by Sapphire
Forget them; they’re not real; this is a dream; when I wake up, they’ll all be gone. I continue with my dance, but now I’m not Lord Shiva. I’m King Kong. I’m still blue, Blue King Kong, and instead of the white bitch and the Empire State Building, I’m rising from the jungle with the whole city on my back. King Kong! Columns of glass, concrete, and steel go down with me as I plié, then fly into the sky as I rise.
“Is it really paint?”
“What color is he really?”
That’s all these stupid motherfuckers ever talk about is color, what color somebody is, how dark, how light, how big a nose. Here I am now coals burning, shining, dancing, and they’re talking about “What color is he really?” I open my neck with both hands like my skin is a curtain, and a glittering blue cobra slithers up from my belly and out of my open throat, hissing and screaming—
Everybody starts screaming—
Screaming? Who’s screaming? My Lai? Is it My Lai?
“My Lai!” I bolt straight up in a panic until my hand touches the soft skin of her back.
I shake her. “My Lai, I don’t want to be alone.”
“You’re not,” she murmurs, kisses my thigh, and goes back to sleep.
I’m scared about the show, about living here. At first I was all yeah, cool. How cool can you get—loft, lock on the door, hip, downtown. No, cool is what these kids got, their own. I need to get back to sleep; I got a busy day in front of me. I got that interview at Starbucks, then the Italian restaurant, La Casa. I never seen a black waiter in there, but we always go there, the lunch special is first-rate. An NYUer was sitting at the table talking to the manager while me and My Lai were eating lunch. I leaned over after the kid left and asked, “You hiring?” The manager looked me up and down and all around and didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and then he said, “Come by tomorrow and fill out an application.”
My Lai’s eyes were shining when we walked out. “You go, boy!”
“What’d I do? I just asked if he was hiring.” “You saw a possibility, a sniff of a possibility, and you went for it!” “Well, I don’t know ’bout all that, I just need a job.” “I see you with mad paper sometime.” “Yeah,” is all I say. When I do have bucks, I take everybody out. I don’t want to tell her how I get papered, or the years with Roman, Brother John, so much to tell, or not tell, I should say.
I feel helpless, stupid, like Humpty Dumpty’s ass sitting on the wall. I used to cry for Humpty Dumpty when my mother would read “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put poor Humpty together again.” I think that’s why Scott’s film with the vase got to me so much. Well, it’s not his film, but the film he used. This is his. I glance around the room; there’re no windows, and it’s nestled in the back and center of the loft, so when you turn out the lights in here, it gets dark. I like that, I feel safe. I love fucking My Lai in here. I feel free, I can cry if I want to, scream if I want to when I’m busting inside her. I pretend she’s mine, but she ain’t mine. I ain’t stupid. I want to own her, but I can’t.
When she wakes up, I feel like I’ve been up for hours. The red numerals on the clock radio are glowing 6:10. Class at ten (just do the barre), then run down to Starbucks on Astor Place and then down to Mott Street to La Casa and be back for rehearsal at noon. Can do.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey yourself.”
“You woke me up last night,” she says.
“No I didn’t. What are you talking about?”
“Sucking my pussy!”
“You are all the way crazy, how’d we get there?”
“Amy said you sucked her good when she had you.”
“Had me?” Gee thanks, Amy.
“You like me as much as you like her, right?”
“Right.”
“Why?” she persists like a fucking girl.
“I just do. I like how you talk, look, smell—you make my dick hard. Oops!” I reach for her.
“Oops my ass! Git off me and git down there, nigguh!” She laughs. So, OK.
“Keep going.”
“Well, let me know—”
“Shut up already, lick-suck, lick-suck, yeah, there you go! You got talent!”
She stops talking, and I keep working. So this is what it’s all about. Now she’s trying to pull away? Yeah? No? I keep sucking. This is strong, her clit is throbbing in my mouth, her whole body is throbbing, she’s going off groaning, I never heard her do this shit before. This never happened when I was fucking her. She’s cumming, really cumming! Shit! So this is why the girls like each other. I come up, kiss her, suck her tongue into my mouth while I slide my dick into her wet cunt and start to fuck her. Yow! Way to start the day!
WHEN I RETURN from ballet class, Starbucks, and La Casa, I’ve got not one but two jobs. La Casa wants me on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, which I told him I got a show coming up. “So switch with the other guy and do lunch for those weeks.” Starbucks wants me four hours a day, five to nine in the morning, that’s actually going to work! Yeah, it’s going to work out fine.
So it’s all good, then here she comes with this shit outta nowhere, like water torture drip-drip: So you Mr All-Roun’-American kid? Ain’t you sumthin’!
Shut up!
No, I ain’t shuttin’ up. Ain’t that gonna be cute, little white apron makin’ in a week what you could be makin’ in five minutes. You even startin’ to sound like ’em. ‘Gee, that’s cool!’ If you’d ever been to any of they houses, you’d see.
See what?
See yo’ ass pullin’ up weeds ’n mowin’ the grass, that’s what.
Shut up! You’re useless!
And you’re shit, do you think anybody would want you if they knew what you did? Phony, phony, phony! You a phony-ass nigger! You may fool them little white kids, but you can’t fool me!
Shut up shut up shut up!
I hate her, whoever she is, and she’s not me. She’s just a . . . a stupid voice in my head. She’s in me; she’s not me.
Shit, it’s quarter to twelve; I got to get going. I want to tell Scott I got a job. He loaned me some cash when I was strapped. Let him know I’m going to be able to pay him back.
TURNING, EVERY FIBER of my leg muscles burning, I feel like . . . fuel, gasoline, or that scared sick feeling you get sliding on ice. Like that time I was with Snake in his trade’s Ferrari spinning out of control. Lucky we didn’t crash. I’m going to have a car like that someday. Well, maybe not no Ferrari, but something, I’m going to have something.
Oh, shut up, nigger! You don’t know what yo’ stupid ass’ll have—you might end up with a bullet in yo’ fuckin’ skull, or a jail bid—
Don’t talk to me like that.
Don’t talk to you like that? Who the fuck do you think I is if I ain’ you now?
Well, stop putting me down.
Stop puttin’ yo’self down, stupid!
Fuck her ol’ ass, I don’t want her in my head, let me get back to my turns. Yeah, where was I? A Ferrari spinning on ice—intrepid, the utmost, ur-ultimate—
“Ur-ultimate?” Where’d you learn to talk like that? You so fuckin’ fake. Phony! You need to pony up, nigger, to what you really are—butt-bustin’ ho, rapist, leech. Freeloader! You live off faggots and rich kids. You ain’ shit.
They’re my friends. I would do the same for them. Fuck you, leave me alone! I need to keep working on my pirouettes, tours en l’air, and where I’m really having problems, those damn brisse volés. Remember, remember what I overheard Roman say after Alphonse came to watch the class one time: “What I tell you, Alphonse! I has not seen no one turn like that since Baryshnikov.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Alphonse had said. Then he paused and said, “But only a little.”
“HEY, Y’ALL!”
That’s Scott, whoever calls us in is who’s running rehearsal, Scott or Snake usually and lately, since the Vietnam piece, My Lai. I’ve never run rehearsal or laid down any choreography for the group; I know I could
—run a rehearsal, that is, shit, I could choreograph too. What are you doing when you’re improvising but making up steps as you move? Choreography is just doing it without the total spontaneous thing. You think what you’re laying down when you’re choreographing. With improv you don’t think, you do.
Something’s up today. We don’t usually meet this early on Sunday. Scott is a born-again Christian. He’s usually in church the whole morning on Sunday. That’s all, being a Christian, according to Snake, in direct response to him not wanting anything to do with his family (except the moola) since his sister’s book.
I didn’t think I was going to be gut-level gung ho with the Vietnam shit. I just couldn’t cross that street until I read Bloods. Damn, when I read that—I felt, shit, a few years back in the day and some of those stories could have maybe been my dad’s, or my dad’s dad. The “loosie” story stuck like Krazy Glue: The guy’s a burnt-out homeless, but to hear him tell it he was a Vietcong killer, cutting off ears, annihilating gooks in the jungle right and left. So homeless is going into the corner store to get a loosie for a quarter or whatever they cost, because he can’t afford a whole pack of cigarettes. So he goes to ask the guy behind the counter for a loosie and WHAM! They have this instant recognition. The guy’s VC from ’Nam, some guy he’d escaped from or some shit. He’s Vietcong, North Vietnamese, over here, the nigguh’s here with a store after having fought against us. And this stupid nigger is here with his broke-up brain and shattered-shit life, homeless after fighting for us. I mean, he has to feel like a sucker. I snicker, shaking my head—
“What’s so funny?” Scott asks.
“Nothing,” I tell him. Why is he so touchy? Sometimes he’s cool, most of the time he’s cool. But then he can get into his king-dick alpha-male routine. I ain’t trying to be boss. I just want to do my thing, I don’t care who’s king of the mountain, as long as I get to dance. Shit, when I get good enough to be boss, whatever that is, I’ll just leave. Why does leaving even cross my mind? I just got here. Shit is working for me.
“So what we’re really doing this morning is listening to your performance piece,” Scott announces, turning to My Lai. “Is that right, My Lai?”
“Yeah, raw material for my solo. And it is fuckin’ raw. So yeah, for now. I just need you guys to listen.” My Lai.
“OK, let’s hear it.” Snake.
“Well, I’m still not clear exactly what it is we’re going to hear.” Amy.
“Well, you could just listen.” Snake.
“I want to know how to listen. I mean, is this her story, or is it some compilation of Asian women’s stories that she’s woven together as an everywoman thing—”
“Stop!” Snake shouts. “Let’s make some coffee. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”
“Fool!” My Lai. But the laugh that escapes her is relieved.
I run to the kitchen with Snake to make sure I put the espresso machine back in there. Yeah, it’s there.
“Should we do coffee or espresso?” I ask him.
“Let’s just knock out five espressos.”
“My Lai likes coffee,” I say.
“So why’d ya ask, idiot!”
“Ain’t no idiot, number one—” Lately I’m constantly having to put this faggot in check.
“Well, let’s just say you don’t know enough to know this Bacardi and Happy I got will go better in the espresso—”
“Man, during rehearsal?”
“We ain’t gonna be doing no dancing today.”
“Well, whaddaya got? Tabs, powder?”
He pulls out a silver flask. And a plastic bag with some white tablets.
“So put it on the tray—”
“I like to spike—”
“So what are you, one of these drug-in-the-drink dudes?”
“I’m not above that—”
“You mean below, motherfucker!”
“Only way I ever got to bang a bitch!” He laughs. I can’t help but laugh too.
“I was checking out your turns, Abdul, while you were warming up in the corner, man—whew! Way out, dude. Shit, man, you look good! Skinny but good. What you been doing?”
“Working, man. I stretch and do an hour barre before I even leave that room.” I nod toward my room, mine for now, I note. “It’s no thing, I just do it, man. It keeps me from going postal, you know what I mean?”
“No, what do you mean?”
“You know, if I just sit and think how far behind everybody I am, choreography- and technique-wise. My Lai’s technique alone—”
“Look, they been dancing—no, not just dancing, training—since they were kids, man.”
“I know, man, I don’t want all the years and shit I put into my body to just go down the motherfucking drain. If you don’t practice, all you’re doing is maintaining, sometimes not even that. You know what I mean?”
“All too well, but still—”
“I want to rise,” I say, breaking in on him.
“Well, that’s why the man has you here.”
“Who, Scott?”
“Yeah, Scott, who do ya think?”
“He never asks me to choreograph or run rehearsal, you know what I mean?”
“Shit, that’s his thing, Abdul. When I do it, it’s just to carry out his, you know, fucking dictates. He doesn’t need you for that, man. He needs you for what you say you want to do, to dance. Milk it, man. Don’t be stupid and get into a competitive thing with him. You need to learn to read people better. You know what I see, man?”
“What?”
“You know, it’s good to work hard and all that, but watch yourself. To me it looks like you’re burning the candle at both ends, as they say, like you are wired, and if you ain’t taking nothin’, that’s even worse. You’re gonna burn out for sure, man—”
“HEY, DUDES! Like, some coffee already!”
When we bring the tray of steaming espressos in with Snake’s silver flask of rum and plastic bag of white tablets in the center of the five cups, everyone cheers.
Amy surprises me by breaking a tab in half and sharing it with Scott. Snake offers My Lai a tab. “No thanks.” Then she changes her mind and pops a tab. I shake my head no. If I do, I won’t sleep at all. I’m the only one here who has to get up in the morning.
My Lai’s sitting in lotus position on the floor with her notebook in front of her. She takes a deep breath opens her notebook.
“I was about five days old when I was found in a shopping bag on the doorstep of St Dymphna’s New York Foundling Home on the morning of Christmas Eve. By that night I was a fuckin’ celebrity! ‘Baby Christmas,’ the news stations were calling me. They Hollywooded the story by saying I was wrapped like a Christmas present! Anybody who had a radio, TV, or read a newspaper knew about me. Motherfuckers were calling up news stations wanting to adopt me. As far as I can figure out, those are the facts printed in the New York Daily News, December 24, 19__, preserved on microfiche at the New York Public Library. But the truth comes in details clouded in curses when they’re arguing, and they’re always arguing, my mother and father. It seems strange to be calling them that. Does my being adopted make me theirs or just ‘adopted’? It should have—like with a cake, put in the ingredients, mix it up, stick it in the oven, and voilà! Done. But inside, it was raw, runny shit. I never became theirs.
“‘Cold,’ she had said once. ‘You are one cold little girl.’
“Her sister had told her, ‘It could have turned out that way if she’d come out of you.’
“‘Whaddaya mean?’
“‘My Jeremy’s like that, a mean little snit. I feel sorry for his wife if his dumb ass ever gets one.’
“But my aunt wasn’t there that day when they were arguing (not that they care who’s there when they’re arguing). So the back story here is my grandfather has the real moneybags. (He can’t stand the sight of me.) My father’s mother, Grandma Dora, is Catholic; his father is Jewish. My father is nothing religion-wise (or any other wise except his money)
, but I guess he used to be Catholic, because he used to throw big bucks at St Dymphna’s. So they’re arguing in front of me as usual like I don’t exist, which is how I feel most times, when he guffaws and tells me over his shoulder between shouting at her ‘You went to the highest bidder, you little nigger!’
“‘Are you crazy? That’s nonsense. And stop calling her names.’
“‘I didn’t say nothing to her.’
“‘I’m listening to you. You think I’m fuckin’ deaf?’
“‘Well, it’s not ‘nonsense,’ it’s true.’
“‘It’s not true. Stop telling that lie. Your fuckin’ money, your fuckin’ money. You fuckin’ megalomaniac! We went through a process.They interviewed us, they came to our house, remember? I talked to psychologists, social workers, nuns—then we were allowed to adopt Noël. We did not buy her. You can’t buy children in New York, this is not Thailand or some shit. You’re sick, sick, sick—’