by Margaret Failoni

Gary picked a small ripe cherry tomato from the fragile branch that held it and popped it quickly into his mouth. He had been eating the cherry tomatoes with his own home grown basil and cubed mozzarella cheese for a week now and each batch was better than the next.

To convert a typical New York City "tar beach" into a garden had been Gary's dream from the first day he had moved into the small apartment in the three storied limestone townhouse on the East side.

He first started with pots on his window sill, growing kitchen herbs, but soon needed to expand and the urge was so strong he couldn't resist. He started by visiting all the tenants in the building, six in all, trying to persuade them to join him in his endeavor. Although they all gave him their blessings, they didn't want to become involved. All except Sonny, the third floor tenant, with windows looking out onto the courtyard, who found the idea a stimulating challenge.

Sonny knew someone in a downtown lumber yard, so they were able to find second quality planks at a huge discount. It was not long before a small version of a boardwalk was built. They hired a plumber to bring up a one inch water pipe to the roof from Sonny's apartment. Gary meanwhile, started reading almanacs so as to know when the best time for planting would be. When the moment finally arrived, the different vegetable areas were separated with flower pots. They brought up two brightly colored beach chairs, a small table and a large, off white Italian beach umbrella. The place looked great.

Every morning, before going off to his office, Gary would skip upstairs to the new garden and softly talk to the plants. He would coax them. Tell them how beautiful they were and how he loved them. On weekends, he would bring up a small, portable tape player so that he and the plants could listen to music.

Although enthusiastic, Sonny was less fanatical about the whole project. He took it much more in his stride. All the expenses for the garden were split equally and Sonny would join Gary on the roof for breakfast on Sundays. They would share the New York Times, make a few remarks on one article or the other and praise their growing plants. The coffee grinds collected throughout the week were then gathered and added to the soil with great ceremony; Sonny had read someplace that tea leaves and coffee grinds made great compost.

At times, Sonny would gaze at Gary over the rim of his coffee cup while his neighbor read the news and wonder how such totally different people had become such good friends and yet, still be total strangers. The only thing they had in common was their love for the garden, their mutual address and the fact that they were both gay. Gary came from a middle class Jewish family from New Jersey. After graduating tops in his class from a local public high school, they sent their only son to the Wharton School of Business to assure him a prosperous future. They had not counted on having sired a romantic Humanist who had a total disdain for money matters as such. Gary's idea of a perfect luxury was a great bottle of red wine with delicious Italian food, preferably ingested with his favorite people on a terrace overlooking the Grand Canal. He was a minimalist at heart. He chose to live in this rather tatty apartment house because he was barely two blocks from his place of work and if there was one thing he loathed, it was commuting to any place, except maybe to France of course.

His apartment was bare. It had a comfortable leather couch placed in front of a functioning fireplace, a table with three chairs, a Murphy bed which when closed, resembled wooden closet doors. There were no pictures hanging on the walls. If he wanted to see art, he would walk over to the nearby museum and see art at its best. The only decorative touch were the herbal plants on the window sills which he kept in spite of the upstairs garden.

Not trusting declarations of love in the world of homosexuals, Gary kept his sentiments neatly tucked away. Sex of course, was something else again. He did not frequent massage parlors or pick up men off the streets or cruise in gay bars. His taste ran towards heterosexual, working class, blue collar workers: plumbers, electricians, delivery men and the likes. Nothing gave him more pleasure than to seduce the cable man or the TV technician or the young man from the telephone company. They were clean and uncomplicated and with not too many hangups about sex. Gary loved Erika Jong's great phrase in her novel "The Fear of Flying", in which she defines great sex as the "Zip-less fuck!"

So you started off by fooling around with them, asking them if they were married or had girlfriends. Then, in a light tone, asking them, "How's your sex life?" And then, regardless of their answer, in a half serious, half kidding , half teasing tone, he would come right out with it: "I bet she doesn't know how to give good head! I'm the queen of blow jobs!"

He had a 50/50 success rate and it was nothing short of a miracle he never got his head bashed in. But then, half of the time they couldn't figure out if he was just kidding or what.

Sonny, on the other hand, was a much older Irishman. His weakness was whiskey ever since his attractiveness started to wane over the years. He had lost his life-long companion to cancer and was convinced he was too old to start all over again. He worked as the theater critic for an important New York daily and other than the bottle, he had two great passions: he collected the original programs, sheet music, posters and record albums of all of Broadway's great musicals. His only other hobby was collecting Victorian, porcelain toothbrush cases. He owned hundreds of them, all made in the finest porcelain factories of Europe and the United States. Many had royal crests and flowery monograms. He kept them in glass enclosed cases and washed them once a year.

One Sunday, when Sonny joined Gary up in the garden for breakfast, he announced with great pomp that he decided to donate his two collections to museums. They were gathering dust, were actually pushing him out of his apartment and he, Sonny, felt they would be better cared for in a proper museum. Gary thought this rather odd but made no mention of it.

The following Sunday, Sonny mentioned his retirement from the newspaper. This would give him more time to care for their garden. By the time Gary got up to the roof on weekdays, he would find Sonny weeding and fussing over the plants. He became more and more obsessive with them as the weeks went by.

One evening, Sonny invited Gary to his apartment for dinner. Gary was so taken by surprise that he found himself at a loss for words and muttered a weak acceptance. After coffee, Sonny poured himself a whiskey and drank a toast to Gary and the garden, thanking them both for having brought so much joy to his life. Gary found the whole evening depressing. He left for Italy the week after, spending his summer vacation with his Italian friends, leaving the garden in Sonny's care. The minute he got back to New York and the townhouse, he dropped his suitcases and raced up to the roof where he found Sonny with a drink in his hand, listening to Cole Porter. They embraced and as Sonny turned his head into the waning sunlight, Gary saw the tell-tale signs of the disease on his friend's face. He had last seen such a pronounced case the year before on the emaciated face of Robert Mapplethorpe. It was the artist's last public appearance at his vernissage at the Robert Miller Gallery. A Strange Show: magnificently photographed lilies printed on white linen with accompanying violet painted canvases assembled to form a cross. The show was still vivid in Gary's mind; an homage to death.

Both men chit-chatted about the end of summer, the state of the world, of Europe, the state of Italian wines, the state of the plants and the garden in general and Sonny started to discuss with Gary what they would plant for the Autumn/Winter months.

Gary slept badly that night. He awoke at dawn with the typical jet-lag time lapse. As soon as it was nine, he called the fire-wood company and put in his order for the winter.

He then called the local wine store and put in his order for a case of his favorite Brunello di Montalcino, knowing full well that a husky young man in overalls would show up in an hour or so to deliver the wine. He showered and shaved carefully.

**************

Margaret Failoni was born in New York City, studied at the School of Industrial Art, one year at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and received a degree in Art History from Hunter College. She flew with PanAm as a flight attendant so as to visit the world's museums and archaeological sites. After a year in Portugal, she quit the airlines and moved to Italy where she worked with art galleries and print publishing companies before opening her own gallery and print publishing company in 1981. Her published prints have been exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art prints department.

Marge started with the US Information Agency, curating shows throughout Italy for several years. Once arriving in Mexico in 1993, she curated shows for several provincial museums and is presently the curator for the Interseccion Gallery at the Fabrica Aurora.

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