My Queer War

‘Are you?’ asked my interlocutor again.

The entertainer flung up his hands, turning to face the crowd and gave a seated bow to the sputtering of applause, his face florid with make­up, mascara and rouge, and some of the red had rubbed off onto his teeth so that the show-business smile was a bit Bela Lugosi as Dracula.

‘Well,’ insisted my neighbour, ‘are you?’

Then I looked at him. Tall, slender, in a navy-blue suit, eyes amber with an intense sapphire tint but smiling, friendly, dimpled cheeks. So I said, ‘Well, am I?’

‘Mad about a boy? Must be, I’d think, hanging out in this place, no?’

I said, ‘Must be.’

‘Shall we drink to it?’

‘Why not?’

He walked to the bar, his gait, it seemed, slightly askew, not quite a limp but not the automatic stride of youth either. It gave him an air, somewhat distingué, attractive. Like a diplomat, I thought, on duty at the consulate in Palermo. He ordered Scotch and soda for two.

I said, ‘Why is this place called the Napoleon?’

‘Why not? All his soldiers were in love with him. Stationed in Boston, are you?’

‘Chestnut Hill, Boston College. Special training programme.’

‘Cushy. Better off than GI Joe slogging around in the Italian rain.’

‘You bet.’ I laughed. ‘And you? You live here?’

‘That’s right. Just around the corner, as a matter of fact. I suppose you’re wondering, aren’t you? People do. I must be the only civilian in here. All these beautiful uniforms, and look at me.’

What I saw was a handsome man about twenty-five years old, wearing a white shirt and a necktie matching his eyes. ‘So what?’

‘I’m four-F. You may have noticed. The limp. Could call it the FDR exemption. Caught polio as a kid. Lucky, though. Only one leg affected, and not too bad. I can hop, but I can’t skip.’

‘Well then, you’re better off than the president. Lots of jobs in civvy street these days anyway. So you build airplanes or something?’

He smiled and offered me a cigarette. He was in control, as if appraising the terms of a plenipotentiary transaction. ‘I’m a sort of architect, pretty good with blueprints, you know. What’s your name?’

‘Jim,’ I said, taken aback by the quick simplicity of his superiority. ‘Jim Lord.’

‘Nice name. I like it,’ he said. ‘Jim. Mine’s Gordon. Haney. Gordon Haney. You’re on your own, are you?’

‘Sure,’ I said, thinking Jerry would have told me, in any case, I’d better be. ‘I’m on my own.’

‘Like to come to my place for a drink then?’

I swallowed hard on his invitation, but it was what I was here for, andI cleared my throat to say, ‘Yes. Sure. I’d like to.’

Gordon gave me a very accomplished grin, paid for our drinks, and we went to the stairway past the portrait of the soldier beloved by soldiers.