Tropic of Libra

by Thom Nickels

Billy Goodwin, the young writer in "The Tropic of Libra," lives with his lover Mark in a third-floor apartment in the "wrong" section of Philadelphia's Germantown section. It's the late 1970s and Billy, a struggling novelist, begins a diary to help him make sense out of life and a relationship that is spinning out of control. When Mark ends their six-year relationship, Billy scowers the city for a new partner. He discovers Anthony, the meth-addicted bisexual drug lord and Italian stallion. Soon after he invites Anthony to share his apartment, an Inferno opens as Anthony's friends—crack heads, pushers and prostitutes-- turn the place into a twenty-four hour ‘needle' crash pad. Billy's diary is his only consolation as Anthony unleashes torrents of domestic horrors. Billy, now a prisoner of a sociopath, realizes he must escape to a downtown apartment house. When his escape is complete, he writes about the men he meets in an attempt to replace Mark—musicians, straight trade boys from small Pennsylvania towns, a suburban sadist, businessmen, strangers encountered in streets, bars and adult movie houses. In the end they all fail to make the grade except one—Francis, a working class Irish boy as desperate to find love as Billy. Francis and Billy's paths cross at a city intersection late one night, but before this happens the diary is privy to an army of boyfriend wannabes as well a parade of astrologers and gypsy psychics, most of them con artists, who attempt to guide Billy though the human love minefield. Only two psychics, the buxom Dana Morgan and the gay Bishop John, a mystic from Baltimore, exert positive influences. Before the meeting of Francis, Billy, determined to find a partner at whatever cost, goes back to the life he wants to leave behind whenever love disappoints—the sordid peep show and adult movie house circuit where he finds danger and sexual satisfaction. Life in downtown Philadelphia, Billy's struggles as a writer, his encounters with the eccentrics and oddballs in his hi- rise apartment building, the coming of AIDS—through all of these experiences Billy's one consolation is knowing that-- as a writer-- he must, "experience everything." That "everything" becomes the "building" of the diary that he now sees as almost having a separate life, as if he were describing the exploits of a character in fiction. The diary emboldens him to take chances, with men, with love, with his family, and especially with Francis, the boy who also has an 11th hour "secret."

232 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2002

Reviews

[Robert Dunbar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Call it memoir or creative nonfiction, but certain types of prose offer guideposts to a writer’s progress. With Tropic of Libra, Thom Nickels maps out a landscape of back alleys, back rooms, steam rooms, and tearooms, terrain so long removed from contemporary queer consciousness as to have become virtually mythologized.

Suddenly, it all seems like yesterday.

Despite the fact that I virtually grew up in some of the Philadelphia bars that Nickels writes about, I’ve never met the man (that I’m aware of), which is probably just as well, because Tropic of Libra is already an uncomfortably personal work. On many levels, it would appear to be a simple journal, a litany of grudges and defeats, of slights and sex acts – with the emphasis resolutely on the latter. The fact that the book is set in actual locations, clubs and restaurants and apartment buildings, adds to the verisimilitude, as do the appearances of several well-known locals, often with their names only slightly disguised. Still, Tropic is Billy’s diary and therefore a work of fiction.

A particular kind of fiction.

Ever listen to a fanatic go on about religion? Well, Billy ain’t exactly kneeling in prayer. Always on the verge of homelessness, he starves from one freelance writing job to the next, while burying himself in sex the way some people lose themselves in drink. In pursuit of his bliss, he employs a foolproof technique. By approaching men on the streets and offering them blowjobs, he gets to service a lot of strangers. He also gets beaten up a lot, but the real downside is that Billy invests emotionally in all these hustlers and addicts, all these guys he meets in restrooms. Not surprisingly, these “relationships” are uniformly sad, squalid, awful, even though (or perhaps because) the men seldom seem more than shadows. Occasionally, one of them may display behavior so pathological that he begins to come into focus, but inevitably he just wanders out of the narrative before acquiring too many contours.

Still, Billy’s heart is always broken. Desperately seeking guidance, he embraces astrology and tarot cards, psychic readings and dream analysis, all of which he exhaustively describes and none of which discourages him from wallowing in the most grotesque and pathetic liaisons imaginable. Taking responsibility for his life is not his strong suit. Everyone betrays him. Lovers dump him. Editors stab him in the back. Acquaintances avoid him. Poor Billy.

Should erotica be this depressing?

Then it just ends. A number of pieces appended to the diary appear to be short stories. Others are articles, and it’s never clear how the work as a whole is meant to benefit from these inclusions (aside from being fleshed out to book length). An interview with the late Marlene Dietrich’s paid companion rambles, and there’s an equally dreary essay about watching a porn star dance. Then a science fiction story recycles earlier incidents. (Like Billy, this narrator hands out mash notes to men on the street.) Is this another guidepost? Perhaps the reader is meant to assume that Billy wrote these sections? One of these segments features a narrator institutionalized after a breakdown. If only this could have been integrated into the main section, it might have provided some direction, perhaps even a form of resolution. As it stands, the reader has to sift through random sleaze, while struggling to make connections … much like Billy himself.