Brian Larney: A roar

Brian sat on the stool in the New York pub. He'd taken the train for a performance with his summer jazz band. They gave a great performance at the Carlyle and he had his weekend in the city. True, he loved Philadelphia better than anywhere. He'd been born there and his mother was buried in Longwood Cemetery. But New York was always a chance to get away and look at men from Greenwich Village – and those Italian immigrants. Trouble, most men his age didn't do that. Most men in their 50s had wives who cooked pot roast and grown children who breeded grandbabies. But he came to New York prowling for man. He'd go to confession tomorrow, ask for forgiveness and say his Hail Marys, and head back to Philadelphia in time for Fibber Magee and Molly. Tonight, he had to have a man.

He walked into his ritual Christopher Street bar. They asked him for the password and he gave it. He walked down the stairs to the basement and sat at the bar. A man sat next to him, nursing a gin and tonic, bald like a bowling ball, about Brian's age with a spare tire around his waist. Brian ordered whiskey and soda.

"Where you from? I'm from Chicago, but last year I lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Did love it there. Also lived in San Francisco, Key West, and Baltimore. My mother grew up in Cleveland and she met my father, who was a traveling salesman for the Roebuck Company, and we all ended up in Chicago. You really have to love Chicago, my friend -- second only to New York, is what I say."

The man droned on, but Brian stopped listening. He eyeballed the gin and tonic, smiled, looked across the corner at another man talking to a friend. The bald man wouldn’t shut up. Some nonsense about the Oldsmobile Motor Company in Detroit. Brian looked at the man on the other side again. Perhaps ten years younger, powerful barrel chest, beard, dark blond hair, chiseled jawline. Brian couldn't take his eyes off him. The bald man shifted topics to talk about the Roosevelts in Washington --- love 'em, he said -- then about the chances for war with Germany -- not a chance, he said. Brian murmured an empty reply but averted his eyes to the bearded man across the way.

The bearded man looked his way, excused himself from his friend, and walked to the exit. The man's backward glance at the exit gave Brian all the invitation he needed. Brian came upstairs and onto the street, looking for him -- nowhere to be found -- but then heard a voice behind him. "Hello," the voice said, "I'd like to visit your hotel."

"Yes," Brian stammered. The man was even better-looking than Brian had thought.

"Good. Ten dollars, please."

Brian didn't have ten dollars, so he went back into the bar and sat on the stool. The bald man resumed his story about a musical he'd written based on the novel "The Good Earth." Brian listened more closely.