Vanishing Rooms

by Melvin Dixon

  “Like who?”

  “Gays, Jews. Even poor boys from the South. Don’t you think we have some weight to bear? Don’t you think we hurt sometimes?”

  “You’re white, Metro. At a distance you blend in with the crowd. Shit, they can see me coming, and in a riot they don’t stop me to ask if I’ve been to college or live in the suburbs. They start beating any black head they find.”

  “So you take it out on me.”

  “You’ve got nothing to do with it.”

  “Oh, yes, I do. You really think every white person is responsible. So you say no when I want to hold you. And when you make me think you’re spending the night with me, you say no again so I’ll feel rejection and loss. Shit, Jesse, you can’t say yes, can you? Yes, you love me. Yes, we screw together. Yes, we’re lovers. And yes, we’re faggots. Two faggots. That’s what we are.”

  My hands swelled into fists. My chest got so tight I could barely draw breath. I stood perfectly still.

  “You want to hit me? Go on and hit me,” Metro said. He stood directly in front. I could feel his breath on my skin. “Go on, hit me.”

  My face burned, then my eyes. I couldn’t stop the tears. He lifted his arms and held me tight. Tighter than anyone had ever held me. Tighter than I knew I could ever hold myself. My chest relaxed. Air escaped my lungs in a long low sound.

  “Time stops here,” Clementine said, his mouth at my ear. “I’m old as sin, you know. Old as you’ll be someday.”

  “But I won’t be here.”

  “If you’re lucky, perhaps. Most of us aren’t so lucky. You’ll come back like I do because this place will remind you of something or someplace or somebody.”

  “Metro?”

  “Maybe me.”

  “Come on, Clementine.”

  “Or you’ll remember yourself. Who you really are.”

  “I’m Jesse. I was named after Jessica.”

  “Tell him. The guy fondling your balls.”

  “I don’t see him.”

  “You feel it, don’t you?”

  “The metal bars? The prison?”

  “Desire rising. Your muscles going slack. Ass twitching. Balls aching to let go.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “You know what you are?”

  “Jesse. Jesse Durand.”

  “What does that mean? Jesse?”

  “Boys named after their mothers are different.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No.”

  “What about Metro?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “And who killed him, Jesse? Who killed him inside? Who treated him like shit until he couldn’t stand his own smell?”

  “Not me. It wasn’t me.”

  “No, Jesse?”

  Clementine laughed a long and deep belly laugh.

  “I’m getting out of here.”

  “Not until you’ve been to Paradise.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Up. All the way up.”

  I fingered my way through the darkness and followed the gleam from the metal bars to the hall light. I went up the stairs to the next level that had no number. I opened the door, and found myself in a gym with mirrors. Metal apparatus and weights and mirrors everywhere. Men in shiny gym shorts and thick socks, bulging groins, biceps, thighs, and thin waists. Barbells, universal gyms, scales, exercise mats stood ready like dance partners for aspiring musclemen. Clementine tugged at my towel. “You can tone up those muscles in here if you want. You gotta be strong for the next level. Real strong.”

  “I don’t need it,” I said. “I’m going straight up.”

  “Level seven? Paradise? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  At first I didn’t notice anything different about level seven except for the carpeted hallway and the single corridor. But there were only four doors leading to the rooms, not the usual twelve or fifteen on a floor. And why call this level Paradise? Was it more than just a name for a bathhouse? There was only one way to find out. But I couldn’t decide which door to open first. I started with the closest one, just in case I needed a quick exit.

  I eased the door open. Suddenly light, blinding light from what seemed like a row of high-intensity bulbs against mirrored walls. I staggered, and when I could see clearer I saw a king-size bed with disheveled white sheets and two white bodies coupling furiously. On the wall in every direction was the repeated image of the two men coupling, 360 degrees of it. Even the floor was mirrored, and the image kept repeating and repeating as if it extended into infinity. The men locked in each other’s arms seemed to be enjoying immortality as much as each other. The multiplication of images and light gave me a headache. I closed the door.

  The second room was decorated like an army barracks. Metal bunk beds and olive green footlockers filled the floor space. Against the far wall were rifles and military uniforms hanging by nails and hangers. From somewhere in the ceiling a Sousa march was piped in on tape with the sound of men calling out cadence. The burnt smell of ammunition was in the air. I noticed movement on the bunk beds and around the footlockers. Men dressed in uniform gathered close to me. No one spoke but I figured I could join them if I put on one of the uniforms. I remained by the door. The light from the hallway must have disturbed some because they looked at me with scorn. “Close the door, Private,” someone said. “Close the fucking door.”

  A hand behind me closed it. When my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting inside I saw men fondling empty black boots and rifles. A man in uniform lay above another, but by the movement of their hands and mouths they appeared to be making love to the olive-drab fatigues, the steel-toed boots, the insignia rather than the men inside them. Someone started shouting commands. Another was marching in place, his eyes straight, lifeless. A voice above him: “And you, Private, what makes you think you got what it takes to be an officer?”

  “Nothing, sir!”

  I watched him go to his knees, his hands grabbing desperately at another man’s pants, but it was the pants themselves he was after, their smell of sweat and fatigue.

  “Where’s you uniform, Private?”

  I inched backwards toward the door. I prayed it would open.

  “Where’s your uniform, Private?” Then louder, “Hey, guys, he ain’t got no uniform.” Suddenly several pairs of eyes focused on me. I cracked open the door. A hand nearby blocked it. “Let the sergeant pass,” I said in a deep voice. The darkness hid enough of my nakedness to enlarge my voice. I said again, louder, “Let the sergeant pass.”

  The door opened. I was in the hallway again. Safe.

  The next room was a real prison cell. Beyond the open door was a grillwork of metal bars that swung freely open. Inside were more bars and a single window high above an open toilet. Graffiti in spray paint and magic markers covered the walls. The cell had a real lock and pairs of handcuffs hanging from one wall. There was a single bed and it was empty. Loose plaster dusted the floor. Several holes appeared in the wall’s baseboard as if someone had tried to dig his way out or a rat was boring his way in. The room was empty, chilling in its openness. The silence took on character. I couldn’t stay much longer than the few minutes it took to survey the scene. I stepped back toward the door and eased it shut. Then I heard a sound like someone crying. I looked inside again. The crying became louder, then short of breath and rapid like the breather was mounting or straining against a difficult obstacle. I could see nothing. Then the chill of silence. I closed the door and walked to the last room on the hall. The moaning continued in my mind.

  The last room was decorated like a college dorm room, complete with a plaid bedspread on the single bed and football pennants tacked to the wall. Light came from a desk lamp. Textbooks lay open on the wooden desk. Next to the desk and bed was a small bookcase with notebooks and papers piled loosely on the top and bottom shelves. On the desk was an empty picture frame for stills of Mom and Dad and the family dog. I walked further into the room. The place was warm and inviting. It was as if I had actually been
in that space before. I looked through the papers and books. I tested the bed, then lay down. From the hall light filling the open door, I saw a figure come toward me and stop. It was Clementine. How long he had been following me, I couldn’t tell. But I felt more at case, relaxed. He didn’t enter. The light blocked a clear view of his face, but I felt him smiling, laughing.

  “I see you found yours, huh, Jesse?”

  “My what?”

  “Fantasy Room.”

  “I thought this was Paradise.”

  “That’s what they all think—”

  “That paradise is fantasy, you mean, or is it the other way around?”

  “Yes, until it comes true.”

  “Then it’s no longer fantasy, right?”

  “You see the real horror of it.”

  “How do I get out of here, Clementine?” I asked. I wasn’t even alarmed. This room seemed so much safer than the others. So much like something I already knew.

  “When the time comes, you’ll leave.”

  I was already getting sleepy on the bed. “When’s that?” I said drowsily.

  “Good night, Jesse,” he said.

  “You’re going?”

  “You found yours. Now I’m going to get mine, like I do every Wednesday when I don’t have people like you to look after. Shit, they should put me on the payroll.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind.”

  “I won’t be back, you know, after this.”

  “That’s what I said, Jesse. And that was a long time ago. Shall I close the door now?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m all right.”

  The door eased shut and I lay there waiting in the half-dark. I followed the stream of light coming from the desk lamp and noticed books I hadn’t seen before. One was a copy of the Norton Anthology I remembered from English literature class. I pulled it from the shelf and thumbed through the pages from the back. My eyes got heavy, tired. I replaced the book and turned down the bedspread. I lay flat and naked across the sheets. I was waiting. And I waited and waited and waited until sleep or the waiting itself would bring Metro back alive.

  “Why do you call me Metro? It’s not my real name.”

  “You were in France once.”

  “But why Metro?”

  “Quick travel underground.”

  “But do you love me?”

  No one thought it odd that we marched together for graduation. We were known to be good friends, both English majors. No one suspected we were anything more than that, not even when we argued about the dance and ended our fight by walking hand in hand across campus. Or when he left me in front of the all-night reserve room of the library and I walked alone back to the dorm. But before I got there I found myself leaning against the corrugated trunk of an oak tree and crying from all my weaknesses, all my fears. I didn’t fear our discovery, I feared our loss and my own obstinacy about holding on to him as best I could. Maybe it was a triumph I felt later when we donned cap and gown and marched together through the Wesman gates. We were finished there, but our slow march away was also the commencement of another life, a life we hadn’t dared to discuss before, until someone saw us: Vester Johnson from Mississippi, all six feet of him.

  Someone crowded the light from the door left ajar. I thought it was Clementine again. “No,” I said, but the figure remained in place. I saw his hand frame the door, then a head poke inside. I didn’t recognize the face.

  “You’re late for class,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Your eight o’clock chemistry class. You’ll miss the lab instructions. You’ll need a partner for the experiment.”

  “Huh?”

  “And your library books. They’re overdue. I’ve come to collect them.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Hey, College Boy, you going to the sorority dance? Or you want to have a mixer right here? Who won the football game? You got the score?”

  “Get lost, will you?”

  “Come on, College Boy, roll over. Let me give your footballs a cheer. Fe, fi, fo, fum, we’re on top and number one! Catch that pass, up your ass, rah, rah, rah!”

  “Get the fuck out of here!”

  “Shit,” he said, closing the door shut. “Now I gotta go play Army with those other guys. Or prison, and I don’t want that.”

  Like Vester, I said to myself. Vester who saw us and wanted some for himself. He worked in the campus stationery store and changed his voice every semester to hide his Mississippi accent. He said things like “Gosh” and “Wow-ee” and pretended to be from Scarsdale where people used words like “indubitably.” He used to say how he could have gone to Harvard but chose Wesman instead. Once I heard him tell someone from White Plains that he was an abandoned child and was raised by wealthy foster parents in Scarsdale. The family car this year, he said, would be a Seville. Once he saw Metro and me together, he tried to pretend he was from New York City. He asked me to his room once for smoke and drinks. While we were listening to music and getting drunk, he pressed my hand to his groin. I took it away.

  “Did I do that?” he said the next day. “Really?” “Really,” I said.

  “Gosh, I mean, how could I do something like that. I’m shocked!”

  “I’m not,” I said, standing in the doorway to his room. People from other rooms down the hall must have heard us.

  “Indubitably,” he said.

  Two days later in the campus dining hall he told me the truth. Metro was with me but was as uncertain as I was about Vester’s intentions. You could never tell what Vester was actually thinking or what he would do.

  “Well, yes, I should tell you,” Vester said, cutting his roast beef into neat thin strips. “To be honest. Really,” he added, stretching both vowels and consonants in another voice. He chewed a small cube slowly as if to find his words in the meat. His voice assumed an artificial dignity, a pose, munching each word. “You see, Jesse. And your friend there, too.” He poured gravy over the potatoes and mixed it in.

  “Me?” said Metro.

  “Yes, you.” Vester wouldn’t call his name, or look directly at him. But his eyes tried to hold mine. I turned away.

  “You see, Jesse. I never get so drunk or so high that I don’t know what’s happening around me.” He paused, the meat tiny in his mouth. “Or what I’m doing.”

  Metro’s back stiffened instantly. I could feel his heat and mine.

  “And remember afterwards, too. Everything,” Vester continued, more sure of himself with the action of the knife and teeth on meat. “I guess in the long run, I’m immune to most herb or alcohol. I’ve been smoking much longer than you have. You see, Jesse, people have been asking me about you. They’ve been curious. But not just about you. Your friend, too.” He still never said Metro’s name. “But I couldn’t tell them because I wasn’t quite sure myself. You can’t be sure just because someone walks or talks a certain way. So I said I honestly didn’t know. But they thought that since we lived in the same dorm last year, and for the whole year, I would most certainly know. But to be quite honest, I didn’t know.”

  I listened without saying a word. Metro tried to eat. By Metro’s slow motions I could tell that the food had suddenly lost its taste. My mouth was dry, too dry for words.

  “You see, Jesse, when I want to find out something about a person, I’ll do anything to find it out. I’d thought about asking you, but I knew it would be too easy for you to lie. And I simply just had to know.”

  My lips seemed to crack. I didn’t know what Metro was thinking then, but I was scared and worried for both of us. I looked at Vester, straight at him. His eyes pierced me like the words from his round face.

  “I had to know. And when I found out what I wanted to know, Jesse,” and then Vester looked sharply at Metro, then back to me, “I was disgusted.”

  “Disgusted? But I didn’t do anything,” I said.

  Vester rose from the table.
His plate was half-empty. He kicked back the chair and stood tall. I could only stare in disbelief. I had done nothing. He walked stiffly to another table. Metro also stared after him, then at me. Metro made only the simplest gestures for control; looking at his food, fingering his throat. We said nothing. Silence was all we ate.

  “Why do you call me Metro?”

  “You were in France. Once.”

  “Why do you call me Metro?”

  “You’ve been places where I want to go.”

  “Why do you call me Metro?”

  “Take me, baby. Take me underground.”

  “Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?” Another knock at the door. “Go away.”

  “It’s me—Clementine. You all right in there?”

  “Yes. I’m all right.”

  “I thought I heard you crying.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Good, because when I come back, I’m gonna be greased and ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “Don’t you know by now?”

  I rolled on my side away from the door. The picture frames on the desk were empty, the football pennants torn. The open textbook: Jon-Michael Barthé, ’75. Not Metro. But then he didn’t know who I was, either. Not after commencement and his trip back home to Louisiana.

  “Why this apartment, Jesse?”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “There’s hardly any room.”

  “There’s room enough.”

  “Why this neighborhood, Jesse?”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “Why grow your hair so long? Why the Afro pick in the bathroom? Why are all the criminals in the streets black? Why are we in New York?”

  “I’m here to dance.”

  “I’m scared, Jesse. I’m really scared. I hate taking the subways. I hate working at night. I hate their dark faces. They’re just too dark, too black.”

  “Like looking straight into a subway tunnel? Afraid you won’t get out?”

  “I’m scared, Jesse.”

  I held him tight in my arms that night. He was pale, thin, and more nervous than I remembered him being before. He seemed to change there in my arms into someone more fragile, more vulnerable, as if the night was wearing him down and the gray, thick asphalt was draining him daily. I kissed him. I kissed him everywhere: forehead, eyes, nose, lips, neck, nipples, navel, and there. I held him tight. His penis responded to my wet caresses, and I kissed it again and again. Metro held me, his thighs tight, his fingers knotting my hair. His moan, my moan, some kind of song from his deep chest and mine. But it wasn’t a song and his chest wasn’t filling with desire or love that could hold safety and assurance for us. It wasn’t that, but his teeth edging like a razor on one word: “Nigger.”