Read How Long Has This Been Going On for Free Online Page A

time.
    I've got to clamp down, Larken was thinking. I need to be more sure of myself—at least, I have to seem it. But how do you seem sure of yourself if—
    Everyone was looking at him, Paul with annoyance.
    "I what?" said Larken.
    "I asked you," said Paul, "if you would be willing to host the next meeting."
    "Oh. Oh, sure. Of course."
    "Write down the address and directions north and south, navigating by the Freeway," said Paul, handing Larken paper and a pencil.
    But Larken was already back in the park, rehearsing his patter for the hundredth time. I really liked that guy a lot, Larken kept thinking. Sometimes you just know about someone.
    The Meeting broke up with staggered departures to match the staggered arrivals. Two of the men left by the back door and cut through an alley to gain the street. Larken, waiting his turn, wondered what they were accomplishing. Sure, it had to start somewhere, and talking about the problems of being a homosexual in an anti-homosexual society relieved some of the tension. Still, in the long ran, what were they but a bunch of frightened men hoping for the impossible?
    It was dark by the time Larken, last of the guests, was counting off for his departure, and Paul said, "Don't be in such a hurry. Sit down. Relax. There's more beer and—"
    "The thing is," said Larken, "that all this secrecy is probably the opposite of what we need. We have to become visible and... regular. Like soda pop or blond hair. If they keep thinking of us as—well, if we keep thinking of—"
    "The Meeting's over, so calm down," Paul urged him, guiding him to the sofa, a great old monster patched here and there with black tape. "Next time we can raise any issue you want."
    "And it shouldn't be behind closed blinds like this," Larken went on, as Paul sat next to him.
    "We need the security," Paul purred, a hand kneading Larken's shoulder. "We want to outwit them, don't we, hmm?"
    "No, see, that's just the—" Paul's hand moved to Larken's thigh, and Larken jumped to his feet. " We have to be open about what we are," he said, backing away as Paul advanced. "They say it's shameful, and we say it isn't. But if we meet in all this"—Paul had Larken backed against the front door—"this darkness, then it's as if we're agreeing that it's shameful."
    "But it's such an advanced approach. So bold."
    Larken threw the door open.
    "I have to go," he said. "I have to be open. I have to go to the park and find that guy and be more aggressive. That's always been my problem, not being self-assertive and Dale Carnegie and everything."
    Paul stood well back from the door, very irritated. "Running out on me like this." He looked at his watch. "And it's long, long before your time."
    Larken ran to his car.
     
    Frank's father had known that Frank was going to be a cop before Frank did. Frank's father was a cop, and he told Frank's mother that they had a little cop on hand when Frank was born. Frank's father held the infant in his arms in the hospital—that early on—and solemnly announced, "This is the next cop. He's going to save the world, watch."
    They named him Winston Peter Hubbard, Jr., and called him Little Pete. But in June of 1933, after the "Hundred Days" Congress that launched the New Deal, when the boy was five, his father decided to rename him Franklin Delano Hubbard.
    So now they called him Frank, and because they had both wanted a son, and because he was their only child, they petted him and heartened him and protected him. Frank's father would settle Frank on his lap and tell him stories, especially "The Dog On the Quicksand":
    "When I was no bigger than you are right now," Frank's father would begin, "there was a quicksand pit on the edge of town. There was a sign there reading, 'Stay Away.' No one knew who had put the sign up, but everyone knew about it, and about the quicksand, which is, like, at first you think you got stuck a little, but soon you're sinking, and then you're swimming, and at last you're drowning.