You got our business card? Ruby said. You’re sure?
Sure, I said, and pulled the card from my side pocket, ROMEOMOVERS. SPIRIT SCHLEPPERS. DOG SHIT PARK.
Where’s the keys to the apartment? Ruby said.
I took my wallet out of my inside jacket pocket, and out of the side pocket of my wallet I pulled three big keys, one little key.
One for the outside door, two for the inside, Ruby said. The little one’s for the mailbox. Get a duplicate made. Give a set to somebody you trust. You can trust me, Ruby said, his smile. Keep the other set. Always remember, New Yorkers love only those who love themselves. Always put yourself first. Dress down for the subway. Get an answering machine. And remember, New Yorkers take pride in always knowing where they are. Buy a map. Always know where you are. If you don’t, act like you do.
Then: LA is the me city, Ruby said, and New York is the you city. In LA it’s fuck me. In New York it’s fuck you. Adopt the attitude. It’s all in the face. Mostly in the eyes.
Like this, Ruby said.
Ruby’s eyes were looking right at me, but they were more like looking through me: no smile, his lip curled up, his nostrils in and out.
New York drop-dead fuck-you, Ruby said. The attitude. Now you try it.
I made like I thought Ruby wanted me to look.
Pull your ball cap down, Ruby said. Look at me but don’t see me. No no no! Ruby said, and tapped each shoulder. No chip on your shoulder—somebody will try and knock it off. It’s passive, Ruby said. It’s like you’re already dead and you wish everybody else was dead too.
New York drop-dead fuck-you, Ruby said.
It takes practice, Ruby said.
Ruby picked up my duffel bag, slung it over his shoulder.
Want me to spend the night with you? Ruby said. First night of your crossover and all. I could help if there’s a problem. Ain’t easy fixing a center, Ruby said. Ruby’s smile.
No, I said. No, thanks. I’ll be fine.
Don’t get me wrong, Ruby said. It ain’t usual—Ruby pulled the brim of my ball cap back up—that I feel this way about a person, one that I just met.
Then: If it’s the gay cancer you’re worried about, Ruby said, We can just hold each other.
Inside Door of the Dead van, I bent and turned my head into True Shot’s mirrors. His shiny silver rings. The beaded blue horizontal and red vertical on the buckskin bag hanging on the buckskin strand, his red bandanna.
Ruby said, True Shot doesn’t have sex socially. It would be just me.
No, I said. Thanks.
Then: I can carry the duffel bag, I said.
Ruby let my duffel bag drop.
I don’t mean to freak you out, man, Ruby said, And I’m not irresponsible. Just lonely. And Einstein’s the sexiest man ever, next to Martin Luther King, Jr. And when I saw you at the airport, standing alone in the fluorescence, checking for your wallet, I don’t know what the fuck happened to me.
It was just so human how you were, Ruby said. Ruby’s smile.
I was wounded by a blow of love, Ruby said.
My heartbeat at my ears was a siren.
Then my lips were flying lips against Ruby’s. Ruby’s lips were soft, his breath was cigarettes and beer and the sweet smell of his soul. We kissed big, a deep kiss like in the movies, my hands in his hair, down his back, and onto his ass.
But it’s not the truth.
Thanks, I said, For the ride. For everything.
ALL DODGES SOUND the same when you start them up.
Vaya con Dios, True Shot said.
Happy Trails! Ruby said. Until we meet again!
Keep smiling until then was the song in my head as I put the key in the door of 205 East Fifth Street. Down the street, Door of the Dead van turned right on Third Avenue. True Shot shifted into second, and just like that the Dodge van was gone. I turned the key and pushed the steel door and I was inside, under the unrelenting fluorescent halo in the hallway.
APARTMENT I-A WAS on my right. It took me awhile in the bright to find the right key. Just as I turned the key in the top lock, the door behind me, I-C, opened up as far as the chain allowed. A cat tried to jump out the door, but a foot in a dirty fluffy pink slipper kicked it. The cat yowled and ducked back in. The woman stuck the cat she was holding in her hand out the door first, before she stuck her own self out. This cat was a longhaired yellow and looked at me with the New York drop-dead fuck-you.
What I first saw about the woman was her blue shower hat and the Kleenex under the elastic part of the shower hat. Then her eyebrows: two red swoops exactly the way in my mother’s penmanship how she crossed her T’s: too fancy. Then it was Scotch I smelled, and cigarettes. Scotch and cigarettes and cat shit and kitty litter.
Mrs. Lupino came together all at once as herself when she spoke. You knew all about her with that voice, deep as a lava flow, soft as mud.
You Ellen’s cowboy? Mrs. Lupino said. The one that’s moving in?
Ellen? I said. How do you know about Ellen?
She told me about you, Mrs. Lupino said. Everything.
The one from potato country? Mrs. Lupino asked.
From Idaho, I said. Yes.
Mrs. Lupino’s hand on the yellow cat was liver spots and pink Lee Press-On nails.
Then do it! Mrs. Lupino said.
Do it? I said.
What you do with the cigarettes, she said.
I put down my duffel bag and my suitcase. Rolled a cigarette with one hand like I can, handed the cigarette through the opening in the door. Mrs. Lupino took the cigarette, pink Lee Press-On nails, liver spots, put the cigarette in between her lips, wrinkles all around her lips, no lipstick. I lit Mrs. Lupino’s cigarette.
Watch for my babies because I’m opening the door, she said, and closed the door, undid the chain, and opened the door again. Cats everywhere.
Upstairs, another door opened, and at the top of the stairs stood a person and then a little dog, a terrier, who started yapping, then a bigger dog, then an old dog, limping, with spots. There was no light on the second-story landing, and I couldn’t see who was standing at the top of the stairs. The person was big and wearing a long robe, that’s all I could tell, except I knew this person was black.
Things start where you don’t know.
That person was Rose, Rose and his dogs, Mona, Mary, and Jack Flash. Bracelets, lots of bracelets, the clack-clack of them.
Rose upstairs, Ruby just gone around the corner. The closest those two ever got. Except for in me.
It’s all right, Rose! Mrs. Lupino called sing-songy up the stairs. This is Ellen’s cowboy. You remember Ellen telling us about her cowboy?
The voice from the second landing was a real deep James Earl Jones.
Which one? Rose said. There were so many.
Oh, Rose! Mrs. Lupino laughed. The cowboy—you know the one. The one from potato country.
The grilled salmon and the Pinot Gris and the limp dick? Rose said.
Mrs. Lupino inhaled on the cigarette. Wrinkles around her lips, all smiles at me.
Yes, Mrs. Lupino said, That’s the one!
The pain starts in my forearms, then goes up my arms, then splashes down through my heart, a cattle prod straight to my cock.
Nice cats, I said.
Cats! What cats? Mrs. Lupino said, eyebrows into Kleenex. There’s no cats.
From the deep voice on the second landing: Mrs. Lupino got rid of all her cats.
Every one of them, Mrs. Lupino said. All around her lips, wrinkles, wrinkles.
Every single cat, she said. Not one fucking iota of a single fucking cat left.
There were three cats in the hall. Mrs. Lupino was holding the yellow fuck-you drop-dead cat, and there were cats at Mrs. Lupino’s feet, cats running behind her inside her apartment.
No cats, I said.
No cats already! Mrs. Lupino said, and made a click with her tongue. Just like that, the cats in the hallway all ran back into the apartment. Mrs. Lupino closed her door.
&nb
sp; My eyes counted up thirteen blue linoleum steps to the second floor.
This is, I said loud, The right apartment? I said pointing to I-A.
Ellen Zigman’s apartment, I said. Right?
My mother’s nerves.
Clavelle, the deep voice said. She got married. Her name is now Ellen Clavelle.
Right, I said, Clavelle. This is her apartment? Ellen Clavelle’s apartment?
You’ve got it wrong, the deep voice said. Mrs. Lupino is in Ellen’s old apartment, I-C. It’s hers now. The landlord, Ellen’s uncle, gave her Ellen’s apartment when Mrs. Lupino got rid of her cats. Your apartment is Mrs. Lupino’s old apartment—I-A—and it’s the door to your right.
We’re neighbors, Mrs. Lupino said through her closed door. Then: ’Night, Rose, she called out, sing-songy.
Good night, Mrs. Lupino, the deep voice up the stairs said—bracelets, lots of bracelets, clack-clack—and then Rose at the top of the stairs was gone, and the dogs, and I heard the door close, and then each of the three locks were locked, just as Mrs. Lupino locked her three locks, then the chains.
In all the world, in a narrow blue hallway, there I was standing alone, squinting in the unrelenting fluorescence.
ONE-A. THE OTHER key unlocked the bottom lock. The last turn of the key on the bottom you had to push the door. The steel door opened into dark.
Cat shit. Cat piss. Cat spray. Cat hair. Cat food. Cat litter.
To the wall on the right, I reached my hand into the dark. Turned the light on.
A bright box. More fluorescent halos. Unrelenting, the light from above.
Home.
THAT’S WHEN IT happened: the worst possible thing. My wallet was not in my inside jacket pocket. Not in my side pockets, my back pockets, not in the front pockets of my Levi’s. Not in the suitcase with the travel stickers on it, not in my backpack, not in the duffel bag. No wallet.
Not in the narrow blue hallway on the floor.
Not on any of the eleven cast-iron steps of the stoop, not on the sidewalk, not in the gutter, not in the street.
Door of the Dead van pulled up. True Shot shifted into second, put on the brakes. Ruby’s ponytail, his arm out the window.
Lose something? Ruby hollered.
My wallet! I hollered back. I’ve lost my wallet!
The red-yellow hair on Ruby’s arm. Inside the van True Shot’s mirrors, his shiny silver rings. I put my head in close, my body not so close.
My wallet’s gone, I said.
That’s because I stole it, Ruby said. Ruby’s smile.
Ruby handed me my wallet.
In all the world, in New York City on East Fifth Street, standing in the rectangle of earth where I’d plant the cherry tree, I stood looking at my wallet in my hands.
You stole my wallet? I said. Why did you steal my wallet?
Dumb question, Ruby said. For the five hundred and ninety-three dollars, for the traveler’s checks, for the cashier’s check.
In my wallet: five hundred-dollar bills, the other bills, the traveler’s checks, the cashier’s check.
It is this way, True Shot said. Ruby stole your wallet because you asked him to.
But that’s the last thing, I said, I wanted!
Ruby’s eyes were looking right at me, but they were more like looking through me. No smile, his lip curled up, and his nostrils went in and out.
New York drop-dead fuck-you.
Ruby winked.
When you don’t want something as much as you didn’t want your wallet to get stole that means only one thing, Ruby said.
Your worst fears, True Shot said.
That’s what’s important about Wolf Swamp and why you’ve come here, Ruby said. You can’t want anything or not want anything that much.
Now that you’re in Wolf Swamp, True Shot said, Now that you’ve come because you were afraid to come—
You’re in a whole new ball game, Ruby said. Crossed over. You got to be careful in a whole ’nother way of what you want and what you don’t want. What you fear.
Before, you were afraid of your fears happening and you spent all your time making sure they didn’t happen, True Shot said. Now that you’ve crossed over, you’re spending all your time making sure they do.
Hell of a fix, Ruby said.
Up Shit Creek, True Shot said.
In a world of hurt, Ruby said.
If you go around checking your wallet every goddamn minute like a goddamn fool, Ruby said, Then you, William of Heaven, are destined for New York Fucking City fucking roadkill.
Then: Did you lock yourself out? Ruby asked.
My hands went quick all over all my pockets, and my keys were in my right side pocket. I held my keys up and showed them to Ruby and True Shot.
I’ll bet you left your apartment door open, Ruby said. Never leave your apartment door open!
All Dodges sound the same when you start them up. Blue smoke everywhere. True Shot shifted into first.
Adios, amigo! Ruby said. Don’t let the motherfuckers get you down!
It’s the Puritan undertow, Ruby said, What we got to look out for.
The van took off, True Shot shifting into second.
Ruby was singing, True Shot was singing:
Fools rush in where wise men never go,
But wise men never fall in love,
So how are they to know?
When we met I felt my life begin was what I was singing this time, standing on East Fifth Street, somewhere between Second and Third—in the rectangle of dirt where I’d plant the cherry tree, my wallet in my hands, holding on to my wallet.
* * *
ELLEN WAS A New Yorker and a Jew, a counselor with Outward Bound who came to Jackson Holeewood with kids who’d never been out of the city. I walked into Cowboy Bar and there was Ellen straddling a saddle at the bar. Big bush of black hair with combs and scarves and chopsticks in it. Her heart-shaped butt in designer jeans snug in the saddle.
As soon as Ellen saw my dog, she fell in love. More women fell in love with Crummy Dog than I can tell you. So it wasn’t long before Ellen and I were bellied up to the bar, sitting on the saddles, Crummy Dog on the saddle in between, Ellen and I doing what she called Boilermakers and what I called In the Ditch, which was shots of Crown Royal backed by Heineken for her, Coors for me, Coors not for her politically, she said.
Somewhere in there, I took the Bull Durham from my shirt pocket and, with one hand like I can, started rolling a cigarette. Ellen asked me to roll her a cigarette too, so I rolled her a cigarette, then lit the cigarette for her. Ellen inhaled, then spit tobacco.
I suppose if I asked you to wrestle down a steer for me, you could do that too, Ellen said.
Fuckin’ A, I said.
What is this shit? Ellen said. I mean, where does this western shit stop?
Ellen’s mouth was moving extra for the amount of her words, and a big hank of hair with a chopstick in it was hanging down over her ear.
It all seems so movie, so stereo . . . typical, Ellen said. So fake.
Tourist Town, I said. Robert Goulet right down the road.
Oh, God, I’m in Camelot! Ellen said. Cowboy Camelot!
Jackson Holeewood, I said.
I can’t tell you how funny Ellen and I were just then, so funny that man and woman went away between us, and there we were in all the world, just two people laughing.
THAT SEPTEMBER, 1982, Ellen stayed on an extra week. We went backpacking in the Tetons. Fresh salmon on the grill, Pinot Gris in the wineglasses, her nipples through her halter top, Ellen said love on Jenny’s Lake. I said no to sex.
All hat and no cowboy.
My belt buckle the tombstone for my dead dick.
At the Jackson Hole airport, Ellen and I parted friends. Then my dog got run over by a car. I wrote Ellen a letter, told her about Crummy Dog, and proposed a Christmas visit to New York City, thinking as I wrote her, Maybe I should say Chanukah visit. Thinking as I wrote down her address on the envelope—205 East Fifth Street—
that I didn’t know East Fifth from West Fifth, didn’t know the five boroughs from the seven wonders of the world, shit from Shinola. Didn’t know what was important, what wasn’t.
Chanukah, for Ellen, however, was Monsieur Maurice Clavelle, wedding bells, the Arc de Triomphe, the Tour Eiffel, and Paris, France. Maurice Clavelle was a man she could fuck marry.
Back in Jackson Holeewood, I enrolled in French class and a correspondence course in fine wines called Vin et Vous.
That spring, Ellen wrote a letter back, offering her everlasting friendship, and something else.
Her Manhattan apartment—$650 a month. Ellen’s uncle owned the building.
You need to come east, Ellen wrote, To the center of things. Start a new life. Get some sophistication. What are you so fucking afraid of?
IN 205 EAST Fifth Street, I-A, I turned off the unrelenting fluorescence from above and closed and locked the door behind me. My strange footsteps in my damp, wall-stained, cat-spray home. I opened the kitchen window, stripped down to my T-shirt and shorts, rolled a cigarette, leaned out into the hot August Wolf Swamp night.
Outside was a courtyard. Four brick walls went up five and six stories, the brick walls at the top, where there’s more weather, faced with a layer of mortar. Below the line of mortar, the bricks made a dull red grid, chinked, sagging, settled. The windows were barred, were broken, were cacti and suffocating philodendron-pressed, plastic-flowered, window-fanned, were open, closed, filthy, were clean red-and-white checkered curtains. The fire escapes rusted zigzags, cat perches, meat-frying Hibachi stands, catchalls. A patch of city light a diagonal down the side of a building.
In the kitchen, I slid my fingers through a drawer of leftover stuff. A thumbtack tacked itself to my thumb. The kitchen light was an unrelenting halo of fluorescence when I turned it on. I stood right under the bright halo, put the thumbtack between my teeth, opened my blue Velcro wallet, found the folded newspaper clipping.
My fingers unfolded the newspaper clipping, the sound, and then the newspaper clipping was in my hand, against my open palm.
On the wall, on the tobacco-yellow kitchen wall, next to the window, I pushed Charlie 2Moons’s photo onto the plaster with the thumbtack, blew the plaster powder off with my breath. My fingers smoothing smoothing the newsprint, the photo out flat.
In the City of Shy Hunters Page 4