In the City of Shy Hunters

by Tom Spanbauer

  The pipe, Grandfather Alessandro said, Is the universe. The pipe is also us, and the person who fills the pipe becomes one with the pipe. So the pipe is not only the center of the universe but also my own center, Alessandro said, and I expand and the six directions of space are brought within myself. It is by this expansion that the person stops being apart and becomes whole or holy, and is no longer here, and the world is out there, and the illusion of separateness is shattered.

  As you take this pipe and smoke it, as you take this universe in your hands and put it to your mouth, you too stop being apart; you become one, you become whole, with the holy and the sacred.

  Alessandro picked up one of the dark red embers with his bare fingers and put the ember into the pipe bowl. When he smoked, he blew the smoke down to his crotch, then above him, then four times around in a circle. The song he was singing sounded more like crying to me—when you really cry and can’t stop.

  Alessandro handed the pipe to Charlie, and Charlie sucked on the pipe and blew the smoke out the same way as Alessandro. Then Charlie handed the pipe to me. When I put my lips on the pipe, I thought I’d feel one with the universe, but I coughed on the first puff and kept coughing through all six directions.

  GRANDFATHER ALESSANDRO’S HAND reached across through the light of the door and pulled the door flap down.

  The only way out is in, he said.

  The black inside the sweat lodge was the black inside my soul, the black inside my head. Black breath came up fast from my lungs. My hands fighting the black air nothing. Never been no breath so much. The water onto the rocks hissed up against my ears. Burning steam on my shoulders.

  Charlie’s hand came out of the black and grabbed hard onto my hand, palm to palm. We went down quick. Faces, lips against the earth, sucking up what air was left on the ground. The black inside was outside, was a solid mass of dark fire.

  Everything was only hot and dark and the fear I knew but hadn’t met yet. Steam fear dark came up hard through my kidneys, burnt open my stomach, scorched out my lungs.

  I was screaming. Charlie was screaming.

  Alessandro was singing, high and broken off, far away deep inside.

  Only Charlie’s hand.

  There was nothing else.

  * * *

  SUNLIGHT WAS A hole.

  Grandfather Alessandro’s hand reached across through the darkness and opened the sweat-lodge door.

  Grandfather Alessandro’s eyes were too big, too scary to look into, but I looked into them.

  Hear me, young Charlie and Hey-Soos, Alessandro said. When a promise is broken, we are lost. To leave the red road is to lose your soul. Always remember! The only way to get on the red road is to get yourself back to the place of beginning. This is extremely hard, because you cannot see through your own confusion. The only way to get back to the point of beginning and begin is to get back to the bowl and heart of this pipe, the pipe that is the center of the universe, which is also your own center, and you expand and the four directions of space are brought within yourself and the illusion of being separate is shattered.

  Take heart, my Charlie and Hey-Soos, Alessandro said. Your love is great and good. Trust it. Never doubt it.

  Just remember, Grandfather Alessandro said, And I’ll tell you so you’ll know. When you’re lost on the blue road, when you’re in the west and cannot see, remember that the bright light coming toward you at first appears to be a charging iron horse, a locomotive train that will run over you, that will crush you.

  But that bright light, Alessandro said, Only appears to be an iron horse. What it really is is the light at the end of the tunnel.

  STEAM ALL OVER the windows. Grandfather Alessandro and Charlie and I were sitting aound the Formica table in Viv’s double-wide kitchenette. Viv had cooked us up a big feast of beef stew, fry bread, and choke-cherry pudding.

  Charlie and I were on our second bowls of beef stew. Grandfather Alessandro was on his second bowl of chokecherry pudding.

  Grandfather Alessandro put down his spoon, stuck his crooked index finger into his white bowl, and scraped up the sides for more chokecherry.

  I’ll tell you something, Grandfather Alessandro said, So you’ll know.

  There’s this Jewish story, Alessandro said.

  Viv was at the stove stirring something in a pot. When Alessandro said Jewish story, Viv turned around, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and smiled her gap-toothed smile.

  In Russia, Alessandro said, There was a famous rabbi. Whenever he saw misfortune threatening his people, this rabbi would go to a place in the forest and meditate. Then he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would happen and the rabbi’s people would be safe. Things went on and on like that and the rabbi died, and later, his disciple, another rabbi, whenever there was a misfortune threatening his people, this rabbi would go to the same place in the forest and say to the Great Mystery: I’m sorry but I do not know how to light the fire, but I still know the prayer, and here’s the prayer. And this rabbi would say the prayer, and the miracle would happen. Then that rabbi died, and another rabbi, his disciple, whenever a misfortune threatened his people, he would go to the place in the forest and say, I do not know how to light the fire, and I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient. And the miracle would happen. When that rabbi died, his disciple, a fourth rabbi, whenever a misfortune threatened his people, would sit in his chair at home with his head in his hands and say to the Great Mystery, I don’t know how to light the fire, I don’t know the prayer, and I don’t know the place in the forest, or even which forest. All I can do is tell you about it, and this must be sufficient. And the miracle would happen.

  God made man because he loves to hear stories, Alessandro said. That’s a good story, huh?

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  The cabdriver was the blackest man. His ID above the meter said Samueli and then an African name. When I looked in his eyes, his smile was quick and bright.

  The bullet-proof Plexiglas in the Checker cab had been hit by grease, which somebody tried to rub off. Around the tray in the window where you pay, deep scratches on the Plexiglas.

  On a warm spring night, streaking light into darkness, the windows all open, underneath the Checker cab’s wheels Manhattan monster lifted the three of us up on its back for a ride. Huge river, wide avenues, our cab a yellow tub setting sail, wind around our ears and hair, white-water bump and roll, changing lanes, swirling eddies through traffic. Harry’s arm was across the top of the seat above my shoulders. Harry’s white shirt the deepest white and also yellow, green, blue, red—every color of every light we passed through. Harry’s Polo smell and his three staff Heinekens, after-restaurant sweat, and ironed white cotton-polyester mix from under his arm. Harry’s other arm out the window, white sleeve rolled up, the red hairs on his arm past the Triple-X-Rated, past neon vegetable stands, coffee shops, past Macy’s Art Family windows, darkness, figures standing in darkness, speeding light, darkness, speeding light.

  No Charlie 2Moons.

  Ronald Reagan and Nancy lay across our laps. My left hip was touching Fiona’s hip; the wind through the window blew her white shirt collar. She’d loosened her hair and it was all over, sometimes just floating around her face. She sat back into the seat, now and then with her hand pulling her hair from her eyes, out of the comers of her red mouth. Her smell was Southern Comfort mixed with herself. She was smiling, really smiling, in the yellow-tub Checker cab.

  High enough to think we were New York.

  Fiona set her huge red leather purse onto Nancy’s face, fumbled through papers, makeup, Polaroids.

  Cool, she said, and pulled out a joint.

  I had to push my crotch up so I could get into my pants pocket for matches. Ronald Reagan slid down and Nancy slid down. Fiona looked at my crotch and Harry looked. Fiona lit the joint, cupping her hand over the flame, inhaling, inhaling again, then tapped on the hologram Plexiglas, holding up the joint so the blacke
st-man cabdriver could see. The cabdriver smiled again. Fiona handed the joint out the window to him; little sparks flew from the joint out into Manhattan. The cabdriver toked, toked again, and for a moment I fell through, in between continents, cultures, color, Plexiglas. A merge.

  All it takes is getting shit-faced. All it takes is a joint.

  The cabdriver handed the joint back out the window, more sparks. Fiona took the joint, toked again, handed the joint to me.

  A kiss. Fiona called toking on the joint a kiss.

  Kiss? she said, holding the inhale as she passed the joint to me. Kiss?

  Kiss? I said, and passed the joint to Harry.

  The marijuana smelled like inside a hay silo. My shoulders were against the Checker cab backseat, Harry’s red arm hairs touching my neck. Ronnie’s dark crotch and Nancy’s dark crotch under the cigarettes as I rolled them. Then it’s the part I love most, falling into the big hole in between, and all I want to do is smoke cigarettes and smoke cigarettes.

  At about 14th Street, Fiona told us about her friend Jesse’s new cat. The cat’s name was Green Date, and the reason the cat was named Green Date was because the cat had a special green towel he masturbated on.

  Two weeks with that cat in Jesse’s house, Fiona said, And all her other animals are humping the green towel too. Two dogs and two other cats all going at it. Even the cockatoo humping the goddamn green towel.

  The laughter came from deep inside me, and the more I laughed, the more it made Harry and Fiona laugh. Fiona lost all her eye makeup.

  The blackest-man cabdriver, Oh Captain Our Captain of the speeding yellow tub, was laughing too. He turned the music up way loud, music not from anywhere I know, Nairobi, Mombasa, the island of Lamu—drums, deep rivers, wolves, a rhythm low in my body just before my butt crack, a little place down there in me where all at once people from Nairobi and Mombasa and the island of Lamu are dancing and singing Kiswahili.

  Harry passed the joint to me.

  The one in the middle always gets the highest.

  Powerful shit, Harry said, This dope.

  I took a kiss, handed the joint to Fiona.

  Cool, Fiona said.

  Ronald Reagan and Nancy were a hit in Fish Bar. Five bucks a shot; just about everybody in the bar had to have a photo op with the president. But this was the Lower East Side. It wasn’t like in Times Square, Fiona said. In Times Square it was tourists and Republicans standing new-shoe stiff next to Ronald Reagan and Nancy, smiling, maybe putting their arms around them.

  Not so in Fish Bar. One guy pulled his pants down and mooned Ronald Reagan and Nancy while Harry took the photograph. Two lesbian women felt up Nancy while Harry took the photograph. Three union guys all stood flipping Ronnie and Nancy the bird. Another guy took Harry and Ronnie in the bathroom and pulled his cock out and made like Ronald Reagan was sucking his cock, then made like he was cornholing Ronald Reagan.

  Twenty exposures, one hundred dollars.

  Performance Art, Fiona said. Cool.

  Harry went home about two-thirty. He said he was tired. Said he had a date. A Green Date.

  But Harry was more than tired.

  The monster’s heavy footfall, a ripple in Fiona’s Southern Comfort, my Crown Royal, what was left of Harry’s Heineken.

  Fiona and I wanted to keep going, so we kissed Harry good night and walked to Third and Avenue C, to a secret after-hours club Fiona heard about called Network.

  Fiona’s long white arms and white legs were poking out of a little black dress. The moon was almost full and I remember the moonlight on Fiona’s arms. The sky wasn’t a dark sky with stars. The sky was navy blue with a white jet stream heading uptown.

  In all the world, three o’clock in the morning, Fiona, the moonlight on Fiona, and me standing in the middle of Third Street at Avenue C. Third Street same as all the other streets down here—just a street and a bunch of doorways to six-story walk-ups. Not an after-hours club in sight.

  New York is cold, Fiona sang, But I like where I’m living. The music on Clinton Street all through the evening.

  What’s that? I said.

  That’s a line from “Famous Blue Raincoat,” Fiona said.

  Leonard Cohen? I said.

  Then: Now’s a good time, I said.

  For what? Fiona said.

  Leonard Cohen, I said. The song. You said you would sing me the song.

  “Famous Blue Raincoat”? Fiona said.

  No, I said. The other one you told me about.

  “Song of Bernadette”? Fiona said.

  That one, I said.

  Cool! Fiona said.

  Fiona in her spotlight for life, under the streetlamp light, the solitary illumination in the night, in her little black dress, three in the morning. Fiona stood straight, her white marble-statue arms at her sides, feet square beneath her on the pavement. Just over her shoulder, the moon.

  Fiona cleared her throat, started singing, was off-key, tried again, stopped.

  Quiet as only New York can get that fast.

  This is making me nervous, Fiona said.

  Why? I said. You have a captive audience.

  I don’t know, Fiona said.

  Are you playing at being nervous? I said. Or being nervous? It’s all so Tony and Tina’s Wedding, I said. Can’t you be synchronistic?

  Go fuck yourself, Will, Fiona said.

  Then, in all the world, the hope of theater to lay bare the human heart, the scar on Fiona’s red lip a life all its own.

  Beautiful according to Fellini.

  Fiona sang Leonard Cohen’s song how her heart was inside her, the way my heart was inside me too, on fire the way the night was, longing for things that probably weren’t going to come, and sad because I knew they probably weren’t, but still foolish enough to wish, but most of all clear and smooth and beautiful.

  There was a child named Bernadette.

  I heard the story long ago.

  She saw the Queen of Heaven once

  And kept the vision in her soul.

  No one believed what she had seen,

  No one believed what she heard.

  That there were sorrows to be healed

  And mercy mercy in this world.

  We’ve been around, we’ve fought, we’ve lied.

  We mostly fall, we mostly run.

  And every now and then we try

  to mend the damage that we’ve done.

  Tonight, tonight, I just can’t rest.

  I’ve got this joy inside my breast.

  To think that I did not forget

  That song, that child named Bernadette.

  On the corner of Third and Avenue C, the darkness outside the circle of light was the dark side of the moon. Inside the spotlight Fiona’s marble-white arms up Patti LuPone Evita.

  I just want to hold you.

  Won’t you let me hold you

  Like Bernadette would do?

  I just want to hold you.

  Come on let me hold you

  Like Bernadette would do.

  Muffy Macllvane, Susan Strong, Fiona Yet.

  Wounded by a blow of love.

  I walked to the curb, stood behind a car.

  Where you going? Fiona said. Wasn’t I great?

  You were great, I said. I got to pee.

  It was a lie.

  Pee? Fiona yelled, Not on Third Street! This is the Hell’s Angels’ block. They catch you pissing here and you’re in deep shit.

  Can I pee on Avenue C? I said.

  Cool, Fiona said. Just go up a ways and point it toward Fourteenth.

  My cock pointed toward 14th Street, I didn’t pee. Chin quivering, silent, pointed toward 14th Street, my back to Fiona. Won’t you let me hold you? Instead of peeing, I started crying.

  When I got back to Third Street, Fiona was skinny white arms and legs, up one stoop, then down, then up another.

  Where the fuck is this fucking place? Fiona yelled.

  Two guys in white T-shirts and Levi’s and earrings and a woman
with a bald head in a faux leopardskin jumpsuit came out of doorway. They were smoking and laughing and stumbling into each other. One guy messed the other guy’s hair, and the guy said, Watch the hair, man! And the other guy said, Fuck you and your hair! Then they looked at the bald woman and said it to her—Fuck you and your hair!—and all three of them laughed.

  Fiona and I walked up the stoop where the three fuck-you-and-your-hairs had come from. Fiona knocked on the door. The Most Beautiful Asian Man in the World, with bleached-white hair, opened the door.

  What you here for? the Most Beautiful Asian Man said.

  We’re here to party, Fiona said.

  The door opened, and Fiona and I stepped into a vestibule where other people were standing. The door closed behind us. Fiona gave the Most Beautiful Asian Man in the World twenty dollars. I gave him twenty dollars.

  There were maybe seven people in the vestibule. No Charlie 2Moons. One guy had a flask and he took a drink, then passed the flask to Fiona. Fiona said cool and took a drink and handed the flask to me. Somebody made a joke about Candid Camera. I looked up and there was a camera in the corner of the vestibule on the ceiling.

  Looking for UFOs, one woman said. Uninvited Fuck-Offs.

  Underdeveloped Foreign Organizers.

  Ultra-Feminine Onanists.

  Ultimate Fellatio Orgasm.

  We were all laughing when the door in front of us opened.

  There was a long bar on the right and just enough space to walk between the wall and the stools at the bar. Beyond the bar was a room that looked like somebody’s kitchen in the fifties. Square black-and-white tiles on the floor, chrome Father Knows Best tables and chairs. The light in the room like the light on a kitchen stove or in a telephone booth. Mostly dark, tiny bright fluorescences, big film-noir shadows.

  Charlie 2Moons was everywhere, in every face, in every beat of the music.

  Marvin Gaye was singing “Give It Up.” Fiona checked her purse and we walked into the dark shadows of people dancing.

  There was a table for two under the window. Venetian blinds on the window—the old big white horizontal kind. Southern Comfort two rocks for Fiona, In the Ditch for me. The table next to us was black men and women dressed to the nines, passing a joint. Fiona smiled when she saw me staring at the joint.