Leo & Lance
BY RANDALL MANN
for David Trinidad
I was seventeen
in Orlando,
heading toward
Orange Blossom Trail,
where the porn was.
Fairvilla Video,
its fried, freshened air.
I was terrified
but also thrilled,
on the edge.
Can anyone even
remember how hard-
won a little corner
of sex was then,
no internet,
no hope,
no combination?
I can’t; I can.
In an
elaborate bid
to convince
myself and the clerk
I was bisexual,
I bought a bisexual
video
that I can’t recall,
and a box
that made my heart stop:
Leo & Lance.
(VHS wasn’t cheap:
I spent all
my allowance.)
I can measure
this adventure
in increments
of shame:
tape loop,
checkout,
the run-walk
to my red Buick
(no one could miss me),
the peel out.
And the drive home,
anticipation,
cruel cellophane . . .
Leo Ford,
born Leo John Hilgeford,
looked like California
by way of Dayton.
There was his tender
love of Divine,
that rumored three-way
on Fire Island
with Calvin Klein.
Late in his career
he raised rare birds,
volunteered
at Project Angel Food.
He was versatile:
so much to give.
And Lance,
David Alan Reis,
from Santa Barbara,
or maybe Oklahoma.
Poor orphan,
the stints
in jail,
IV drugs,
and conversion.
Leo and Lance
had the chance
to work together
twice on film—
Leo & Lance and
Blonds Do It Best—
and more than once
on the corner.
Where have all
the hustlers gone,
anyway?
They died
weeks apart,
in 1991.
Lance first,
in May,
in San Jose,
of AIDS complications.
On the death certificate,
his job is listed
as “model of clothing.”
That July,
Leo on his motorcycle
was struck by a truck
on Sunset. “Chillingly,
Leo had played
a motorcycle accident
victim in Games,”
says IMDB,
so those who knew
his oeuvre
might have seen it coming.
After the wake at Josie’s,
his ashes were scattered
by the Golden Gate Bridge.
A tree in India—
IMDB again,
as if the truth matters—
was planted in his name . . .
As I try
to get this right,
I pull up my cache
of scanned porn.
Leo & Lance:
it begins in synth,
Cali melancholy
canyon light,
and here’s Leo,
shirtless,
running up a hill
in tight denim,
letterman jacket
thrown over his shoulder—
now the tinkling
piano; now’s a good time
to jerk off
by the last of the snow.
God, bottle-blond Leo.
But wait, who
is that loping up the hill,
gawky, rugged, also blond,
a dumbfounded wow
uttered as he watches
Leo shoot? Of course:
it’s Lance. Before
they formally meet,
before they go
back to the lodge
and do what they do
better than life,
they have a little snowball fight,
brief, unexpectedly sweet—
like children in the street.
“Leo & Lance” by Randall Mann, from <em>Copper Nickel</em> (Fall 2016, Issue 23). Copyright 2016 by Randall Mann. Reprinted with permission of the author.
Source: Copper Nickel (Fall 2016, Issue 23)