The sights and sounds of this place overwhelm me and I become light-headed and vaguely queasy. This establishment is surprisingly full of quiet patrons studying the merchandise with serious faces. Between a set of low, metal shelves, there’s one guy in an expensive blue suit holding a DVD case in one hand while licking the palm of his other hand up and down, up and down. Fluorescent lights flicker and crackle. When he spots me looking, he flinches, wipes his palm on his pants, puts the DVD back, and walks over to the guy behind the counter. They have a hushed conversation, the man behind the counter clearly keeping track of me in his peripheral vision.
In my peripheral, I spot something familiar. I almost laugh. A TV hanging in the corner is playing a video I’ve definitely seen before. And, I don’t get it.
It’s an episode of All Creatures Great and Small. Right now a poor countryman is holding his ailing black collie and walking into the small vet’s office where James awaits him. The countryman, in baggy trousers and shirt, has the tell-tale signs of a man hard-lived: hanging jowls, unkempt hair, oversized earlobes, callused hands, a reddened, bulbous nose, and puffy, sad eyes. The volume isn’t on, but he’s telling James that his poor dog is sick and that he’s brought her in three times already and nothing’s made her better. He tells James that with his wife dying last year and the vet bills he’s already paid, he no longer has the money to take care of his dog, who he named Erin. The countryman is sobbing, telling James he knows it’s not their fault that Erin hasn’t gotten any better, just as it wasn’t the doctor’s fault that his wife passed from consumption. He tells James that it’s OK to put Erin down now, if he must, but he fears he doesn’t have the money to pay for that. James grabs hold of the man’s shoulder, squeezes, and offers him an earnest expression. He takes the dog from the countryman and places the limp pooch on the operating table and begins feeling the dog’s throat, chest, and abdomen, James’s face a picture of concentration. His face a picture of concentration, that is, until it lights up upon finding something when feeling around the abdomen. He lets the countryman know his poor collie is going to be just fine. It’s just a little blockage, James tells him with an ecstatic grin. The countryman, a reserved and tough creature of the earth, throws up his arms in celebration and embraces James, thanking him over and over again. Embarrassed, James squirms out of the man’s grasp and tells him he has work to do and that he’ll have Erin fit as a fiddle in no time and that there will be no charge this time. The man, red-eyed and blubbering, continues to thank James while exiting the room.
It gets me every time.
And now I’m crying. I’m crying in some dank and seedy porn shop in an Uptown alleyway.
“It’s OK,” James says.
“It is?” I ask, looking up at the TV. James has approached the camera to make sure I understand he’s addressing me.
“Yes. It is. You can go now. This is no kind of place for you, anyway, is it, old chap?” James says with that winning smile.
“I suppose not,” I tell him, wiping away a tear.
“Go, before he sees you here,” James orders as the scene switches to Tristan drunk in a country pub, leering at a young woman who he’s fingering under the table. She has hold of his forearm, asking him to stop through tiny gasps, her eyes wide, her lips wet.
“Hey!” a voice shouts.
“James?” I say.
“Hey! You!” the voice shouts again.
I turn and it’s the lanky, long-haired man behind the counter. I wipe away the last tear and walk over to him.
“Yes?” I ask, looking up because the counter he’s behind is raised.
“None of that shit in here, man. If you’re too junked up, keep that shit outside, you hear me?” he says, leaning forward and nodding to accentuate his points.
“Huh?” I ask, unsure what the problem is.
“Look, did someone just run over your dog or something?”
“No. But that show—”
“Look, man, I don’t even care. There’s no crying or weird shit like that in here, OK?”
“It’s just that show you’re playing over there. That episode pulls at the heartstrings every time. I’m not usually this emotional, I promise.”
He pushes away from the counter and squints at the TV in the corner I had motioned to.
“Victorian Milkmaids, Doggy-Style?” he snips.
“Huh?”
“That TV has been playing Victorian Milkmaids, Doggy-Style for the last week and nothing else. That DVD brings a tear to your eye?”
Looking over my shoulder at the TV I see that the title he mentioned is appropriate.
“Um… yeah?” I offer.
“Alright, pal. Just keep it in check. We’re not trying to judge here but if you’re high as a kite or loony as a toon, I’m personally beating your ass so you remember you’re never welcomed back,” he tells me, swiping a DVD from the counter, which he opens to inspect while pivoting away from me.
“Uh… OK,” I say.
I wander among the shelves of DVDs and sex toys for a time, aimless, wondering why I’m not heeding James’s advice as these kinds of places really do sicken me. There’s just something keeping me here, under fluorescent bulbs that pop and crackle.
“Hey!”
I jump, extremely embarrassed for some reason, my face flushing so hot I fear I may pass out.
“Yes?” I ask, turning toward the clerk again.
“If you can’t find what you’re looking for in here, maybe you’ll find it in the basement,” he says, pointing to a blue-curtained doorway at the back of the room.
The curtain’s parting in front of me before I know it and I find myself walking down creaking steps that lead into another dark hall. False candles with red lightbulbs line the walls, marking entrances to rooms on both sides. On my right are six red velvet curtains keeping their spaces semi-private. On the left are three curtained-off spaces, giving me the impression the rooms there are probably much larger. The curtains on the left are also purple, gold, and green, in that order.
Not having noticed anyone else in the hallway, I’m nearly knocked down when a burly man in leather and chains storms past me and up the stairs into the video-rental room. I banged up against the wall when he passed and that seems to have cleared the cobwebs. I am now well aware of the sounds coming from the rooms: clanking metal; sticky skin smacking against sticky skin and peeling away; dull thuds, like something clubbing a side of beef; suction and sucking noises; slurping; unnhhs, ahhs, and ohhs from both men and women.
Then: SCREAMS. SCREAMS. SCREAMS.
Loud, piercing screams. Of a man.
I flinch and pivot on my heels, about to run back the way I came from, but before I do I hear that same voice beg, “More! More! Please! More, master!” leading me to understand no one is actually being murdered down here with a hacksaw or meat tenderizer.
It’s coming from the gold-curtained room on my left. I hazard a peek inside (just curious!) and see a skinny bald man with glasses standing straight up with his head and hands secured in what looks like a pillory—a wooden medieval torture device. He’s naked and receiving a good paddling from a tall, muscular woman with yellow pigtails wearing a rather smart business suit. I realize the woman is a man, and that the skinny guy is my coworker, Dennis, who always needs me to update his computer. His computer seems to have a lot of issues and now I wonder if he isn’t finding some way to download porn onto the machine. That stuff is loaded with viruses. Looking at him now, I assume he is too.
Bile builds at the back of my throat and a strange sensation in my stomach swirls as I watch my coworker, trapped in a torture device, get paddled. But I have a hard time yanking the golden curtain back into place. This is vile. Repugnant. I’m disgusted. I hope for no further interaction with Dennis at work. It would just be so awkward, even though he hasn’t noticed me here watching this atrocious exhibition. What could be wrong with this guy that he needs to pay some man to dress up as a woman and paddle him for… for fun? It just
makes no sense. I’m as tolerant and understanding as the next guy, but something must be wrong with a person like that. I’m not only disgusted by Dennis now, but kind of scared, and that embarrasses me. My face reddens again and my eyes water but I’m still watching Dennis getting thwacked over and over again, and he’s crying now behind his spectacles and smiling and saying “thanks thanks thanks.” The man-woman in yellow pigtails continues to swing away, shouting hoarsely, “You’re! Welcome!” with each smack.
I’m disgusted but I keep watching for what must be minutes as this man, a financial advisor, who has always seemed really boring and level-headed, continues to get throttled. I’m disgusted but I’m kind of hoping one swing of that paddle will split open the man’s skin and expose rose-red muscle, sinew, and blood. I wonder what kind of scream that would elicit…
I shake myself from that vision and feel shame.
The grunts and smacks and wet sounds from other rooms flood the hallway, bringing me back to some hellish, dark, red-lit zoo of carnal creatures bearing metal and leather limbs.
Peering behind a red velvet curtain on the right-hand side of the hallway, I expect to find a couple of bikers in leather chaps smacking around a lizard-lady with blackjacks or something. Instead, I spy a man on a short bench-seat receiving a brisk handjob from the bored looking woman with auburn hair kneeling before him. The room is about the size of a utility closet. She’s topless, wearing only black thong panties and black pumps. She’s looking away from me, at the opposite wall, saying things like, “Oh, yeah. There you go, baby. You’re so hard now, I can feel you pulsing in my hand. Hurry up and give me that come,” and so on. There’s a TV in the wall behind her playing the same video I saw at the entrance. The man’s not paying attention to that, though. He has his head back and eyes closed, which makes me wonder why he’s even paying for this instead of taking care of it in the privacy of his own home where no one would ever have to know it even happens.
Again, I have a hard time pulling my eyes away from this scene, though it sickens me on a level I haven’t felt in ages.
Flustered and out of breath, I finally pull away and fall against the opposite wall. Before I can stop myself, I’m peeking behind the green curtain and I see… mom and dad? They’re on a bare mattress left on the bare concrete floor in a bare room. They’re both bare-naked. They’re younger than they are. Mom’s on her back, head dangling off the mattress, and dad’s on top of her like a sinewy beast. His thin but strong form like braided hanger wire. His back’s arched, his movements spasmodic. Mom’s arm hangs off the mattress, the back of her hand on the floor, a prescription bottle and spilt blue-and-white pills just beyond her fingertips. Mom’s staring right at me. She sees me peeking, but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t even blink. She just stares at me with her cold eyes while dad labors above her. I want to ask what they’re doing. I want to ask why mom isn’t moving. I want to ask why they’re naked and flushed and sweaty. I’m confused. What is it they’re doing? WHAT ARE THEY DOING???
Is this how they made my brother? Is this how they made me? Is this… conception? Is this how life begins?
Then dad groans and grunts, looks up and sees me. His face veiny and wet. He peels off of mom, who doesn’t react, just lies there, staring at me. Dad stands, his pink penis long and thin, pointing at me. What’s wrong with it, I want to ask. Why does it look like that? What’s wrong with it? What’s wrong with mom? But before I get the words out he rushes at me like a wild boar, his face lined with anger, and I wail a high-pitched scream and leap back, slamming against the opposite wall. The green curtain billows from the charge of a ghost, but doesn’t part. I slap a hand over my mouth, my stomach twisted, my blood hurting, and peek through the curtain again. Mom and dad are no longer there. POOF. Just gone. An empty room.
I push away from the vacant room and vomit. It jets from me and splatters against the wall. I cough a few times, unconcerned that anybody should hear me, sickened enough that I don’t care if I’m caught. I lean over, one hand on the wall, and take a few deep breaths then wipe the vomit from the corners of my lips with a shaky hand.
No one saw me. No one has come out of their sex dungeons with whips and chains in hand ready to make the intruder pay for his trespasses.
I’ve had enough. This is absolutely disgusting. I don’t get it!
With stinging nostrils and watery eyes, I walk toward the stairs leading to the video-rental room when a yellow, wheeled bucket propelled by a mop-handle pushes through those blue curtains. And behind the bucket is Benoit, and he’s clunk-clunk-clunking that bucket down the steps, foul water sloshing over its brim.
Without thinking, I leap through the nearest curtain (the purple one) and thankfully find the room empty but for dozens of unlit candles, a massage table, and a standing surgical table lined with various scalpels, forceps, clamps, specula, injection needles, calipers, and retractors. They’re impeccably clean and even glint in what little light leaks into this room. It’s horrifying.
It takes me only a second to survey the room and meanwhile Benoit is walking past my slightly parted curtain, out in the red-lit hallway, pushing that big yellow mop-bucket in front of him. He’s wearing his black tracksuit and a zombie-like expression. It’s like he’s sleepwalking.
He stops where I upchucked, pulls a rag from his back pocket and a Windex bottle from his utility belt, and proceeds to wipe up the vomit there in a mechanical fashion.
The zoo sounds continue, and, now, actually, I swear someone is barking and someone else is hissing like a cat. Growls and grunts follow. Something like a goat bleating echoes LOUDLY throughout the area, ending with a wheezing choke, and I imagine someone in here is sacrificing the poor animal to Beelzebub, himself, bathing themselves in its blood before tearing into the helpless thing’s belly and filling their mouths with its slippery pink intestines, their eyes rolling back into their heads in some twisted idea of ecstasy.
Whoa, where’d that come from?
Now Benoit’s waiting in front of the gold-curtained room where I saw Dennis bound and paddled like a naughty schoolboy. I can just see Benoit through a parting of this purple curtain. He’s standing perfectly still, hand on mop-handle, staring at the curtained entryway a few feet in front of him with the affectless nature of a Tower of London guard.
Eventually a well-dressed couple exits the room, and not Dennis. The lady’s wearing exaggerated white high-heels and a glittery white gown. It’s cut short at mid-thigh, ideal for a night of clubbing. She’s quickly down the hall, up the stairs, and away. The man’s in a slim-fit black suit with white shirt and a black skinny tie. He stops in front of Benoit, looks him up and down, then slips a few bills into the breast pocket of his tracksuit, says, “Sorry about the mess, mate,” and jogs to catch up to his date. A legless man in a leather mask follows. Wearing only that mask and black speedos, he shuffles past Benoit, walking on his knuckles, his little stumps pointed forward, held off the ground. Benoit follows him to the end of the hallway and opens a black door there. A glowing blue rectangle appears. The legless man enters it and Benoit closes the door, extinguishing the glow, and returns to the gold-curtained room.
Animal noises of pain and pleasure and confusion continue to spiral down the corridor. Benoit pushes his bucket into the room the legless man had exited and I wait a few seconds to make sure that he, nor anyone else, is about to pop out from behind their curtain and see me escaping the surgery room I’m trapped in.
I slip out unnoticed up the stairs and into the video-rental room. A fat man in a Batman t-shirt and cargo shorts occupies the long-haired man and I escape that room with equal ease. The pierced, bald man in leather vest, chaps, and hat only nods and smirks from his stool near the front door as I exit. I’m surprised to stumble into a twilit alleyway, more time having passed than I knew.
When I finally get home (only three Red Line stops south) I immediately rush to the bathroom where I squirm out of my pants and yank on myself fiercely enough to break a sweat,
finishing three times before finally feeling sated. I did it in front of the medicine cabinet mirror, one hand bracing myself on the sink. Mostly I kept my eyes closed and thought about Katharine, but sometimes I stared myself in the eyes, my face red and perspiring, my teeth gritting, my eyes watering. While I tried hard to think only about Katharine and her bouncy hair and figure, she sometimes merged into the figures I saw in those vile rooms.
Pants back on and belted, I grab a wine glass and bottle of chardonnay from the fridge and retire to the bedroom, eager to avoid any contact with Benoit should he return tonight. Shame overcomes me and I drink the wine faster than I should. I’m sickened. What is wrong with those people? I put Robert Palmer’s At His Very Best on my iPod and sit on the side of my bed, staring out the window at dark branches and the glowing rooms in the brick building across the street, wondering if that fat birder is watching me. After more than a few glasses of chardonnay I feel sufficiently pooped and I say goodnight to this crazy world. Before blackness floods away any potential for dreams, I find myself wondering how Dennis found out about Fisters, how long he’s been going, and when I might be able to return to that awful place, myself.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 13.
“The truth is, I have amnesia,” Benoit half-whispers into my ear as if he’s telling me a lude joke. He’s sitting to my left at this dive bar, Joe’s on Broadway, about a block from the apartment. The bar’s wood-paneled walls are lined with local street signs, Christmas lights (no matter the season), mounted swordfish, chalkboards announcing drink specials, dart boards, Bulls and Cubs paraphernalia, antlers, and random nautical decorations like an anchor with the words “Free Beer Tomorrow” painted on it.
“Hey… hey, Joe,” I say, ignoring Benoit and leaning across the bar, grabbing at, and missing, the bartender. “Hey, Joe… Joe… Joe…” My head dips closer and closer to the faux-wood bar-top where my glass of whiskey and beer rest on coasters that say “Fuck NY” on them.
Y Is for Fidelity Page 8