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We Regret to Inform You | Lamb ♣ 01
Buck
♣ ♣ ♣ 15 ♣ ♣ ♣
Pretty sure I mentioned how my whole dive back into Lamb’s boxes and journals started because Fugie was bragging about having had a stalker back in the day, this guy named Buck (real name Henry, I guess I can understand why he changed it.) Somehow Fugie has insinuated himself into my group of friends all these years later, even though I’ve always found him pretty irritating.
He’s the kind of guy who will talk to you about “my friend so-and-so” while you’re thinking to yourself “I introduced you to so-and-so, dumbass,” or casually mention that he spent $2,000 on a pair of sunglasses—you know it’s a lie, but you also know that he thinks it makes him look good, even though the truth is that anyone who spends that much money on a pair of sunglasses is an idiot, so his lie actually serves to make him look like a fool twice over. Like I said, irritating.
Anyway, we were all out to dinner one night, and Fugie pipes up about his supposed stalker, Buck, who just wouldn’t take the hint, just wouldn’t leave him alone, me me me, when the real headline was much worse. Honestly, I don’t know how Fugie and Buck met, or how long it went on—he was shady about the details, so it could be that he did feel uncomfortable with the attention or whatever.
He definitely heard what happened between Buck and Lamb later on, but since that next chapter didn’t revolve around Fugie himself, I guess it was unimportant. What I know is what I saw first hand, and what Lamb told me later of course.
I wasn’t there at Colossus when Fugie first introduced Buck and Lamb, it was brief, I think, and since Lamb was afraid of his own shadow, he never would have made eyes at a guy he thought was dating a friend. But he did tell me about this super hot guy that he met out dancing, and then of course, I met him myself when we went to a house party and Fugie brought Buck along with him.
There was definitely a veneer of sexiness: he had a rough-and-tumble look about him, sort of blue-collar, thick, very tan, blond crew cut, tattoos, Southern accent, devilish smile. OK, but let’s be honest: he looked a little rednecky. On first glance, I wouldn’t have minded a roll in the hay with him, but obviously when we met at that party, he was with Fugie—except that he wasn’t, it turned out. I’m sure he could see that Lamb was all goo-goo over him, even though I was trying to keep Lamb distracted and chatting him up with other people.
A little later on that night, when I was tongue-deep down this boy’s throat on the sofa, there was a kerfluffle in the hallway with Fugie and Buck. I don’t think it was heated really, but basically, Buck finally demanded to know where things were headed, and Fugie said, “Nowhere,” and Buck grabbed Lamb and off they went—back to Buck’s place.
Buck was a bit older than us, early thirties I think, and we were what, twenty-four? He had an apartment by himself up behind Dolores Park, and he had a car—he was a hairdresser over at the top of Solano, technically North Berkeley, so he made decent money from the biddies in the Berkeley Hills and Kensington, although Lamb found out he had massive credit card debt. (That would have been strikes one, two, and three in my book.)
What was I just saying about the veneer? The tan: tanning beds. The blond crewcut: bleached. The car: leased. The dazzling smile: actual veneers. Now I’m not saying these are bad things per se, but it is a little rich that Buck took Lamb with him to the Union Square Macy’s one day to buy a suit, and after they stopped in a bar for a few cocktails, started loudly berating a woman outside on the sidewalk for being “fake” with her hair and nails and facelift and fur coat.
So that was pretty nasty, but I guess Lamb calmed him down and kept it from turning into a full-on incident. You can probably see what was really at the bottom of all this: turns out, Buck was a raging alcoholic. (Sensing a theme in Lamb’s taste in men, yet?) So there was that hanging over all their proceedings—and we’re not talking beer and wine, but hard alcohol the minute Lamb arrived at Buck’s to hang out, whether it was morning, noon or night.
I remember the one time I hung out with them on a Sunday, it was Pride actually, so me and Lamb went over to Buck’s around 10 a.m. and a couple of Buck’s friends were going with us, too—this English chick from when he lived in London for five years, and her American boyfriend. They were already three sheets to the wind when we got there, and then mixed up a big batch of kamikazes and poured them into sippy cups for all of us to take to the parade.
Not gonna lie, we were all shit-faced before the parade even started, and somehow we ended up back in the Castro—did we take Muni? We must have, but I don’t remember it.
What I do remember is that we stopped at a hot dog joint on 18th Street (was it Top Dog? I’ve always remembered it was Top Dog, but now I’m not sure if they ever had a location outside of the East Bay) and while we were waiting for our food, Lamb and Buck, and English girl and friend, all started seriously making out against the condiments.
I was the fifth wheel, so I’m just watching this happen and laughing my ass off—I wasn’t going to stop this car crash for anything—because the sauces were all in these big pump bottles, and Lamb and the girl were bent over backwards against the pumps with their respective boyfriends on top of them, and ketchup and two kinds of mustard are slowly squirting down their backs and turning the whole scene into a bloody mess.
Some people are laughing, some are grumbling because they can’t put stuff on their dogs, and finally the guys behind the counter yelled at them to knock it off and get out of the way, but the chick slipped in the ketchup and lands on her ass in the middle of the floor, and a minor riot ensued over their dumbfuckery. I’m guessing we got thrown out without our hot dogs because I don’t remember anything after that, total black out.
And this was just one time hanging out with them. As Lamb told it, this was par for the course every time they got together. I think it was the first time he started having regular black outs, and waking up the next morning in Buck’s bed, sticky and naked. “What’d you guys do this weekend?” I’d ask him, and he kept saying, “I don’t know, but it must have been fun.”
I was a little bit worried they might be having unprotected sex, and that he was getting so wasted every time they got together. I asked him if they had talked about HIV status, and Lamb said that Buck just told him “I’m OK” which didn’t sound like a resounding no to me. But I think it did make him start to worry that he was getting in over his head with the drinking, and some of the other nasty shit that Buck was doing—not that Lamb could remember half of it, but there was an overall impression forming.
For one thing, it turned out that English chick and Buck used to do heroin together back in London. Was he actually clean? Anybody’s guess.
For another, one night Lamb says to me, “Have you ever heard of this artist?” and gave me a name, I don’t remember what. I hadn’t ever heard of him, and this was all before the internet, so it’s not like we could look it up.
“Well, it was the weirdest thing,” he went on, “he made a big point of showing me this book he had that was all these paintings by this artist, but they were really weird—like all these old people sitting around a picnic table, staring up at a little girl standing on the table with her dress torn, and it was too short so you could almost see her bits, you know? Or other ones with people sneaking into nurseries in the dark, and kids huddled under blankets all scared with tears running down their faces. Nothing actually sexual, but really, really dark.”
My blood ran cold when he told me that. I asked him what he thought about it, and he said he didn’t know. “Was he trying to tell me something?” Honestly, I said, whichever way that might unfold, Lamb was better off ending things sooner rather than later.
Eventually, Buck let loose with the n-word one night, and Lamb decided he’d had enough. He wanted to be brave and tell Buck face-to-face instead of over the phone. He went over, and I guess Buck was in a bad mood already because his friend had just gone back to London earlier in the day, and when Lamb told him that he didn’t want to see him anymore because he was turning into an alcoholic, Buck hit the roof. He started punching Lamb, gave him a black eye and a fat lip, and Lamb made a break for it. At the bottom of the stairs outside of his apartment, Buck yells down after him, “Enjoy the AIDS I gave you!”
So we had a thrilling six months waiting to find out if Lamb had HIV, which in the end he didn’t—I wouldn’t be surprised if they were both so drunk that no sex ever actually was accomplished, but either way he got lucky. I did a quick internet search recently, just to see whatever happened to Buck, and sure enough, he died due to complications of HIV infection in 1999, so what, just about six years later?
Anyway, Lamb was traumatized for a good little while after that, and I tried to be there for him, but with Lamb it was always this pendulum swinging way too far one way or the other. Fugie conveniently missed all of that, so you can understand why I got a bug up my ass after he started shooting his mouth off about his sixth grade-stalking bullshit.
The aids mention at the end made my eyes widen! Great chapter, Troy very engaging. :)
Banger of an episode, Troy. The voice you create here is just so strong and compelling. I absolutely love it! I think this is one of my favourite entries.
Man, six months for HIV diagnosis back then. Must have been so so harrowing!