Monkey Suits by Jim Provenzano

code. “Well, you’ll definitely come over to my place,” Rick said.

    “Sure,” Lee responded with a resigned air.

    “Call me tomorrow.”

    “Sure,” Lee said, then muttered to himself. “If my desire for you doesn’t sour like the champagne in my gut.”

    “What?” asked Marcos.

    “Nothing.”

    As he caught the Number One train with Marcos, got off at Christopher Street and walked toward Hudson, he wondered about the futility of dating such a guy. Maybe he’s not always like that, he thought. Then again, maybe he is. Maybe that’s what I need.

    “Well, I, for one, am exhausted,” Marcos sighed. They stopped at a corner. Someone had plastered a succession of flyers about AIDS over a wooden construction wall.

    “Nice art work.”

    “Thank God we got out of Long Island alive. Yeah, I like the font.”

    “The miracle of Judy-ism.”

    Marcos attempted a chuckle. “Under the river for you?”

    “Yup.”

    “Do they run trains to Jersey this late?”

    “Yes, but the sidewalks are rolled up after midnight.”

    “You sure you don’t want to stay over?”

    “We tried that, remember?”

    The pre-dawn song of sparrows chirped from Lee’s kitchen window as he toasted an English muffin and gulped down a glass of orange juice. He had been exhausted when he had arrived home, but neither masturbation nor reading helped him sleep. He merely stared out the window beyond his Dukakis election poster.

    A hundred fifty dollars in cash from the bar mitzvah lay on his dresser, all for eleven hours of his life, including transportation. He imagined the bank accounts of people he’d served increasing as fast as the entire population of Mexico, while his finances accrued as slowly as a wooden scoreboard at an Old Timers softball game. At least he’d gotten a surprise blow job.

    Outside the window the sky shifted from deep purple to dark azure. More birds chirped. A semi truck farted past, chugging a few tons of something somewhere for someone. Another morning he would sleep through. Think tomorrow , Lee told himself. Dawn is not a good time for career reassessment.

    Moving to the carpeted floor, he munched the buttered muffin and tried to scan the Village Voice job listings, but didn’t get past “Environmental Activist” before flipping through his TV to stop at CNN. An interview with a wiry, black-haired man in glasses had just begun. His byline read: Anthony Fauci. “ ... the capacity to replicate the virus ...” Lee went into the kitchen to toast another muffin when the anchor’s words drew him back.

    “Over a thousand AIDS activists demonstrated outside the Food and Drug Administration today, claiming the approval of drugs to combat the disease ...” He raced back to the television in time to see a crowd of young men and women running around a glass-walled building. They screamed and shouted, waving black posters with pink triangles. A similar cloth banner rose up a flagpole. Police dragged people to the ground. A blond man in a leather jacket was shouting with them, his mouth open wide, his angular face red with rage.

    Angel Gabriel wore leather. Kevin Rook.

    Lee stood in his bathrobe, transfixed. “Fuckin’ A.”

    The once docile exuberant hunk that had served tables with him days before had just become the latest instant media moment. The same young man who gracefully poured Chardonnay for corporate CEOs was being dragged off by rubber-gloved policemen in riot gear on national television. For reasons he didn’t understand, Lee felt a sudden surge build up in his stomach, pass through his throat and escape from his eyes in wet droplets.

    The report quickly shifted to more men in suits talking, heads speaking and computer graphics showing charts and bars. He listened, but couldn’t shake the image of Kevin being dragged off. I should have turned on the VCR . He sat down on the floor, overcome with a feeling of the hugeness of events, the instant potential and inescapable menace of