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Chapter Six
After the frustrating, depressing night Toby spent with Richie during the snowstorm, he decided it was time to get out there and meet more men like himself. He’d grown tired of cold showers. He was sick of being so goody-goody all the time. He knew a hot guy like Richie would never be interested in someone as simple and plain as him. After he brought the coffee and doughnuts to Richie, he walked to work that morning in the snow both mentally and physically drained. His mind raced with images of how wonderful Richie looked in his bed, and his genitals ached because he hadn’t been able to release all that pent up sexual energy. And he vowed, on the corner of Madison Avenue, right outside his office building, he’d never place himself in a situation like that again. He also vowed that his awful arrangement with Brad Lindsay would end at the beginning of the New Year. Even if it meant he’d lose his job.
The weekend following the Thanksgiving snow storm, Toby went out to dinner with Rosemary and a friend of hers from Brooklyn. Rosemary’s friend worked in a large museum and was paid well for what he did. His name was Bill Weiss and he wore tweedy coats and thick wool sweater vests. He spoke with an affected British accent, smoked a pipe, and claimed he’d traveled Europe with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. He also dropped well known names like Billy Baldwin and Sister Parish, the well known interior designers, and said he’d dined with Tennessee Williams in New Orleans many times.
Toby laughed when Bill tended to be critical of the bourgeois and refused to eat in a restaurant unless the waiters were good looking young men in tight black slacks. Though it was hard for Toby to figure this out at a glance, he assumed Bill was in his mid-forties because of his graying hair and the faint lines around his eyes. But he could have been older.
Toby wasn’t romantically interested in Bill, but he found his wit refreshing and his stories about the rich and famous fascinating. On that first night after Rosemary hadintroduced them, Bill looked Toby up and down and said, “He’ll do.” Toby just smiled and shook Bill’s hand. During dinner, they talked about Toby’s career in advertising and how frustrated he was with his work. Toby didn’t mention he was frustrated about his arrangement with his boss. He only mentioned how much he was beginning to depise creating slogans for snow tires, baby food ads, and TV commercials about mass produced bottled salad dressings that tasted vile.
When Bill Weiss talked about his job at the museum, Toby leaned forward and listened to him without saying a word. He’d never heard so many interesting stories in his life; he’d never met anyone who knew so many famous people and was so well connected in all the best social circles. Bill Weiss made Toby’s tacky bosses at the ad agency look like rank amateurs hawking rubbish right out of a trash can. And Toby wasn’t shy about mentioning that he’d love to get a job doing something like Bill did, in the future.
After dinner, Bill and Toby walked Rosemary outside and she kissed Toby on the cheek and said, “I’ll talk to you next week. I’m at the hospital all day tomorrow and Monday.”
Toby sent her a glance. He thought they’d be going home together. It was almost eleven and Toby rarely stayed out later than midnight. “You’re going home alone?”
Rosemary smiled. “I thought you two might want to go out for an after dinner drink or something and get to know each other better.”
Bill’s head went back and he laughed. “I was thinking more along the lines of ‘or something.’” Then he winked at Toby.
Toby gulped. He wasn’t sexually attracted to Bill and he had no intention of doing anything with him. “I’m not sure I understand,” he said, looking deeper into Rosemary’s eyes for help.
“Calm down,” she said. “I just thought it would be nice if Bill showed you around town a little. You know, to meet more people like yourself. I think it will be good for you. And no one knows this city batter than Bill.”
Bill patted Toby’s back. “I’ll take good care of you. No need to look so upset,dee-ah.”
Toby frowned. He didn’t like the sound of this. Evidently, Rosemary and Bill had planned this together and hadn’t bothered to mention it to him.
Bill kissed Rosemary on the cheek and said, “Don’t worry about him. He’s in good hands. I promise I won’t let anything happen to him.” He patted Toby on the back again and smiled. “You have nothing to worry about. I know this city better than anyone, and I know where to go, what to do, and how to do it the right way.”
Before Toby had a chance to back out, a cab pulled up and Bill helped Rosemary into the back seat. Bill shut the door so fast Toby barely had time to wave good-bye. As Toby watched the cab head toward the avenue, Bill placed his hand on Toby’s back and pushed him forward. “I think we’ll take a little stroll downtown. There’s always some kind of action going on down there. You’ll love it. We’ll be voyeurs tonight.”
The rest of the night turned out to be a crash course in how to be a homosexual male in New York without getting into too much trouble. Bill made it clear in the beginning that he wasn’t sexually interested in Toby…he said he preferred his men rough and dumb, with tattoos and scars, not handsome and smart. This made Toby laugh. After that, he stopped worrying but paid attention to every word Bill said.
Bill took him to quiet places down narrow staircases where men went to meet other men. The first bar in the West Village was in a basement so dark and smoky Toby almost tripped on a bar stool. It was a little like the places Toby had been to before, but different in a few fundamental ways. This one was more private, and the men were rougher looking and more serious. Bill laughed and said they had a back room there were all kinds of action happened every night of the week. He said he wasn’t into that sort of thing but some men liked it “sleazy.” He told Toby places like this were often raided by the police just for pure sport. They didn’t stay there long.
Bill used the word “rendezvous” a lot and talked about handing out fake phone numbers to strange men just to be polite. Then he took Toby to a few more bars and discreet hang outs and even showed him how to cruise the parks at night. According to Bill, if there was a dark section in a park surrounded by shrubs and trees, there were always men looking for other men. Bill went into detail about the dangers involved, and he warned Toby about catching venereal diseases that ran rampant. Though the diseases could be treated, the doctors who treated them always looked down on homosexual men, called them “sick,” and made them feel inferior.
