In the afternoons, Sundays especially, a parade of hunters prowled that area—or they would sit or lie on the grass waiting
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