Chapter Eleven
When I came back downstairs Claire was waiting for me in the
front hall. I guess she didn’t want to make a solo appearance. We
walked out to the kitchen, which smelled of baked beans and onions,
through the sun room and out the back door into our yard.
The six adults were all seated around a big round table that
I recognized as belonging to our neighbor, Charlie Halleck.
Knowing old man Halleck, I’d have bet anything he wouldn’t have
loaned it to dad if he had known what kinds of people would be
eating at it. Off to the right a teeange boy and girl were playing
a lethargic game of badminton across the net that Arch must have
hastily put up earlier in the day.
As Claire and I walked across the lawn to the table, I felt a
sudden rush of anxiety. I recognized Dad’s co©counsel, Lawrence
Fishbine Berger, because Archie had done some real estate work with
him in the past. And I recognized Dorothy Berger, his wife, who
had been to dinner at our house a couple of years ago. By process
of elimination the third, and youngest, male at the table had to be
Dennis J. Lustig.
My first impression of Denny Lustig was that he had to be
related to the actor Tom Cruise, who had just burst upon the movie
scene with a sexy little comedy called “Risky Business.” Cruise
had played a teen who, left alone at home for the weekend, turned
his house into a brothel for two days. Naturally, Mom had objected
to my seeing it, but I had managed to catch it at the Lawrence Park
Shopping Center on a Saturday afternoon anyway.‘ ’3[1]0*†(†(∞
∞
‘å Every girl I knew, who had managed to see the picture despite
her parents’ protests, was in love with Cruise, and for that reason
every guy who, like me, had slipped in to see it, hated him. And
Lustig was just about as good looking as the famous young actor.
Lustig looked particularly appealing, placed as he was between
Archie and Larry Berger. If ever there was a Laurel and Hardy of
the law, my Dad and his sometime co©counsel were that duo. As big
and round and fat as the old man was (and pretty much still is,
despite the ice cream aversion), Berger was as thin and stooped and
stringy. If Lustig was the Tom Cruise of the case, Berger was the
Walter Matthau. But I’m probably getting you confused with all my
movie allusions. Suffice it to say that, if and when they ever
entered a Bucks County courtroom, the client ©©© even though he was
under an HIV death sentence ©©© was going to look dazzling in
contrast to his two attorneys.
As Claire and I came into the backyard from the sun room we had
let the screen door slam behind us. Everybody at the table had
looked up at once, and Archie lumbered to his feet, knocking his
molded plastic lawn chair over behind him. He looked beleaguered
and the blue barbeque apron he wore was smeared with drying red
sauce and sundry other, unidentifiable food products.
“Hey, kids, glad you finally made it,” he said in what I
recognized as phony©jovial tones. The stress Archie was enduring
was hidden just below a very thin layer of congeniality.
“Ned… Claire… I’m sure you remember Mr. and Mrs. Berger.”‘ ’40*†(†(∞
∞
‘å “Hi.”
“Hi.”
Claire and I smiled insincere, forced little smiles at the Bergers.
Mr. Berger, slumped back in his molded plastic chair… one of a
dozen Dad had purchased en masse from an end©of©summer sidewalk
sale at the Manoa Shopping Center last August and then left stacked
in the backyard all winter to turn from white to a cruddy©looking
shade of gray… lethargically waved the hand that wasn’t holding
his scotch on the rocks. “Hi, kids. Great to see you two again.”
Yeh, sure.
Mrs. Berger, by contrast, leaned forward so that her cleavage
became clearly visible to my pubescent stare. Two very thin
shoulder straps, which seemed to be little more than bits of twine,
held up her dress, which barely contained her ample bosum. She
flashed a big smile at us, revealing a mouthful of braces. By 1985
middle©aged orthodontic work had become all the rage and Mrs. B.
obviously was right on the cutting edge of the trend. Her big
smile compressed her eyes down to two slits and some of her
heavily©applied sky©blue eyeshadow cracked and flaked.
“Oh, my, you two have gotten so big. Claire you’re quite the
woman. Your father reminded me before you got her that you’re
almost Gwenny’s age.”
Turning round in her chair, so that I now got to study her
bare, freckled right shoulder and back, she shouted as if her
daughter were two or three backyards away. “Gwenny, get over here‘ Ä%50*†(†(∞
∞
‘
and meet the McAdoo children. You too, Justin. Put those racquets
down and come here.”
The Berger offspring appeared to be no more enthusiastic about
this close encounter of the teenage kind than Claire and I were.
But we went through the motions of shaking hands and getting
acquainted. Then Archie, still standing uneasily throughout this
ritual completed the introductions.
“Claire… Ned, this is Mr. Lustig.”
Claire smiled at Dennis Lustig. Being a girl she could get
away with not shaking his hand. But I was a boy,,, a young man…
of 16. I leaned across the table and proffered my limp right hand
to Mr. HIV himself. Lustig practically leaped to his feet and took
my flaccid paw in his own strong right hand and pumped it
enthusiastically. My arm undulated like a length of linguine.
“Ned! What a pleasure. Your father tells me you’re now part
of the Lustig litigation team,” he bubbled. “If you’re anything
like your heroic father, I’m just thrilled to welcome you onboard
our Starship Enterprise.”
I found it disconcerting the way he stared right into my eyes,
his own a mix of mischievousness and a probing quality, as if over
time he had developed the habit of trying to ascertain what the
people he met really thought about him. The other disturbing
quality about his eyes was their color… a sort of violet that
seemed at once beautiful in a feminine way and quite unnatural.‘ #60*†(†(∞
∞
‘å “Uh, yuh… I’m pleased to meet you too.” But of course quite
the opposite was true, and I knew Lustig could see that in my eyes
and feel it in my ‘dead fish’ handshake.
I pulled back my hand and suppressed the urge to wipe the palm
on my pants leg. Lustig’s eyes held onto mine for another long
second or two, the obvious amusement in them very disconcerting to
me.
“And this,” my Dad chimed back in, “is Marsha Milhouse, the
executive director of the Pennsylvania AIDS Law Project, which is
co©counseling Dennie’s case with us.”
For the first time I noticed the woman sitting to Archie’s
left at the picnic table. Her hair was brown and cut almost
boyishly short. Her face was round and full, her body a bit
chunky, maybe even muscular… for a woman, that is. She smiled,
stood up and shook my hand far more firmly than even Lustig hand
done. (And his handshake had been pretty firm for a f… I stopped
myself from thinking that word. That word was for Big Will Hadden
and his fascist father, not for Archie McAdoo’s son.)
Milhouse also held out her hand to Claire, who took it and
shook it awkwardly.
“Ned,” said Milhouse, turning her attention back to me and
still standing up, “your father tells me that you’ll be helping
prepare our case for trial this summer.”
“Uh, yeh, right,” I said somewhat uncertainly. ‘ #70*†(†(∞
∞
‘å “”That’s right, Marsh,” Archie added. “As Denny so aptly put
it, young Ned, my son and heir, is officially a part of the crew of
the Starship Enterprise.”
With that, the old man bent over, hoisted his bottle of
Budweiser from the table and toasted me with it.
“Welcome aboard, lad,” said Larry Berger, taking a long pull
at his glass of scotch.
“Here, here,” said ‘Marsh’ Milhouse, picking up her own beer
bottle and taking a swig from it.
Lustig and Mrs. Berger each picked up some kind of a foamy
pink drink that they had in front of them, gave a little toast in
my direction and took little sips that left flecks of pink foam on
their upper lips.
Licking off the foam, Lustig added, “I adore your dacquerys,
Arch.”
I noted furtively out of the corner of my left eye that Mom,
who had remained silent through this whole get©acquainted ritual,
didn’t pick up her drink… a Diet Coke, if I knew my Mother… to
toast my being beamed onboard the Lustig spaceship. Whatever
planet I was bound for with my Dad and his “team”, Mom was not
making the voyage either in person or in spirit.
By the time the little ritual was completed the Berger kids
had managed to finish their badminton game and swagger over to the
picnic table. Archie and Mrs. Berger handled the introductions
among us kids. ‘ Ä%80*†(†(∞
∞
‘å “The food won’t be ready for another half hour,” added Archie.
“Why don’t the four of you go listen to some tapes in the family
room and get to know each other better? I’ll give you a shout when
the chow is coming off the grill.”
The four of us looked at each other a little uncertainly and
shrugged in acceptance of Dad’s suggestion.
As we turned to head inside, Lustig was on his feet, the eyes
still sparkling their violet mischief. “I love music,” he
proclaimed. “Does anybody mind if I tag along?”
‘ ’90*†(†(∞
∞
‘åôChapter Twelve
The first few minutes down in the family room were a little
awkward. The room was pleasantly cool, the old couch and chairs
the most comfortable furniture in the whole house. Dennis Lustig
had refilled his dacquery glass before leaving the backyard. The
rest of us got cans of soda from the refrigerator at the foot of
the basement stairs. The awkwardness began to fade from the room
as we discovered that we all shared a liking for Lou Reed.
I put the tape on the stereo and soon Lou was half singing,
half speaking, “take a walk on the wild side.” When Reed reached
the line in the song that says, “he shaved his legs and then he was
a she… take a walk on the wild side,” Lustig, who was sitting
alone in a chair diagonally to the left of the couch where Jasaon
Berger and I were sprawled, looked at us with those weird but
appealing eyes of his and said,
“He’s gay, you know.”
There was a moment of awkward silence and surprise.
Finally, a second before all the earlier awkwardness could fall
on us like a wet blanket, I responded.
“Who? the guy in the song? Obviously.” I tried to sound
cool.
“Well, sure, him too,” replied Lustig. “I meant Lou Reed.”
Jason apparently had recovered from his initial surprise,
shared I’m sure by all four of us kids, that Dennis Lustig would be
so up front about a subject that was still pretty much taboo in
‘burbs the likes of Havertown.‘ ’:[1]0*†(†(∞
∞
‘å “How can you possibly know that?” Larry’s rather pudgy son and
heir asked in a challenging tone of voice. ” I never heard that he
is.”
Lustig flashed Berger the Younger a condescending smirk.
“Trust me, my dear,” he almost purred, “I make it my business to
know the queens who are making their marks.”
This deliberate gender switching had a titillating effect on
me, though it clearly made Jason uncomfortable and more defensive.
Claire and Gwen were flipping through Claire’s albums and tapes,
close by one of the stereo’s two speakers. If they had heard this
dialog they never let on.
“So √
√howƒ
ƒ do you know?” Jason pressed, crossing his legs and
holding his Diet Coke can with both hands in his lap.
“How do I know?” Lustig replied in even, velvet tones. “Well,
young Jason,” he continued after a delicate sip of his daquery,
“first, I would be quite certain of it ©©© even if I didn’t know
Lou personally ©©© merely by his voice, his clothes, his lyrics,
his phrasing… Dear God, it all says, ‘I’m queer as a three dollar
bill and proud of it, darlings.’”
Of course, it was the parenthetical that had hooked us.
“You know Lou Reed?” Jason and I seemed to ask simultaneously.
Our duet caught the girls’ attention, and all eyes turned to Dennis
Lustig, who seemed to bask in our gazes as if they were eight
spotlights turned on him. For the first time I discovered how much
Dad’s pro bono client loved the limelight.
‘ ’;0*†(†(∞
∞
‘åô For the next ten minutes, Lustig held his little audience in
the palm of his hand, as he described the gay scene in New York and
in New Hope, Pennsylvania. He told us about the weird behavior and
kinky clothes that were part of “Cruising” in Greenwich Village,
which Al Pacino had dramatized in a scandalous film none of us had
been permitted by our parents to see (although Jason chimed in with
a slightly aggressive assertion that he and a friend had managed to
slip in to see it at a local mall multiplex theater).
Lou Reed liked to perform in a black t©shirt and a leather,
billed cap that evoked Marlon Brando and motorcycle gangs. Pacino
had been pictured on the movie posters in such a leather jacket and
cap, the jacket decorated with chains. I now could picture Dennis
Lustig doffing his restaurant manager’s blue blazer and striped tie
and exchanging them for Reed’s black t©shirt and Pacino’s black cap
and shiny leather motrocycle jacket. I saw him jingling in his
chains around my mental image of Greenwich Village.
Denny… we were all to call him Denny… had a knack for
making eye contact and of speaking in a hypnotic, conspiratorial
purr that kept even a teen’s short attention span in his firm
grasp. The sense of being given a glimpse of not an “R” but, yes,
an “X” rated movie, and a documentary at that, insured our rapt
attention as he painted verbal images of cowboy bars and wild
parties. Weaving through all the images were Lou Reed, “queer as
a three dollar bill,” and Denny himself.
Even Jason had left off challenging Denny’s verasity after the
first five minutes of detailed descriptions, including how Lou‘ ’<[1]0*†(†(∞
∞
‘
Reed’s creative energy flooded through the front door when he
entered one of the Washington Square watering holes he and Denny
both frequented, announcing his arrival before anyone inside
actually spotted him. Denny was the smiling, hissing serpent,
feeding us forbidden fruit and we loved it.
Before we had quite had our fill, Archie shouted from the top
of the basement stairs, “Hey, you guys, dinner’s ready. Come and
get it before I eat it all myself.” With Pop that might be no
idle threat.
Claire turned off the tape and we all headed upstairs and out
to the backyard. I was the last to leave the family room, turning
off the lights, as Mom had trained Claire and me to do. As I
started up the stairs I saw that Denny was waiting at the top.
As I climbed to where my head was about level with his chest
he put his right hand on my left shoulder and said,
“You found all that pretty exciting, didn’t you, Ned?”
My reaction was automatic. I brushed his hand from my
shoulder.
“Hey, relax,” said Denny in his most soothing voice. “I can
tell you’re not cut out to be a sister. I’m just pleased to see
that the new member of my trial team isn’t homophobic. I can see
you appreciate the validity of alternative life styles. That’s
all.” He stayed where he was, forcing me to brush past him.
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