Inferno Diary

By J. D. Richard

New York City. 1982

A mans obsession leads him on a Dantesque journey in search of lost love.

Part I - Hell

Jerry leaves his Upper East Side apartment for what he thinks will be just another night-weekend prowling the streets and bars of Greenwich Village and Chelsea; something he has been doing every weekend since his lover, Richard, left him a little over a year ago. This night, however, shortly before last call, he meets a stranger (always strangers) who takes him to . . . Hell. In each descending level of Hell he has episodic encounters with former lovers and tricks triggering memories of what was and could have been . . . until he finds Richard, his obsession. Expecting to continue where they left off, Jerry goes ecstatically with Richard to the lower depths where he is abandoned. Distraught and confused, Jerry is taken to even lower depths by emissaries of the Sexless-one and the Grey-Haired Man where, as a consequence of his love for Richard, he suffers all of the celebrated Passion as the degrading, painful depravity it was . . . only to go on . . . without Richard.

Part II - Paradise

The stranger (Dante) reappears and takes Jerry back uptown, home, which is now Paradise! Dante introduces him to Mary, his Beatrice-like guide in Paradise, who takes him to a dinner party in the triple-terraced penthouse of theatrical agent Leo Renril - who thinks of himself as Margo Channing from the movie All About Eve! The other selves of some of the people Jerry met in Hell are also at the gathering. As the accused in the game(?) of the night, Inquisition, Jerry learns that the political and religious powers-that-be plan to tattoo and exterminate everyone who leads his kind of life in order to stop the impending plague. Jerry can escape this fate if he agrees to be the example of what should not be. He refuses . . . unless he can return to Hell and bring Richard back with him into Paradise. Intense and shocking argument; verbal and physical mayhem ensue as each side tries to persuade Jerry to either join the powers- that-be in Paradise, or Dante and his followers against those powers.

You will be entertained, appalled, enlightened, angered and riveted by the characters and events of Inferno Diary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 27, 2001
• ISBN: 9781462821532

J. D. Richard

Author of the Air trilogy--earthbound, fantasy, magical, paranormal, and thrilling young adult fiction.

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Copyright © 2000 by J.D. Richard.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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CONTENTS

PART I

New York, 1982

NO LA COSTE /NO DRESS SHIRTS /NO DRESS PANTS

CHECKROOM TO THE RIGHT ADMISSION $4.00

PART II

For Charles, Paul and Raymond

PART I

There is no greater sorrow

than to recall a time of happiness

when in misery.

Dante Alighieri

New York, 1982

I rolled over in my Friday evening nap a few minutes before the alarm went off and laid in bed, half-awake, enveloped by the cool, peaceful darkness of my bedroom silently scolding myself. Go back to sleep, Jerry. Now! Don’t get hung up on the same seesaw you’ve been riding every weekend. Should I go? Should I stay? Go back to sleep! You don’t really want to go out tonight. Stay in and sleep. Go out tomorrow night.

No! No! Wake up, Jerry! Wake up! Time to get it together and go. Tonight’s the night. I can feel it. If not him, someone. Get up. Get out of this bed! Get your ass downtown!

Wait a minute! Maybe I’ll have better luck uptown. Maybe. Maybe not.

Get real! No matter where you go, you’ll probably just spend the night standing around looking. Talking to nobody. Approaching no one. What you’re looking for… not what! Who! Won’t be there. Just as he’s not here, he won’t be there, either. Gone. So why go at all? Yeah! Why bother? Go back to sleep, Jerry. Go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at eleven o’clock, I instinctively switched it off, crawled out of bed, groped my way to the bathroom; showered, shaved and put on my freshly laundered uniform: navy-blue LaCoste, faded 501’s (bottom fly button unfastened) and black snakeskin cowboy boots. To some, the look. Stuffed money into the front right pocket of my Levis, and for purposes of identification, should someone succeed in killing me, slid my laminated drivers license into the left rear pocket.

It was midnight when I left the apartment to begin another night-weekend of my continuing search.

Treading cautiously, so as not to wake the other tenants with the sound of my boots hitting the slate, I descended the five flights of stairs to the ground floor. Upon reaching the vestibule, I gently opened the narrow double doors, stepped onto the sidewalk, quietly pulled the doors shut behind me and walked the still, empty streets, in the balmy autumn breezes, from Seventy-fourth and First Avenue to the deserted Seventy-seventh Street Lexington Avenue subway station. After a short wait, I boarded a southbound, graffiti smeared train to Grand Central Station; got off and hurriedly followed other passengers up the exit stairs, through the long white tiled underpass to the Shuttle platform where I managed to slip between the closing doors of a crowded, powder blue and white train departing for Times Square; there, to be shoved, through barely open doors, into the carnival atmosphere of the station platform. I flew round the panoply of panhandlers, one-man bands, street singers, magicians, yoga and karate exhibitionists, vendors of hot items—watches, bracelets, rings—and descended the stairs to the Broadway Downtown platform.

Several men in black t-shirts, leather chaps, vests and caps, accessorized with stainless steel cock rings, chains of different lengths and widths wrapped around their shoulders or dangling from their waists, nodded as I approached the center of the station. Fascinated by their attire, I continued to look them over trying to figure out the meanings of the various colored handkerchiefs protruding from either the left or right back pockets of their Levis. Except for red and blue, I was never certain what the other colored handkerchiefs signified and my inhibitions prevented engaging them in conversation in order to find out. From the way they were dressed, I surmised that they were on their way to the Spike bar.

We boarded the southbound train and kept eyeing each other until we reached Twenty-third Street, the Spike stop, where they got off. I continued on to Greenwich Village where I got off with most of the remaining passengers, walked slowly through the crowded platform, up the poured concrete steps, out to Christopher Street and the familiar scenes of the mercury lit street of dreams.

Men. Many men. Young men, old (older) men, middle-aged men—the distinctively sleek, t-shirted muscle men from the Sheridan Square Gym located directly above the station—congregated in groups on both sides of the street, amiably chatting while cruising other men who walked arm-in-arm or alone to and fro—everyone’s antennae tuned for action.

Making my way past the Citibank ATM center and its ever-waiting line of cruising customers, I crossed the street to the last chance saloon. With a nod to the beer drinkers sitting in the windows on either side of the entrance, I climbed the stairs and went in. Although the sign out front reads Boots and Saddles, it is most often referred to as bras and girdles, or the last chance, because if you hung out in the Village and hadn’t met your trick for the night prior to last call at three-thirty a.m., Boots and Saddles, located just above the entrance to the subway, was your last chance to do so prior to heading home.

After an uneventful stalk through the last chance, I left and continued walking down Christopher Street. As I approached Bleecker Street, I could hear the phone ringing in the booth on the corner, as usual. As usual, I was tempted to answer it. As usual, I did not and crossed the street into the next block wondering whether or not a bar buddy’s story was true. He had answered the phone one night and was invited to come up to the fifth floor of the building on the diagonal corner, to do and be done, by a husky male voice describing himself as muscular and hung, promising no charge for the pleasure. While they continued to talk, my buddy realized that the pleasure was already being had on the other end of the phone.

Plausible, I concluded, passing the furtive glances of the dream seekers, as the dream vendors hawked their wares—Ups, downs, ludes, nickel-bags, coke, mesc., black beauties. Amyl; five dollars. Rush; four dollars.

I stopped to check out the crowd at Ty’s bar, its two large bay windows displaying a packed house of t-shirted muscular clones, the overflow of which spilled out of the open door onto the sidewalk, while inside, to a disco beat, Gloria Gaynor proclaimed, I will survive. I stood in front of the windows, checking out the scene, while listening to the end of the song before moving on.

Upon reaching the Christopher Street Book Store, it’s entrance actually on a diagonal between Hudson and Christopher (patrons could cruise both streets), I stopped and chatted with several acquaintances standing outside, impatiently waiting admittance to an empty viewing booth where, for repeated deposits of a quarter, they could watch snippets of the latest porn films while engaged in anonymous sex. After they entered the store, I continued on to each of the waterfront bars of West Street where I frequently met friends. Sometimes, a friend; sometimes, a newly-met-acquaintance-friend; sometimes, a do you want to smoke a joint? friend; coke? friend; and sometimes, a do you want to fuck? friend.

In Badlands on the corner of Christopher and West Streets, I met Do you want to share a cab? friends to the Eagle at Twenty-first Street and the Waterfront where, when I hadn’t met any kind of friend, I ended many evenings past last call.

We hailed a cab and rode the short distance, along the dark waterfront, in silence. When we arrived at the wide black storefront that is the Eagle, the driver had to pull over to the side of one of the many cabs discharging passengers in order to let us out. The meter read three dollars for which my cab friends and I each chipped in a dollar. After handing the appreciative driver four dollars, we disembarked, pushed our way into the Eagle and became lost to each other in the crush.

Overcrowded, hot, smoky, noisy, assaulting the senses with its every excess is the lure of the Eagle. Of all the bars, it has the best music and the best looking crowd of leather men, muscle men, cowboys, policemen, sheriffs, preppies, jocks, sissies and clones constantly parading on the unmarked field-of-march, across the center of the mirror-walled people-packed room. I, a mix of preppie and clone, and mostly spectator, sometimes take to the field-of-march on my way to join the lines for the toilet or checkroom, say hello to a friend or to exit through the horde. Catching bits of nebulous conversations, through and above the blaring music and the roar of multifarious voices, I sometimes amuse myself by imagining a person to match the sound of the voice, being either pleasantly surprised or disappointed with the actuality.

Did you have a good workout? (Must be talking to a clone muscle man.) Faabuulouss. (Sissy muscle man!) I like your tank top.(Preppie muscleman?). Tanks. (Street kid.) Rather warm in here, isn’t it? (Either English or Upper East Side.) Take off your sweater, man! (Tourist.) Don’t you have a man’s cigarette? (Rhinestone cowboy.) Yeah. (Cowboy.) Nice vest. (Leather muscleman.) Howdy! (Minnie Pearl?!) Lite beer, please. (Diet conscious stud?) Bud. (He smokes a real man’s cigarette.) Rum and Coke, Schnapps and a Vodka on the rocks. (All for him?) Diet coke. (Sis.) Want my number? (On the prowl.) I got it, thanks. Cute. Not bad. Naah. Eight ball in the corner pocket. (Butch queen.) Scratch. You win. The other woman. Nice crowd. Did you see? Bridge and tunnel. Bridge and tunnel? Jersey, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens. Oh! Hmmm. Look at that! Feel this!

The crowds arrive, all men,

In waves, at two and two-thirty a.m.

And stay till last call

When most go on alone, or with

A newly-met-acquaintance-friend,

I thought, checking out the passing faces.

When the second-wave began to ebb, an about to be newly-met-acquaintance-friend, approached.

I’ve been watching you, he said. I’ve been watching you for weeks, here and there. Everyplace I see you. Why?

Why what? I said.

You don’t speak to anyone except people you obviously know. Rarely leave with anyone. Why?

I smiled in answer.

We stood, for some time, quietly watching and listening to the parade.

Here? he asked, after a while.

Not here. No, I replied, while continuing to watch the procession to make sure.

Here? he asked again, after a short while.

I shook my head, no.

Are you going to stick around till ‘last call’? Or, do you want to go on to someplace else?

It was now after three a.m.

Where to? I asked.

To Hell, he smiled. Have you ever been there?

Only through the gate and not much further, I said, watching the marchers still.

Didn’t go beyond the gate? Why not? he asked.

They wouldn’t let me go on unless I checked my clothes, I said.

And you left?

Yes.

Well, do you want to go on tonight? he asked, as I continued to watch the parade, now preoccupied with the conflict of yes or no.

What do you say? he pressed.

I’m not sure, I said.

Why not? I asked myself. He’s not here.

Okay, I said.

We immediately joined the marchers going toward the exit, stepped out into the cooler warm night-morning air and walked, in silence, the brightly lit block to darker Eleventh Avenue. We continued south, passing bodies: huddled together, embracing; standing with backs to sidewalk, pissing; bent in half, vomiting; standing immobile, heads erect, eyes glazed, staring into space spaced.

From Seventeenth Street, our beacon was the brightly lighted, red and white Anvil Bar and Hotel, on the triangular island in the middle of the avenue at Fourteenth Street, where West Street and Eleventh Avenue crisscross.

At Fifteenth Street, I could see the four-deep line of people, across the front of the building, waiting to purchase the admission tickets that made them one-night members of the Anvil after-hours private club with appanages to purchase alcohol and descend the stairs to the black cellar for anonymous back room sex.

When we reached Fourteenth Street, we walked past the crowds, headed west for half-a-block, then south into the darkness of the deserted meat-packing district … wide and narrow cobblestone streets bordered by warehouse-packing plants with wraparound loading-docks, most storing dead animals to be eventually cut up as meat for delivery to retail outlets.

Proceeding cautiously over areas of cobblestone slippery from the dripped fat of the day’s carcasses hung from hooks that move on overhead steel tracks into and out of the plants, we continued through silence, except for the sound of our footsteps, toward a lone white light in the distance. The closer we got to the light, the more apprehensive I became. I wanted to turn around and go home.

My acquaintance must have sensed my trepidation. He put his arm around my shoulder and led me on.

When we reached the single white light bulb illuminating the entrance to a red brick, loft-warehouse, my friend pointed at two large, gray-brown rats watching us. As if on cue, they climbed three or four stairs in the entrance and blocked our path. Thinking that they would scurry to allow us passage, my friend took a step forward. One of the rats, barring teeth, took a step down, retreating only when my friend took a step back.

What now? I asked.

Both rats began a hideous squeal, lunging forward, then back, and back and forward, as though to attack, forcing us into the dark. Just then, a yellow cab pulled up. Two leather-masked, bare-chested muscular-men, in black leather pants and engineer boots, got out. When they stepped into the light, the rats immediately scurried out of the entrance into the night. The men disappeared up the stairs.

While watching from the dark, several more cabs arrived and discharged their passengers who quickly vanished up the stairs. The footsteps of other arrivals could be heard on the cobblestones.

Last call, had been sounded.

Okay? my friend asked.

Okay, I said.

We proceeded to the entrance, began our ascent of the long flight of wooden stairs, from light, through dark, into light and … the gate to Hell.

NO LA COSTE /NO DRESS SHIRTS /NO DRESS PANTS

CHECKROOM TO THE RIGHT ADMISSION $4.00

… read the hand-printed, bold black letters on a dirty white board nailed to the wall above the admission cage, a little to the right of a half-open, rusted iron gate. A bald-headed, sallowish, barrel-chested man, in a black t-shirt sat in the wire cage, either bored or flying someplace other. He held a large roll of white tickets with both his hands. Two muscle-bound, leather-vested attendants stood nearby, acting the gatekeepers.

My acquaintance nodded to the ticket seller who acknowledged him warmly, handed him some tickets and waved us on to the gate. The attendants sprang immediately to life.

Hello, they said in unison.

Nice to see you again, said one of them enthusiastically.

What have you brought us tonight, Dante? bantered the other, pulling the gate open for us to cross over.

Dante! ‘What have you brought us tonight, Dante?!’ Was he a commissioned agent for the establishment? A hustler? What? I wondered, as I followed him to the checkroom, where he removed and deposited his shirt. How were the people that came here with him treated? Should I turn around and leave, as I did before, or was there a possibility that tonight, if I went on in his company, my continuing search would end?

The checkroom attendant whispered to my companion.

Tell him, Dante replied.

You have to take that shirt off, the attendant said. Only t-shirts are allowed. Your shirt would be okay if it weren’t for that alligator. If you don’t want to check your shirt, wear it inside out.

After complying with his instructions to hide the alligator, we walked through a free-standing doorframe into a small, dark vestibule, descended a short staircase and entered a dimly-lit, cavernous room packed with men, most of whom were in various states of dishabille; completely nude, nude to the waist, some in underwear others in jockstraps; a few were dressed in black leather from head-to-toe, others in Levis, faded and torn blue-denim work-shirts.

A bar, the full-length of the room, tended by muscular men wearing black jockstraps and gold rings through pierced nipples, was crowded with patrons exchanging their admission tickets for paper cups of non-alcoholic beverages with which to quench their thirst or swallow their up … or down, which Dante and I had declined when offered by one of the attendants. After depositing their empty cups in the round red trash bins located at either end of the bar, most joined the line forming by the open double-doors, across from the bar, at the outermost part of the room.

Some of the faces and bodies in the line were familiar to me. My lawyer, naked to the waist, was huddled in a corner smoking a joint with my doctor, dressed in a torn blue work shirt and faded Levis. My accountant, in black leather vest, pants and boots stood in the center of the line.

Bankers, stockbrokers, painters, waiters, advertising people, all waited at the open door, along with an editor of a fashion magazine for whom I had worked. The theatre was well represented by several producers, directors, agents, managers, and actors. Actors everywhere! Architects, designers; fashion designers, interior designers, and minor royalty: princes; secular and ecclesiastical; counts, dukes, a marquis and as The King says, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

The curate from my neighborhood church stood totally naked, staring alternately at the line and the open door!

The curate!

Not having seen him around for some time, I assumed he had been exiled to some far away retreat for wayward priests; being punished for his sins. But, here he was! Uncharacteristically naked and stoned to the tits.

A could-have-been that never was, I often wondered what had happened to the curate.

It was a week before Christmas when we met at a mutual friend’s annual Christmas party on the Upper East Side. Everyone was in a festive mood, cruising heavily, overly sociable. I was talking to our host when he came into the living room; a good looking clone with a tight body in a polo shirt, Levis, and Tony Lamas. After being introduced, we spent the next hour or so socializing with many of the guests drawn into our growing circle by his convivial manner.

When the party started to break-up, he quietly asked me to meet him at a bar around the corner. He didn’t want to leave with me because he felt it would upset our host who, he said, was very jealous of him.

Are you involved with him? I asked.

No, he said. We recently had a thing. It’s over. But he needs some time to adjust.

Okay, I said.

He said his goodbyes to everybody and left. I stayed for a while and chatted with our host who remarked that I had seemed to "hit it off’ with his friend, Claude.

Nice person, I said off-handedly.

He’s a priest, rejoined my host.

Are you kidding?!

No. He’s a priest. Claude’s the curate at the local church down the street.

Ah, well, I managed.

After making tentative plans to get together after the holidays, I said good night and headed to the bar to meet Claude.

He was waiting by the door when I walked in, and greeted me with a warm smile.

How do you do that? I asked loudly.

What? he asked.

How do you reconcile what you are, who you are, with being a priest?

Oh crap.

Crap? Yeah, it is crap, I said.

Look. I didn’t ask you to meet me so that we could sit around and talk. If that’s what you’ve got in mind, I’ll say good night, now. Otherwise.

No, I said, that’s not what I had in mind before I knew you were a priest. Now, I need time to think about this. Let’s just have one beer here and then, maybe, we’ll go to my place.

He agreed.

We sat silently, sipping our beers, while I contemplated whether or not the former little altar boy could get it off with the good looking, soft spoken PRIEST!!

Halfway through the beer, I cavalierly asked, Do the other priests make it difficult for you?

They don’t know I’m gay, he said matter-of-factly.

You know, I said.

So? he said.

How do you manage it?

I just do.

You don’t see anything wrong with that?

Look, he said softly. I told you I didn’t want to talk. I don’t. Especially not about this, he smiled.

Sorry, I said. But I’m absolutely fascinated by the fact that you’re a priest.

What’s so fascinating? he mistakenly asked.

You took vows. Not just vows, but sacred vows that bind you to the laws of the church. Yet, by being who you are, or what you are, you’re in violation of those vows. Living, and what’s worse, preaching a lie.

So judgmental, he said. Once a catholic, always a catholic.

Not so, I said.

Certainly sounds it, he said.

When I discovered who I am, and that the church didn’t really want me if I wouldn’t live by their rules, I left.

Good for you, he said. I mean that. I wish I could find it that easy to do. But I don’t. Okay? Now, let’s stop talking about it, get out of here and go to your place, he said.

No. I don’t think so, I said, as I got up and walked out of the bar.

In the middle of the following April, I saw him in the Ramrod Bar on West Street, where on Wednesdays, before the son of a Harlem preacher went on a rampage, shooting and killing several people while driving-by, uptown and downtown, joined the bridge and tunnel crowd to enjoy each other at two drinks-for-one night.

The place was not yet packed, as it would be later on. I was sitting on a chair by the pool table near the end of the bar, amongst a group of friends, when I looked up and saw Claude, in full leather, walking