Second rule, Rose said. You’ve got to be one to get one. Now you got one.
The Jews have their mezuzahs, Rose said, The Catholics their crucifixes, Native Americans their eagle feathers. It’s a totem, Rose said, Something outside you to remind you that you have what it takes.
Rule number four, Rose said. Law of the jungle, Rose said. You have to have an object so you can treat your struggle as if it were outside.
Then: Ceci nest pas une pipe, Rose said.
That French? I said.
It is, Rose said. Magritte, to be exact. Magritte stunned the art world by a simple painting of a pipe, on which, Rose said, were the words: Ceci n’est pas une pipe.
This is not a pipe, Rose said.
Rose’s long black index pointed at the erect pink penis in my hands.
But in this case, Ceci n’est pas un penis, c’est une pipe, Rose said.
I set down the erect pink penis that wasn’t a penis on the brass table.
Where did you get it? I said.
Randolph Scott had it, Rose said. In a lunch box.
All the while I’d been sitting there, every once in a while Rose’s eyes went off and stared at something behind me. At first I thought maybe Rose had the kind of eyes that don’t focus, so when they’re looking at you they’re not looking at you, but then I turned around to see what it was behind me and it was a painting of Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra.
Just above Rose’s armchair, on the south wall, was a photograph of Elizabeth Taylor the way she looked in the wedding gown in Father of the Bride.
All around the room, everywhere you looked, photos and paintings of Elizabeth Taylor.
So, Rose? I said. You’re really into Liz.
Rose rolled just his eyes up to heaven. His shoulders went up and his chin went down, bracelets clack-clack.
Rule number five, Rose said. Never call Elizabeth Taylor Liz.
That’s when Rose, sitting in his purple-velvet overstuffed armchair, his huge yellow Moroccan shoes crossed, feet up on the brass table; Rose’s red, black, and green African skirt gathered at his knees, the black skin of his ankles, calves, knees, the bottom part of his huge black thighs, exposed; the dozen red roses, the paperback Antigone, the two-gallon jug with the amber liquid, the Dwight D. Eisenhower ashtray, the Randolph Scott lunch box; Rose a Gauloise in one hand and his VSOP Baccarat crystal glass in the other—that’s when Rose said this important, this beautiful, this incredible thing:
I am very shy, Rose said.
And so is Elizabeth, Rose said. In fact, Elizabeth Taylor is the only person in the world shyer than I.
Most people misconstrue this for standoffishness, Rose said, But it is not. It is social terror, Rose said. The Shy Hunter is terrified that others will destroy the truth within his heart, Rose said, And so the Shy Hunter armors himself.
No one surprises a Shy Hunter, Rose said. Not even death, because the Shy Hunter has covered his ass and, thus armored, he watches and waits and studies meticulously, hunting the world for prey.
Then all at once, just like that, Rose squared his shoulders to mine and leaned forward over the brass tabletop. He put his open palm on his chest.
Prey not in the sense of devouring or murder, Rose said, But prey in the sense of hunting for the sore truths within another human heart. Prey for truth, Rose said.
The serpent in Rose’s eyes.
The sore truth which is in your heart, Rose said. So that I may uncover mine.
The blonde fainting on the blonde-fainting couch, I leaned back, crossed my legs, clutched a batik emerald-green satin pillow, and laid the pillow in my lap.
It is the best of combinations, Rose said. The Shy and the Hunter.
Elizabeth Taylor, Rose said, Is impeccably shy and an impeccable hunter. She is quintessential. When Elizabeth finds someone true, it is simply divine to watch her move. Have you ever watched Elizabeth move?
She is a better dancer than Rita Hayworth, Rose said, And a better singer than Marilyn Monroe. They made Rita Hayworth dance, made Marilyn sing, but Elizabeth Taylor, you notice, never had to do such silly things as sing and dance. From the very beginning, all Elizabeth had to do was be Elizabeth.
Rose put a rabbit turd of Sho-ko-lat into the erect pink penis, lit the rabbit turd, sucked in, sucked in again, and then handed the erect pink penis to me and I sucked in the hashish smoke, so much sweeter than marijuana, started coughing right off, and handed the erect pink penis back to Rose. Rose took two hits—Never more than two, Rose said—and then he took two more. Rose sucked the smoke into his lungs and then talked like you do when you’re holding smoke in your lungs. Rose said he never did more than two hits because Sho-ko-lat always made him think too damn much and he couldn’t sleep, or else he’d get just too too too wild and he would have to put his heels on and go out and generally make a goddamned fool of himself.
After about his seventh hit on the smoke was when Rose told me that not only was Elizabeth Taylor the most beautiful woman in the world but the kindest too. Rose said he didn’t like to talk about it too too too much because people always thought he was trying to put on airs. Rose said he could give a fuck about what people thought, but he still felt a little funny talking about her, Elizabeth Taylor.
When I went to take the pipe from Rose, Rose held on. I had the balls, Rose had the head.
The black serpent in Rose, in his eyes, ready to spit.
My eyes wanted to look somewhere else, but I couldn’t. I was the rabbit in the headlights.
I think, Rose said, I can trust you.
Rose’s fingers came up the lovely erect pink penis. The Sahara Desert on the inside of his index and third fingers touched my fingers.
Which has been blowing my mind away, Rose said, Because I have never trusted anyone as fast or as much as I have come to trust you—except for her.
Rose let go of the lovely erect pink penis head, sat back in his purple-velvet overstuffed chair, and crossed his legs.
The lovely erect pink penis was still where Rose had left it, in my hand, by the balls.
So, Rose said, I have decided I am going to go ahead and just be who I am with you.
I stuck the lovely erect pink penis in my mouth and sucked.
And something, Rose said, That has very much to do with who I am is that I am best friends with Elizabeth Taylor.
AFTER THAT, ROSE quit talking for a while. Actually, I don’t know if that’s really the truth. I don’t know if Rose quit talking or not, because with the Sho-ko-lat you just go away somewhere and watch how you are—not on the premises, nowhere, not here—well, that’s what I was doing when I was thinking that Rose had quit talking. Maybe he hadn’t, I don’t know, but when I came back I was looking at Rose and thinking about the dead guy’s face in the hallway, thinking about the peace in the dead guy’s face, and the no-peace in Rose’s face—the black serpent still in Rose, coiled and ready to spit.
Then Rose bit his lip. The breath in him came out in a cough. With his Sahara Desert palm, Rose wiped the sweat off his forehead.
How it is, Rose said. You never know when it’s going to hit you. One day you’re walking around and talking and eating and tying your shoes and paying your phone bill, and the next day you’re in a coma with tubes in your nose and mouth and up your ass. In most cases, they can usually bring you around after a month or so in the hospital. You look around your room, and your room is full of flowers and cards and chocolates if you’re one of the lucky ones, and if you’re not, people bring you flowers and chocolates from the overflow of the lucky ones. And when you get out of the hospital, you have all the hope in the world. You think you’re the one who’s going to beat this shit. Your immunity level goes up to twenty-six percent and you start going back to work a couple days a week. There’s all the hope, and then you’re flat again, out-of-control fever and shitting your pants. Things start growing on your tongue and throat and you begin to wonder if it is really true that God is punishing you for being how you are. And the fe
ar. Then your bone marrow goes, or something else. They might be able to whip you back into shape for round three. Meanwhile, your hospital bill is pushing a hundred thousand dollars.
That’s just how it is, Rose said. I tell you, I’m not going to do it. I got my jar of Valium or something dramatic—I’m going out with a bang, a big fucking bang, no whimpers here.
I’m not saying I’m going to get it, Rose said, But if I do, honey, I’m not going out like that sorry stupid fuck down in the hallway.
I am going out in style.
YOU KNOW HOW it is when you’re loaded. Well, that’s what I was doing sitting on the blonde-fainting couch across from Rose. I was watching Rose. Watching me watch Rose.
When I squinted my eyes, all there was was the low chandelabra light on the orange and gold, burnt red and purple.
With that light around Rose, I knew, I just knew in my heart, that Rose was going to be OK.
I didn’t have to worry because Rose was going to be OK.
IN THE NARROW hallway painted blue were two cops in blue uniforms and two ambulance guys in white coats. The thick black lake was still in the blue linoleum valley, but Ricardo the voodoo super was zipped up in a gray bag.
In the unrelenting fluorescence, one of the policemen was talking to Mrs. Lupino. Mrs. Lupino was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt with MERRY CHRISTMAS and a Christmas tree on it. She was holding the yellow drop-dead fuck-you cat.
Satan worshipers, Mrs. Lupino was saying. Below us. Lucifer himself. They sacrifice live animals. Every day one of my babies is missing.
Then Mrs. Lupino screamed and raised her hand at me, caught the air with her fingers, brought her hand back down.
There he is! she screamed. Lucifer! He’s the one who has murdered our poor Ricardo!
The yellow New York drop-dead fuck-you cat hissed.
The two cops stopped and looked at me; the ambulance guys stopped and looked: me, on the bottom step, Lucifer himself.
I cupped the pink penis and put the pink penis in my front pocket.
The officer who came up to me was handsome, a young Mel Gibson, already too many doughnuts. He wore a black slicker over his hat and uniform. At first I didn’t know if I could speak to the Mel Gibson officer—talking to a cop was hard enough, let alone a handsome cop, plus I was way not-on-the-premises stoned and there was a hashish pipe the shape of a penis in my pocket.
But when I looked into the cop’s eyes—his eyes were dark brown—youth mostly what was in his eyes, a cop who wouldn’t hate True Shot. Mennen aftershave, and a place on his chin where he’d shaved too close.
The cop and I went and stood in the rectangle of earth where I’d plant the cherry tree, but you couldn’t see the rectangle of earth for the snow. Even the streetlights had globs of snow on them, and the tree branches were thick with white.
Mercury vapor from the streetlamp light, and red flashes on the snow, around and around, from the ambulance and the cop car, red flashes on the snow on the street, on the sidewalk, on the finger-bone branches, red flashes on the officer and me.
The cop pulled out a yellow pad and pencil and asked me my name and phone number and if I had been the one who called it in and what time it was when I saw the body.
My mother’s nerves.
It’s OK, the cop said, You’re going to be all right. I remember the first stiff I saw.
The officer’s hand was shaking, and the yellow pad and pencil.
It’s not like in the movies, he said. So just take a breath, the officer said. This is tough stuff.
My breath in. My breath out.
I came in, I said. After work. He was lying there. On the floor. In the hallway. Needle stuck in his arm. Blood on the floor.
Was he already dead?
He was dead, I said.
How do you know? the officer said. You touch him?
Red flashes all around on the snow.
No, I said.
Then: You ever run into a guy, I said, An Indian guy, I said, Named Charlie 2Moons?
The officer didn’t have time to answer because right then, all at once, out of the blue, was the muffled sound of horses’ hooves on packed snow, and from the east, St. Nicholas came riding up, through the snow on a white horse, Jolly old Saint Nick.
But it’s not the truth.
It was a cop.
A cop on a white horse, SGT. RICHARD WHITE on his name tag.
You’re going this way and then shit happens and then you’re going that way.
The horse was the most beautiful horse I’d ever seen. When I first set my eyes on that horse, I thought I was dreaming: Wolf Swamp and the family of wolves and the monster in the cave and the scared white stallion running wild across foggy meadows.
Sergeant, sir! the officer said.
The door to 205 East Fifth Street was open and the ambulance guys were pushing the stretcher out the door, down the stoop.
The sergeant started hollering at everybody, shouting orders every which way, the white horse stamping and turning, and everybody was saying yes, Sergeant . . . yes, Sergeant. . . yes, sir!
The sergeant yelled at the officer, Help with the body!
Yes, sir, Sergeant!
Radio sounds: Ten-four and other cop numbers like that in static.
The white horse was a stallion, and he sized me up in a New York minute. I liked him and he liked me, we both knew it. He smelled I was once truly loved by a horse and loved the horse back. Probably could smell Charlie’s ayaHuaska too.
All horses are Buddha.
The sergeant’s eyes looked down at me through big square thick plastic glasses. No doubt about it: I was the deer in the headlights, he was the Mack truck.
Name?
Will Parker, I said, Apartment One-A.
The sergeant’s foot in the stirrup was right across from my crotch.
Cat got your tongue? the sergeant said.
There was something quick with the sergeant’s arm, like his arm had a life of its own. The sergeant’s big smile, red flashes on his big smile, pointy teeth. He was wearing a heavy wool coat. All around his belt there were heavy things hanging on him: bullets, a gun in its holster, a radio, the place for his stick.
You a faggot? the sergeant said.
Round face, pinker than Harry O’Connor, thin blondish-red hair.
Then: Relax, he said, and pushed his hat up off his forehead. I understand how it is with you guys, the sergeant said. Cigarette?
I took the Marlboro, lit the Marlboro, lit his.
Scared of cops? the sergeant said.
I guess, I said.
You always stutter?
When I’m not singing, I said.
Big smile. Red flashes on the sergeant’s big pointy-teeth smile.
Ever had sex with him? the sergeant said.
On the street, voices sounded deep, the way things sound covered with snow.
Who? I said.
Ricardo Aguirre, the sergeant said.
Red-light flashes on the white stallion’s flesh. I touched the white stallion on the neck, looked up. I was already dead and Sergeant Richard White was already dead too.
No way, I said. I’ve never seen him, I said. Before.
Ricardo Aguirre would do anything for cash, the sergeant said. Even turn fag for cash.
The sergeant’s arm quick moving all around.
He had a big one, the sergeant said. Puerto Rican. ’Course, you know all about Puerto Ricans. And Italians. And blacks.
The sergeant pulled the reins and the white stallion stepped back a step, jumped his front legs up a little. The sergeant choked the reins and the stallion reared up like Hopalong Cassidy. The Lone Ranger. Randolph Scott.
It’s just routine, the sergeant said. We know this guy. Hundred times we’ve booked this guy. Surprised he lived as long as he did. A blessing to society he’s dead.
Then: You Italian? the sergeant said.
Language my second language.
I’m black, I said—just like that—I
’m black.
Big smile, pointy teeth, red flashes on Sergeant Richard White. He kicked the white stallion in the flanks, and the stallion reared up again, showing me his smooth white underbelly, his cock, his stallion balls.
Sergeant Richard White slapped the stallion on the hip with his riding crop. The stallion jumped, made a deep sound. His eyes looked back, trying to see the bastard on his back. The sergeant snapped the reins, hit the stallion on the bridle just under his beautiful white ear. Fear in the stallion’s eyes, only fear.
Rest easy tonight, Will Parker, the sergeant said, Because law and order prevail.
The sergeant reined the stallion around so the stallion’s ass was right in my face. The stallion made little jumps with his front legs. Then the sergeant backed the stallion up.
I took one step, two steps back, but stallion ass kept approaching. I put my hands, one on each side of his tail, pushed back.
Hey, I said, I’m walking here!
Between horseflesh and parked car, all that was left was asphalt.
But I didn’t have to drop to the asphalt.
As the horse stepped away, he gave my face a brush with his tail.
No doubt about it, the white stallion could smell my horse Chub all over me.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
For the most part, I’d say if you crossed a cat with a smart dog, made him a matriarchal vegetarian, gave him sleek beauty, a mass of muscle, and the desire to run, then what you’d have is a horse.
Chub was a gelding, half Morgan, half quarter horse, and old by the time Bobbie and I got him. Chub was black and if you didn’t keep him brushed he had a reddish tint and, just before he died, silver. Chub was like an old grandfather who loves his grandkids. Big brown eyes that really loved you. He’d do just about anything for you if you fed and watered him regular.
Chub liked me better than Bobbie, because every chance I got I fed Chub a carrot in front of ayaHuaska, just to get ayaHuaska’s goat.
AyaHuaska was an Appaloosa and loved Charlie 2Moons.
AyaHuaska was only four years old, a gelding too but lots of macho spirit. Knew he was one beautiful creature, so I didn’t trust him for one minute. AyaHuaska was real possessive of Charlie 2Moons. AyaHuaska would make his lips go like Mister Ed cussing you out and look right at you with his ears back and stand between you and Charlie, wouldn’t let you near Charlie, would stick his spotted gray butt right in your face and make like he was going to kick you. Charlie’d yell at ayaHuaska when he did that, and ayaHuaska would stop, but underneath Charlie liked that ayaHuaska was jealous and so protective of him.
In the City of Shy Hunters Page 16