In the City of Shy Hunters

by Tom Spanbauer

  Who knows how long Bobbie and I sat on the bathroom floor in the dark with just the cold water running into the sink.

  Bobbie and I are still sitting there.

  Then, all at once, the unrelenting fluorescence went back on and Mother was standing at the door. She had her same yellow terry-cloth bathrobe on, same slippers, her hair was the same too, everything the same, but something about Mother that night was beautiful.

  She went right to Bobbie, and at first Bobbie waved her arm and tried to keep her away but Mother just took Bobbie’s arm and helped Bobbie up and then held Bobbie close to her with Bobbie’s head on the yellow terry cloth.

  I couldn’t look at Mother holding Bobbie, so I looked in the mirror at them. I expected Bobbie any minute to say fuck you or something, but Bobbie didn’t. Bobbie just put her head against Mother’s yellow terry cloth and kept her eyes closed, tight, like if she opened her eyes Mother would go away.

  Then they walked out together, Mother saying, There, there, it’ll be all right, Bobbie. And Mother and Bobbie went down the dark wood stairs, and down the hardwood floor of the hall, past the living room, through the dark wood swinging doors to the dining room, then into Mother’s bedroom with the bright ceiling light on, the fan on the vanity on, but no windows open, green shades drawn. It smelled like Herbert Tareytons in there, it smelled like her.

  Both of them lay down in Mother’s bed, and Mother pulled her white chenille bedspread over them and told me to close the door and turn the light off because Bobbie never has liked a lot of light.

  I shut off the light, closed Mother’s door, and went back upstairs into Bobbie’s bathroom and shut the cold water off and flushed the toilet again and folded up the blue washrag on the side of the bathtub and turned off the light.

  I sat in the cool bathtub in the dark for a while, until the mosquitoes found me, so then I walked on the hardwood floor into Bobbie’s room, into the Marilyn Monroe color of her room, and lay down in Bobbie’s bed, exactly straight, feet together, and there was all the colors of the map of the Known Universe just to the left of my toes. I turned off the lamp. I pulled the sheet over me. Even in the dark I could see the colors.

  In my dream, Bobbie and I were on Chub and Charlie was on aya-Huaska, and Jupiter was running alongside, and all of us running fast across the bottoms.

  When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was, then I knew I was in the Residency, then I knew I was in Bobbie’s bed, and then I knew there was somebody in the room with me. I could hear somebody taking off their clothes. A belt buckle, boots. Then there was a big body on the bed, pushing that side of the bed down and a hand on my leg under the sheet.

  In my forearms, up to my shoulders, splash down through heart, cattle prod to cock.

  SOMETHING SO BIG as your life is hard to tell.

  My father’s hand and my father’s breath, Crown Royal and Pall Malls, and my father’s naked arms. His hand up my leg, up my thigh. Father made deep sounds in his throat and stopped with his hand and then pulled off the white of his boxer shorts. Father sat himself across my chest. His cock was right there sticking up, pointing right at me, at my mouth, and his hands were behind him back down on me and Father was saying, Oh, my dear sweet little Bobbie girl.

  When Father reached my shorts, he pulled them down and found me there.

  Father yelled and jumped out of bed and turned on the unrelenting fluorescents—and there we were, in all the world, father and son, in Bobbie’s room, cocks poking up.

  You’re going this way and then shit happens and then you’re going that way.

  Father laughed, just one laugh that jumped up in his chest and made his cock bounce.

  Well now, Father said. This is my son.

  Father pointed at me, at my cock. He laughed just one laugh, chest up and down.

  Father reached over and flipped my cock with his finger.

  You didn’t even get that from me, he said. Everything from her, Father said. Even got your dick from your mother.

  My heart, the broken pieces scratching up against my chest.

  From me on the bed, up, my father was the hair on his balls and his cock poking out, then the hair of his chest and his big nipples, the unrelenting fluorescence around his head.

  Guess it’s time for a little father-to-son talk, Father said.

  He sat down on the bed. He pulled up the sheet, covered me. He wiped my hair back from out of my eyes and moved his big hand down the side of my face.

  Listen up, son, Father said, This is important. Someday you’ll remember these words of mine I’m saying and you’ll thank me.

  Then Father was between me and the unrelenting light, Father a shadow onto my eyes. His beard against my face, his breath, his body sweat, his lips at my ear.

  It’s a horse race, Father whispered. Out there, it’s a horse race. You got a good horse, you got a chance a winning. You don’t and you got a snowball’s chance in hell. The way I figure, most people don’t know it’s a horse race, so if you know, even though your horse ain’t worth a damn, even though you ain’t got a snowball’s chance in hell, you got the edge.

  And I’m here to tell you, son, Father whispered, You ain’t got a snowball’s chance in hell.

  But now you know, Father whispered, So you got the edge.

  Father got up off the bed, picked up his Levi’s and Levi’s shirt and his boots and socks and his underwear. His hairy butt walked to the door.

  Before he left, Father shut off the light.

  Just remember, Father said. Winning and losing, they need each other.

  Like you and that Injun. And Will? The horrific whisper: Tonight you lost, Father said.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  April or May 1985. The photograph was lying on the sidewalk in front of Café Cauchemar. It was a photo-booth photo, and I picked it up. The guy was thin and had thick glasses and his face looked smashed in on one side. He wore a hat with a small brim, the brim cocked up all dandy with a little peacock feather in the hatband. You couldn’t tell if the guy was smiling or just had gas pains, his eyes big dark gray behind his thick glasses, looking up through his smashed face right at you. I stuck the photo in my white shirt pocket and forgot about it.

  FIONA ALL IN red, Medusa hair, her broken red lip, wearing big black wraparound sunglasses, walked into Café Cauchemar. Then Harry: green Lacoste shirt, khakis, and Nikes. A serial killer and a golf pro.

  Harry leaned Ronald Reagan on one part of the banquette, Nancy on another.

  Fiona kissed me on the forehead and sat down at the table with her ginger ale and her peanut butter and jelly and banana sandwich.

  Fiona, beautiful according to Fellini.

  Harry’s pink freckled skin looked as green as his shirt.

  Harry, I said, you OK?

  He’s fine, Fiona said. A touch of the stomach flu.

  Must have been something I ate, Harry said.

  Fiona dug through her huge red leather purse and pulled out two round white pills.

  Tylenol with codeine, Fiona said. Take two of these.

  I reached into my white shirt pocket to get my tobacco and papers and put my hand on the photo-booth photo, pulled it out, and looked at it, and Harry said, What’s that?

  I slid Harry the photo across the butcher paper.

  He kind of looks like Truman Capote, Harry said.

  Fiona leaned over and looked at the photo. His eyes look like smashed grapes, Fiona said.

  Fresh grapes in a fruit compote, Harry said.

  Fresh Fruit Truman Compotee, Fiona said.

  That’s how the game started. What happened was I didn’t want the photo back, and Harry didn’t want the photo, and Fiona didn’t want the photo, and we started pushing it at each other, Harry going eeuuw! and Fiona going eeuuw! and then me going eeuuw! Like the photo was the plague or something.

  AFTER THE FIRST rush, when Cauchemar was empty, Fiona and Harry, Davey Dearest and Walter and Joanie and Mack Dickson, and John the Bartender an
d I stood around Georgette’s desk and drew up the rules to Fresh Fruit Truman Compotee.

  The rules to the game were there were no rules. Except one. The person who had the photo, the Fresh Fruit Truman Compotee, on him or her or on or around the body, at twelve o’clock midnight that night was the loser.

  What do I have to do if I lose? Joanie said. Something like give everybody a blow job?

  Joanie smiled her cute smile.

  No, Fiona said. It should be something unusual.

  Moon the kitchen? Davey Dearest said.

  Midnight, Harry said. The kitchen’s empty.

  Eat food out of the garbage? Walter said.

  Garbage is out on the street by then, Fiona said.

  John the Bartender stepped through us, with a bus tub of glasses. His white shirt was soaked through.

  Make it a performance piece, John the Bartender said. Some Lower East Side Shit. You know, Armadilla Kowabunga or something like that.

  Fiona spit into the garbage can.

  It’s Argwings Khodek, asshole, Fiona said. And performance piece it is.

  Interpretive dance? Harry said.

  Merce Cunningham! Walter said.

  Twyla Tharp! Joanie said.

  Martha Graham! Davey Dearest said.

  Pina Bausch! Walter said.

  Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane! Davey Dearest said.

  A strip! Mack Dickson said.

  When Mack Dickson spoke, everybody looked at him: his thin lips, the extreme beauty of his bone structure.

  The loser, Mack Dickson said, Has to do a striptease.

  All the way, Mack Dickson said, his eyes on me, too cruel to be beautiful.

  All the fucking way, he said, In the employees’ dressing room, after closing.

  A little sparkle of light shone off his capped teeth.

  What do you say, Horse Dick? Mack Dickson said. A striptease OK with you?

  Language my second language.

  Fine, I said, With me.

  Let’s shake on it then, Harry said, and Davey Dearest and Walter and Joanie and Mack Dickson and John the Bartender and Fiona and Harry and me—we all touched our hands together in the middle of our circle.

  May the true loser lose, Mack Dickson said.

  May the true loser lose, everybody else said.

  Then: May the true loser, I said, Lose.

  DURING THE BUSIEST part of the first rush, I was next to Harry in the waiter station. Both Harry and I were in the weeds. I was punching away on the adding machine; Harry was pulling an American Express card through the credit card machine.

  That’s when Harry opened his ticket book.

  Inside was the photo-booth photo, the dark gray eyes, the thick glasses, the thin smashed-in face.

  Seven-forty-five: Harry screamed.

  JOANIE HAD A deuce on table two, and as she was presenting the Domaine Chandon, Harry brought the ice bucket over, set the bucket down on the stand, and draped the white cloth napkin over it. Joanie went to put the bottle in the ice bucket.

  Eight-thirty: Joanie screamed.

  JOHN THE BARTENDER picked up the intercom phone, said OK, hung up the intercom phone, and told Davey Dearest that Walter had a phone call on the pay phone downstairs. Davey Dearest told Walter and Walter ran down the stairs. Walter picked up the ringing pay phone.

  Eight-fifty-two: Walter’s scream came up the stairs.

  DAVEY DEAREST WAS standing next to the garbage can. He’d just made himself an espresso and lit a cigarette.

  Davey Dearest said, I know that fucking Walter is going for me!

  Then Davey Dearest reached into where the sugar packets are, pulled two sugar packets out, shook the packets, and went to rip them open.

  Nine-seventeen: Davey Dearest screamed.

  I WAS SERVING the single guy on table twenty. I delivered his couscous, set the terra-cotta bowl and cover on the table, took the terra-cotta cover off and—ta-da!—there was the couscous. I reached for the serving spoon.

  Nine-twenty-seven: I screamed.

  JUST BEFORE THE second rush, nine-forty-five, Daniel, the boss’s brother, came up from downstairs and stood at front door, greeting dinner guests, menus in hand, with the look on his face he always gets just after doing cocaine: Good evening, welcome to Nightmare Café, I am the Maître d’Hôtel who was hit by lightning.

  Then it was cocaine for everybody else. First, John the Bartender went downstairs, then Joanie, then Davey Dearest and Walter, then Mack Dickson. Running back up the stairs, each one of them looking like there’d been an alien being in the bathroom and they couldn’t wait to tell you about it.

  Cocaine was a beauty drug for Mack Dickson. When Mack Dickson walked up the stairs, his smile was sleepy, his hair was neatly tousled, and he had that perfect one-day-beard look. His eyes were bluer, his skin olive, his forearms, the silky black hair, perfect.

  Too fucking perfect.

  WHEN DAVEY DEAREST and Walter walked through the swinging red doors and went downstairs, I saw that Davey Dearest didn’t have his ticket book with him, so I went in by the espresso machine and looked all over, on the shelves and under things, but I couldn’t look like I was looking all over, on the shelves and under things, because Joanie had her mesomorph self planted in the middle of everything.

  I looked over, and Georgette was moving her eyes real weird, and she was screwing her lips over to one side. Then Georgette pointed her pen in the direction of the dishwashing room. I walked to the dishwashing room and just as I was about to go into the dishwashing room, Georgette said, Will, would you please get me one of my Diet Uncolas from the reach-in.

  I went to the reach-in, slid open the door, looked all over, but all I could see was the gallon of milk, the half and half, some butter plates, but no Diet Uncola.

  On the fucking top, for chrissakes! Georgette yelled. Look on the top!

  I put my hand on top of the reach-in and there was Davey Dearest’s ticket book.

  Joanie gave Georgette a New York drop-dead fuck-you and walked out the swinging red doors.

  NINE-FIFTY-TWO: Chef Som Chai was standing right next to Davey Dearest when Davey Dearest opened his ticket book and screamed.

  TEN O’CLOCK. THE restaurant was full. Harry had his double-fudge brownie prepared with the funny candle that won’t blow out. He lit the candle and cupped his hands over the flame as he pushed his butt up against the swinging red door. Fiona was heading for the bar and ran into Harry from the back. Harry spun around and yelled, Get that fucking thing away from me! Don’t you touch me!

  Harry! Fiona said, and opened up her hands. I haven’t got it! Fiona said.

  Lying bitch! Harry said. You’re lying! You just gave it to me, didn’t you?

  No, Fiona said. Will just gave it to Davey Dearest.

  HARRY WAS AT the birthday table. He set the cake in front of the beautiful silver-haired Coco Chanel two-piece and burst into a huge Happy Birthday. The chandelier jingled. Quiet as only New York can get that fast. Just as Harry was getting to the big Dear Da-da-da that shatters crystal, Davey Dearest walked up to Harry and put Fresh Fruit Truman Compotee in Harry’s shirt pocket.

  Harry didn’t sing the Dear Da-da-da part at all, just stopped. Turned so white all his freckles stuck out.

  Ten-thirty-five: Fucking son-of-a mother bitch! Harry said.

  SECTION ONE, ALL Fiona’s tables, know about Fresh Fruit Truman Compotee. Section Two, all Harry’s tables, know about Fresh Fruit Truman Compotee. Section One and Section Two were watching as Mack Dickson pulled his ticket book out from the back of his pants, expanded his chest, flexed his biceps, flashed his winning capped-teeth smile, and opened the ticket book to give the check to the customer.

  Ten-fifty-seven: Mack Dickson screamed.

  Uproarious laughter in Section One and Section Two.

  Daniel, the boss’s brother, looked around, gave the whole restaurant his big restaurant smile, then looked at me like: What the fuck?

  Eleven-oh-two: In the dining room, a scream fr
om on the other side of the swinging red doors. Fiona and Harry and Joanie and Davey Dearest and I ran to the swinging red doors and looked through the windows. Mack Dickson was chasing Walter around the room.

  THE MAN WITH the check on table nineteen motioned to me. I went over to him and he said, What credit cards do you take? And I said, Any one of them. And he said, In that case take this.

  I reached out and took the check and the credit card on the check tray.

  Eleven-seventeen: I screamed.

  OF COURSE, THEN all at once I had everything to do. I had to do the check for the six-top. I had two deuce orders up, and the chef was yelling. There was a bottle of Sancerre I had to serve, and I still had the order for my four-top to put in.

  I picked up three of the four plates and lined them up my arm, and the fourth plate I held in my other hand, and delivered the dinners, poured each deuce more wine, ground fresh pepper, said Bon appétit, rushed to the bar, got the Sancerre, served the Sancerre, smiled as I presented the bottle.

  In the kitchen, as I was writing out the chit, I took Fresh Fruit Truman Compotee out of my pocket and looked around. No one was within twenty feet of me. I ran up to the dinner station, called out my orders in a clear voice, and put the chit on the stainless steel.

  Eleven-twenty-eight: The chef screamed.

  THE ENTIRE WAITING staff, John the Bartender, and most of the customers in Café Cauchemar knew the chef was it.

  The waiters were pacing.

  John the Bartender was standing in the middle of the bar.

  The chef burst out the swinging red doors.

  Fiona and Harry and I ran to the waiter station in front of the dining room.

  Joanie and Walter were on their knees in the waiters’ station, their hands on their heads, kissing their asses good-bye.

  Davey Dearest was at the front door, putting a customer’s overcoat on himself.