Free Halfway Home by Paul Monette Page A

All right, it's self-indulgent, but it gets across the persona with swift economy: this boy is a queen.
    "I thought as long as I was coming back to Hollywood, I might as well come back as Jeffrey Hunter." Once more they don't laugh, a little louder. This group is too young to have seen K ofK.
    I move to my toolbox and pull out a hammer and spikes. Then I climb onto the cross. I turn over and position myself so I'm lying on it, then hook my feet through the leather thong on the stakepole. The crossbar also has leather loops at either end for my wrists, and I slip the left one through, my right hand free with the hammer. I am more or less in the crucifixion mode, but with one significant modification. In the past I have stripped off my caftan and done the cross part in a loincloth, my shoulders and back greasepainted with whip marks. But I'm not ready to parade my lesions in front of this motley crowd. Even my sort of exhibitionism has its limits.
    I reach over and stick one of the spikes between the fingers of my lashed hand. Then I start hammering. Of course they can see quite clearly that the spike isn't actually going into flesh, but the effect is near enough. Nobody comes to this moment in my act, Jew or Muslim, without an overload of images of the Passion. So basically they're riveted by the nuts and bolts. But as I hammer and the spike sinks into the wood, I start to moan with pleasure. Here I can get pretty tacky as I raise the stakes, and only the bravest laugh now, and no one tonight.
    I loll my tongue and grunt obscenely—"Yeah, do it!"—as I strike each hammer blow. My music changes to the Kings College choir, trilling the "Hallelujah Chorus." I rub the hammer against my crotch, groaning and panting shamelessly as I flex my spiked hand. It's at this very moment, in fact, that I have been attacked—once, a God-fearing lady from the Coalition of Family Values who stormed onstage and wrested the hammer from my grasp. But this group sits in polite shock while I go over the top, thrashing in ecstasy. Then I go limp. I turn and gaze raptly at my nailed hand, wincing now as I mimic that postcoital ache where you realize you went a little too far. Then I look at them.
    "I bet you never realized I liked it."
    Silence. I'm acutely aware, from the corners of my eyes, of Gray and Mona standing on either side of the bleachers. My bodyguards. I release my hand from the crossbar loop, unhook my feet, and climb off. I pat my crown into place and brush at the wrinkles on the front of my caftan. Then, as if to show there's no blood, or maybe to bless them, I raise my palms to the crowd. It's about half and half, men and women, and nobody over thirty.
    "The thing is, I can't figure how everyone got it so wrong. Think about it: I found twelve single men in Palestine who were still living with their mothers. I mean, give me a break."
    It's amazing how it comes back after eighteen months. Not that there has ever been a script. But a certain flow of attitude, the cheap one-liners popping up, has shaped itself in the course of time. I'm not remembering but reinventing, and the material feels live, like a snake in my hands.
    "I think James the brother of John was straight, and Peter was kind of bi, but I always thought that was mostly wishful thinking. Otherwise—honey, this was always meant to be a gay thing. And celibacy? Please."
    I sniff with disdain and give them a haughty left profile. Gray is hugging himself with delight. I love how much he loves this stuff, and tonight I'm doing it more for him than anyone. After all, he's been my patron all winter, and I'm his colony of one. I look back at the audience and point behind me to the cross.
    "Not that everyone was into this kind of thing. I admit it, I was much more on the edge than the rest of them. But hey, my father's house has many mansions. And besides, I was like the CEO, with all the pressures and all the tsuris. Now you know how those guys at the top need to be sex-pig slaves