JAGUAR in a MERCEDES

By Lawrence Schubert

What is the male equivalent of a cougar? Not the genus puma concolor, the cat that prowls on four feet in the wild, but the vertical type that prowls Rodeo Drive in Manolo Blahniks. What is the male equivalent of Demi Moore or Courteney Cox Arquette? To be more exact, the gay male equivalent (or is that redundant)? I choose the jaguar as my genus middleageus role model. “The jaguar is a solitary, stalk-and-ambush predator, opportunistic in its prey selection, playing an important role in stabilizing ecosystems and regulating the populations of prey species.” Transposed from the rainforest to the urban jungle, not a bad analogy; as I roam, sequestered in my automobile, scanning the streets with hungry eyes.

Take, say Cary Grant’s Roger O. Thornhill in “North by Northwest,” a role model a man of any sexual persuasion can appreciate. His matchbooks are monogrammed with his initials, (“That’s my trademark-ROT.”), and his self-effacement is disarming; but recall that his one phone call from jail is reserved for “Mother.” While his suaveness is beyond my reach, I too am a sinner looking for a saint, just not one named Eva-Marie.

Alas, there are few contemporary icons that offer similar inspiration. Most of the older predators in public life are wolfish heterosexuals pursuing younger women. This bespeaks the insecurity of straight men, who rarely show any imagination as they age, only the desperation of a star in the supernova stage that inevitably precedes the white dwarf. This is the man that chooses 36-hour Cialis. Gay men, being only in the first generation of liberation, are still negotiating the public options for their Golden Years. When I was younger, the main options were to become an old john or a character from a Tennessee Williams play, like Blanche Dubois or Miss Alma from “Summer & Smoke.”Blanche tries to seduce a young delivery boy and Alma pines for the boy next door: neither comes to a happy ending, but at least their suffering has a certain ennobling poetry.

This thought comforts me as I observe the army of Mexican gardeners who swarm my neighborhood every Thursday with their Pancho Villa mustaches and big leaf-blowers, or the thick-limbed pool cleaner who stirs the stygian dregs of my swimming pool and my heart—neither of which get much use these days— because otherwise there is something nakedly colonial about lusting after men of the working class. Unlike the jaguar, I have the stalking part down but the ambush is more problematic. Wile. E. Coyote has nothing on me. Because what’s love got to do with it? Not much, unfortunately.

The currency of youth is youth while the currency of age is currency. In social intercourse everything is a negotiation where the younger partner holds the cards and the elder, the credit cards. And when a man’s incrementals are no bigger than two lentils, he has less leverage than may be necessary. Not all men are mercenary, but one is certainly more attractive wearing the vestments of security. I really should have started my 401K a few years earlier-say 30-and found a good medical/dental plan before reaching the age where everything is a pre-existing condition. My species is vanishing, doomed to extinction by loss of habitat.

Perhaps I should consider a different model.

All that (no pun intended) sappy Joyce Kilmer nonsense aside, trees really are a marvel and a fine model for aging with dignity. As saplings, they all look very much alike, but with age they acquire character and distinction. And they are resilient. Lop off a branch and another will grow. Trees always seem to find perfect balance, even in imbalance. No two are ever alike: some stand majestically alone, others in harmonious clusters.

So perhaps I will emulate the trees and find my balance in singularity, instead of being a jaguar, in a Mercedes: circling, circling, endlessly circling.