Men Like Trees, Walking

Di Pasquale fleshes out the epiphanic urban interactions of his first story collection with an impressive--but not entirely trustworthy--confidence. The narrator of ""Los Feliz"" passes a gregarious panhandler for months before discovering that he actually lives in a mansion in the Berkeley Hills, panhandling to fill his life rather than his pocketbook. The protagonist of ""A True Story"" falls easily into the career (call boy) and love life of his new apartment's previous occupant, finding happiness by accident. In ""Liebestod,"" a young drifter murders an older man and then presents himself at an opera that evening as a blind date for his victim's gorgeous friend. The novelty of these tales arises from semi-accidental bonds between residents of large cities, but writers such as Armistead Maupin and Paul Auster have already made more distinctive tracks in this territory by shying away from the trite conclusions on which di Pasquale too often relies. While sometimes convincing, the homoerotic passion surging through these stories--an older man's affection for his masseur, a pizza prep cook's lust for another chef--is too often clumsily rendered: a jilted lover nurses his heartache by moaning, ""I wanted him bad, tasting the blood of desire in my mouth. Phantom eyelashes stroke my pain."" Provocative but unsatisfying, these seven stories promise more than di Pasquale has learned yet to deliver. (Oct.)