Monday thru Friday

6-11 P.M.

FEATURES

HIGH GEAR/MAY 1977

THE SOLITARY PASSION

A Short Story

By George Brown

He closes the book; and as he lays it on the table, he glances idly fifteen feet ahead to the cash register which serves for several small departments to see a salesgirl and a tall male customer talking.

.....projector.....wife telephoned.....my son.....," says the

man.

Patrick starts to look back on the table of sale books in the department store in the shopping mall of Kansas City. But instantly his eyes rush back to the man, and this time there is no idleness in his look. Patrick Miller feels that he knows this man: there is a familiarity in the man's facial expression. Patrick strains his ear but can catch only an occasional word, mainly from the man.

".....second floor?.....yes.....no.....all right....."

The husband-father, somewhere in the first half of his forties, smiles; the tall man with thick but graying hair, with silver-trimmed glasses on his full face, smiles. Patrick realizes that the eyes behind the glasses are brown; and they are familiar brown eyes. Someone from a former neighborhood...from

former church attendance...from a high school where Patrick has taught English...?

He

No, none of these. is...Scott...Scott--MacKinnon? No! Scott is younger, less heavy, less gray, and without glasses.

No, during their three encounters last year at the Spartan Baths Patrick's temporary lover hadn't worn glasses.

Now the tall man is rushing away. Patrick stands petrified as he watches the yet handsome man get on the escalator. From where Patrick stands he can see the man ascending to the second and only upper floor of the branch department store. The glasses disfigure his face, making it appear so full. But he is Scott--isn't he?

Patrick rushes ahead twenty feet where he can stand by a jewelry counter to watch the inevitable descent on the down escalator of the man who is surely his former lover. Patrick is sure that there is no other way to

return to the main floor except perhaps by some back stairway, which no one uses. As Patrick stands looking across an expanse of perhaps forty feet, he recapitulates.

He and Scott last met just one year ago this present March, but only as Patrick was leaving and Scott was entering the Spartan Baths. Their meeting had been reserved and, to Patrick, painful. Their real final--and second-meeting had been on February twenty-eighth of the previous year. Patrick remembers the exact date because on that last day of February he had been in this same department store, to another. remaindered book sale, and he had purchased for one dollar and eighty-eight cents

re-

METAPHYSICAL POEMS OF JOHN DONNE. Patrick members that after returning home from his second erotic experience with Scott, he had picked up the book from his desk and thumbed through it to find a stanza from "The Baite" leaping out to him. Patrick had underlined the stanza and then. written the date on the flyleaf.

As various men descend the escalator, Patrick first sees the lower half of their bodies; and after ten minutes he becomes dismayed when no upper half is revealed as his former lover. Patrick turns to look behind him. He takes a few steps backward and considers returning to the table of books. He also considers leaving the store; it is time to meet his older brother, with whom he drove to the mall

on

this Saturday afternoon, down at JC Penney.

Patrick decides against the book table, and he decides against JC Penney. As he turns to walk back to his post at the jewelry counter, in an aisle to his left he sees his quarry rushing to a nearby sales counter-the counter for camera and movie equipment. Patrick turns to his right and rushes behind a tall rack of greeting cards. Now he stands watch behind a wide opening in the rack. He can observe well without being conspicious.

a

The black leather coat! Yes, Scott had definitely worn black leather coat-that same leather coat-on their first meeting when Scott returned to Patrick's room to say goodbye. He had worn it on the second meeting when he again returned to Patrick's room to say.goodbye. He had worn it on that ill-fated third meeting when the two met and acted as mere acquaintances in the foyer of the Spartan Baths. But at none of these times had Scott worn those silver-rimmed glasses which swelled his face and added years. And during this past year, while Patrick has continued at the gay steambath and Scott

OF PATRICK

OF

had apparently abandoned it, Scott's hair has become more gray, and there is a now thin spot in back; and somewhere during this past year Scott has picked up at least ten pounds, which most of all seems to show in his face. His long legs are still slender. Patrick smiles because he knows what the slender legs look like under the maroon trousers; the naked legs, covered with black hair, have entwined with Patrick's own naked sandy-haired legs.

The camera-movie department is immediately below the up escalator, and now an older man on the escalator is calling down to Scott. Scott looks up and waves. "You look great!" Scott says as part of his greeting.

The forty-two year old man is now talking to the saleswoman. Yes, he looks the suburban husband-father, the research

chemist, that he is, thirty-threeyear-old Patrick thinks. And from this distance we seem utter strangers. Yet, within Scott's consciousness there is a memory of me--there has to be! He has kissed me; and I have kissed him--and massaged his naked back. We have interlocked our nakied bodies; he has revealed to me his urgent passion and placed his semen in my body. I know things about him that some of his regular intimate's don't know.

And, oh, I want a repeat!

But Patrick remembers the semi-failure of their second meeting, the cold aloofness of their last encounter.

Now Scott is signing something.

Hello, Scott! Remember me? I'm Pat.

Well, Scott might remember the face, the experience, but he had never known Patrick's name. Scott hadn't asked him for a name, and Patrick, feeling peevish about this, hadn't volunteered it. Scott had even refused to give his surname, and Patrick had discovered it, shortly after their first meeting,

from his own simple investigation.

Now the saleswoman comes from behind the counter and points to the back of the store. She begins walking briskly, and Scott turns to follow with a brisk walk of his own. Patrick watches as they disappear into the men's clothing department, guessing that they must be headed for the stockroom. He doesn't consider following.

Patrick now remembers that he was scheduled to meet brother Bill at least ten minutes ago. But instead of leaving for the opposite end of the mall, he walked to the counter of the camera-movie department to see if there is lying there a sales book with a particular signature in it. There is no sales book with a particular signature in it. There is no sales book, but there is an open stenographer's notebook. Patrick spins the spiral notebook around and looks at the writing on the page: Mackinnon Beli & Howell

Well, there had been no doubt in Scott's mind, anyway. He knew that the tall and handsome man was Scott MacKinnon, who just little over a year ago had made love to him. It all seems like a dream now; even at the time it had seemed like a dream. But Patrick tells himself that it was in reality, not in a dream, that a dark-haired lover with temples of gray had said after embraces, kisses, and gentle exploration of body, "You're nice!"

But, alas, Patrick also remembers what Scott had said next: "And you're masculine. I like masculine men....." Patrick had at that point felt counterfeit because he knew then as he knows now that some people define him as a bit of a swish. Patrick doesn't have time to return to the table of sale books. He has looked at most of the books, anyway, without seeing any that he wants. As Patrick rushes out of the department store heading for the other end of the mall, he thinks of the book he bought at the same sale table just little over a year ago, and to himself he quotes the passage he had underlined: When thou wilt examine in that live bath,

Each fish, which every channell hath,

Will amorously to thee swimme,. Gladder to catch thee, then thou him.

But. Patrick can no longer swim to the desirable one. The channel in which Patrick now swims doesn't connect with the live bath which holds his twotime lover. The two bodies of water run parallel, but between them is a narrow strip of rock, transparent but solid, which he can't penetrate or jump across.

GET

PUBLISHED

م التربيه

heuanneqortod

321-6632 GAY SWITCHBOARD

PAGE 29