Free Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others by Armistead Maupin

back?”
    Managing a feeble laugh, Michael moved closer to him and slid his hand into the back pocket of Charlie’s Levi’s. “It doesn’t look so bad,” he said.
    “Please,” said Charlie. “It makes me look like Pluto.”
    Michael smiled at him. “C’mon.”
    “Not even Pluto. He was friendly looking.”
    “You’re friendly looking.”
    “Who were those guys who were always robbing Uncle Scrooge’s money bin?”
    “The Beagle Boys,” said Michael.
    “That’s it,” said Charlie. “I look like a Beagle Boy.”
    Michael reproved him with a gentle shake. “What else is on your list? Besides Tupperware.”
    Charlie thought for a moment. “A balloon ride, a fan letter to Betty White, finding you a husband …”
    “Well”—Michael chuckled—“two out of three ain’t bad.”
    “Don’t be that way. There were some nice guys here today. Didn’t you get any phone numbers?”
    “No, I did not.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because,” said Michael, “I don’t pick up men at Tupperware parties.”
    “You don’t pick up men, period. You don’t even date. When was your last date?”
    “Stop nagging. It won’t work. Let’s go for a balloon ride.”
    Charlie inspected his nails. “Too late. Richard and I are going next week. You could join us.”
    “That’s O.K.,” said Michael.
    “What about Alcatraz?” asked Charlie. “I’ve never been to Alcatraz.”
    “Neither have I,” said Michael.
    “It could be depressing, I guess.”
    “Yeah, maybe.”
    Charlie’s fingers traced the grain of the railing. “I heard they gave the view cells to the worst offenders, because that was considered the greatest punishment. To see the city but not be able to go there.”
    Michael winced. “You think that’s true?”
    “Probably not,” murmured Charlie.
    “Let’s check it out … take the tour.”
    “You sure you want to? It’s awfully Middle American.”
    “And a Tupperware party isn’t?”
    Charlie smiled. “Did you absolutely hate it?”
    “No. I thought Mrs. Sarkisian was very sweet.”
    “She was, wasn’t she?”
    A seagull swooped over the neighbor’s laundry, then landed on the fence. “Everything is sweet,” said Charlie. “It makes no sense to me at all.”
    Michael looked at him and thought of finocchio, popping up again and again through the cracks of the sidewalk.
    Their tour boat was called the Harbor Princess, much to Charlie’s amusement. The other passengers were a Felliniesque assortment of pantsuited tourist ladies and their husbands, plus a gaggle of Catholic schoolgirls in blue-and-gray plaid skirts.
    There was also a singular beauty aboard—a strawberry blond with long, pale lashes and eyes the color of bleached denim. Charlie was sold on him.
    “I’m telling you, Michael. He’s cruising you like crazy.”
    Michael lifted his coffee cup and blew on the surface. “Don’t make a scene, Charlie.”
    “Well, do something, damnit. Stop being coy.”
    “He’s not even looking at me.”
    “Well, he was, for God’s sake.”
    “Look at those gulls,” said Michael. “It’s amazing how long they can drift without flapping their wings.”
    Charlie heaved a plaintive sigh and peered out to sea. “What am I gonna do with you?”
    A thin scrim of fog covered the island as they approached. The cellhouse was still intact, crouching grimly along the crest of the Rock, but many of the outbuildings were skeletal ruins, rubble overgrown with wildflowers.
    Above a sign saying FEDERAL PENITENTIARY Michael could barely make out the word INDIANS , painted crudely in red—obviously a relic of the Native American occupation in the late sixties.
    They disembarked with the mob, flowing across the dock and past the ranger station into a building that felt curiously like a wine cellar, with clammy walls and low, arched ceilings. There, a ten-minute slide show assured them that inmates at Alcatraz had been the meanest of the mean, incorrigibles who deserved the isolation of the