Free City of Night by John Rechy

queer,” Pete says, glaring at him. “I used to see him and I thought he was hustling, and one day he tried to put the make on me in the flix. It bugged me, him thinking I was queer or something. I told him fuck off, I wasnt gonna make it for free.” He was moodily silent for a long while, and then he said almost belligerently. “Whatever a guy does with other guys, if he does it for money, that dont make him queer. Youre still straight. It’s when you start doing it for free, with other young guys, that you start growing wings.”...
               And because this is such a big thing in That life, youll hear untrue stories from almost everyone whos paid someone about the person hes paid. It’s a kind of petty vindication, to put down the hustler’s masculinity—whether correctly or not—at the same time that they seek it out.
               Standing on the street, Pete would always come on about the young girls that would breeze by like flowers, the wind lapping at their skirts coyly....
               I found out Pete can be vengeful. I saw him in Bryant Park and he was fuming. The manager of a moviehouse one block away had refused to let him in. (I had seen the manager—a skinny, tall, nervous, gaunt, pale-faced man. The theater is one of the gayest in New York. Late at night men stand leaning along the stairways, waiting.) “Hes a queer,” Pete said angrily, “he dont give a fuck what goes on so long as it dont go on for money—thats why he wouldnt let me in.” Later, Pete tells everyone the place is crawling with plainclothes vice squad, ready to raid it: Stay Away! And the theater balcony was almost empty for weeks.
               He also told me that another hustler had taken a score from right under his nose in the park, and Pete went around telling people the other hustler had the clap.... “Make it anyway you can,” he said when he finished telling me that, “and when you cant make it, get even.”
               He knew almost everyone on the street who paid. He would point them out to me. “See that blond pale kid? He pimps for this old guy: real swank pad, too. And, man, what a weirdo that old guy is. Dig: he pays by the hour, and talks, talks, talks!—hes a teacher or something—laid up in bed from an accident. I used to fall asleep—I’d wear sunglasses—and he never knew the difference, just kept on talking....”
               At least once I regretted not listening to Pete’s advice.
               “See that one over there?” he said, pointing to a harmless-looking middle-aged man in a raincoat. “Stay away from him, spote, hes psycho.”
               But remembering what he had told everyone about the theater whose manager wouldnt let him in, and remembering what he’d done to the hustler whod taken his score in the park, I figured this may be some kind of revenge on the man for whatever reason. The man looked entirely harmless, and I went with him.
               After we had made a very ordinary scene—and I still hadnt got any money from him—his composure changed suddenly into savage rage. Before I knew it, he had pulled a knife on me. I dashed out, down the creaking steps. Like a demon—his shadow flung grotesquely down the stairs—he stands at the landing shouting:
               “God! Damn! You! God damn all of you!”
     

          
     
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               I also learned not always to trust Pete.
               One sharply cold windy Sunday afternoon—the clouds sweeping the newyork sky like sheets—I saw him coming toward me where I was standing. “You wanna score?” he says. “See that old cat over there?” He pointed to a small mousy man a few feet away. “He wants us both to come over to his house. Hes only good for five,” he explained, adding quickly when he saw me hesitating: “but most of the time hell lay more if he digs you.... Cummon, man,” he