Perfect, I said. Just perfect.
I love to dance, I said.
That’s when we’d dance in the front room to Mother’s two records, her only records, her favorite ones, “My Buddy” and “Slow Poke.” “My Buddy” first because it was slow and easy and got you into the mood, and then “Slow Poke” because it was faster and we could twirl.
The best part was waiting for the record to drop, standing with her in the front room, always the boy when we danced, my hand on her hip, my other hand holding up her hand, our feet on the flowered carpet, the drapes pulled, the light through the drapes, Evening in Paris, waiting for the record to drop.
Both of us silent, both of us all one thing.
The needle on the record, that sound, my first invitation to far away, Mother and me dancing in the front room, smiling, somewhere else, the both of us, somebody else.
But that day, she wouldn’t dance.
So I turned the page, the sound of the page, the smell, to the third photograph, looked sideways over to Mother and she still wasn’t crying, and I got her the ashtray that said 30 Club on it.
My wedding day! I said, pointing again to the page under the photograph, the frame of the black comers. I sighed, deep, the way she always sighed, and said, On the steps of Saint Veronica’s. Look! Your father’s big hand is on my shoulder, his other big hand about to scoop me up. What a dreamboat! Took me three weeks to make that dress, white satin, and the veil—I thought I’d never get it right. The bouquet is Baby’s Breath and daisies, white daisies. It was snowing.
The fourth photograph was the last one, and when I turned the page, I looked over sideways to Mother and she was smiling. Mother was smiling.
Honeymoon’s over! I said, and clapped my hands, and then my mother clapped her hands, the way she always did, and that’s when Mother started laughing.
That’s the damn Holstein cow my mother gave us as a wedding present, I said, A kicker! And that shack the cow’s tethered to, behind us, is where I lay down with him. Never expected that. Didn’t know what to expect, bliss I guess, but not sex. Gott im Himmel. Sure never expected sex!
That was the end of the photographs. I closed the album. Mother was laughing so hard her gums were showing and she wasn’t making a sound, and for a while I thought maybe she was crying and that she’d run out into the field, but she was laughing, her gums were showing, and she was laughing so hard she lost all her eye makeup, and I loved that she was laughing, and I was laughing too and it was so funny that mother and son went away between us and there we were in all the world, two people laughing.
I remember I promised myself I’d always try and make Mother laugh that way.
Then Mother put her arms around me—something I never got used to—and held me real close up to her big belly with my brother in there, the beads of the orchid of her violet dress against my face.
What else.
I made another promise, the promise she asked me to make.
Oh, Willy, she said. Promise me one thing, will you?
Yes, I said, anything.
The horrific whisper.
No matter what happens, even if something bad happens, Mother said, promise that you will always love me. That you won’t forget me. That you’ll remember me. Promise me you’ll never leave me.
Herbert Tareyton breath, green eyes right into my eyes, her hands on my shoulders, Evening in Paris, Orange Exotica lipstick, my mother said this to me: Why else do we live, except to be loved and remembered by those we love?
I promise, I said.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
At Columbia University, in Dodge Hall, the guy with real red hair and black horn-rimmed glasses behind the desk said Sebastian Cooke was still on sabbatical and Janet was on vacation.
I pulled the chair up, straddled the chair, started rolling a cigarette.
Where’d you learn to roll smokes like that? Red Top said.
A friend of me and Janet’s, I said.
Cool, Red Top said.
Then: You know Janet?
And Sebastian, I said. Met them through Charlie 2Moons.
Red Top pushed his black horn-rimmed glasses back up his nose.
God, he said, Charlie was so cute.
Wasn’t he? I said. And a real sweet talker.
Red Top’s glasses were tinted yellow. Made it look like his eyes were soaking in piss. He started moving papers around on his desk.
Then: What the hell, who cares what a bunch of assholes think?
I just said: Did you and Charlie ever, I said, Have sex?
Red Top turned beet red all over. Even his fingernails were blushing.
No, Red Top said, I didn’t really know him. I was in Sebastian’s class with him.
He and Sebastian an item? I said.
Red Top just stayed red. Through his black horn-rimmed glasses, he watched my fingers finish up the cigarette.
Janet said they were in love, I said.
Red Top’s eyes were red inside all the yellow.
When will Janet get back from France? I said.
I’m not sure, Red Top said.
How’s Sebastian? I said. I hear the French hospitals are good.
Yeast infection in the stomach, Red Top said, Then pneumocystis, now this.
Karposi’s? I said.
Janet told you? Red Top said.
Yeah, I said.
Then: I lost Sebastian’s address, I said. Can you give it to me?
Sure, Red Top said.
THAT NIGHT, I got out my favorite fountain pen and the bottle of black ink. I filled the pen with the ink, and in my circle of light, at the Father Knows Best table, in my best penmanship, my words out of the pen were beautiful onto the yellow page. Just how one word looked next to the other was beautiful.
Dear Sebastian Cooke. I forget all of what I wrote. I told him what my Art Family told me to tell him. Told him everything. I folded the yellow pages into thirds, put the pages into the business-size envelope, licked the flap, stamped it.
ONE NIGHT, RIGHT after I got home from work, my red telephone rang. I didn’t pick up.
On the tape, around and around, traffic noise, breathing. Ruby coughing coughing. Then Ruby hung up.
A half hour later another call.
Ruby.
Just like that, I decided to go find Ruby. I quick grabbed my wallet and my keys and I was out the door. At Second Avenue, I hailed a cab.
I didn’t know where to go, so I said, Below Houston, south of Alphabet City.
ON THE CORNER of telephone and telephone, Saint Jude phone booth, last call. I didn’t know who it was in the phone booth at first.
At first, it was some kind of painting of a skinhead in a bright telephone booth, a cyclone fence, shiny bits of light in the dirt of the vacant lot. In all that dark.
I walked up slow behind the booth, looked in through the glass on the side.
The man was bald and he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and khakis hanging low, no butt to hold up his pants. Brown boots square toe with the gold ring on the side. Two blue moons tattooed to his forehead. On his forearms, on his neck, purple bumps.
The skeleton poking through Ruby’s smile.
Ruby had a quarter in his hand. He was trying to get the quarter into the coin slot. In slow motion—between his thumb and finger, the quarter held up next to his nose—Ruby in slow motion dived his head and his hand and the quarter to the coin slot but missed.
Then, slow motion, Ruby stood up straight, held the coin again next to his nose, and dived his head, his hand, and the quarter slow motion to the coin slot, but Ruby missed again; he missed the telephone altogether and almost fell forward, slow motion, caught himself, stood up straight, held the coin next to his nose, dived his head, his hand, and the quarter slow motion to the coin slot, missed.
Who knows how long I stood there, leaning up against Saint Jude phone booth, so close to Ruby I could smell him. Ruby slow motion high, horse diving at AT&T.
I’m sti
ll standing there.
Then, some kind of miracle, Ruby got the quarter in the slot and the quarter dinged.
Then: Six, Ruby said aloud, and slow motion dived his head and his finger to the six, but missed.
Then: Six, Ruby said aloud again and slow motion dived his head and finger to the six, hit the six, pulled the dial to the right.
Then: One, Ruby said aloud, and slow motion dived his head and his finger to the one.
Then: Four, Ruby said loud.
I pressed my forehead against the glass, reached my hand around, touched Ruby Prestigiacomo on the shoulder, but Ruby couldn’t feel me.
Seven eight seven zero, I said.
But Ruby couldn’t hear me.
THE MONSTER’S HEAVY footfall.
I had to sit down right there on the curb, my head between my knees, my sensible black shoes on New York City pavement.
Big sobs, snot running out my nose, my chest up and down, up and down.
Who knows how long I sat there.
I’m still sitting there.
Then, out of the blue, a black guy in an African hat put his hand palm out to me.
I reached up and took his hand. In his palm was a dollar bill.
Peace, brother, the guy said, and walked on.
Chin quivering, snuffing up, I was staring at the dollar bill in my pink palm. Then—abracadabra!—out of nowhere, an Asian woman, a little girl holding onto her hand, reached in her pocket, pulled out a quarter, and put the quarter on top of the dollar in my hand.
AT HOME, AFTER I showered, I pushed PLAY on the red answering machine.
Around and around on the tape, Ruby’s breath in and out, traffic sounds, someone crying.
Even myself, me.
Then a low voice, far away: Peace, brother.
IF YOU UNDERSTAND that the difference between fool and Harlequin is Harlequin knows that behind his costume he is hiding, then you’ll know what’s important about Rose and yourself, and why you’ve come to New York.
Lunch at the Waldorf.
I was not Rory Calhoun that day, not Randolph Scott, not Errol Flynn, not Hedy Lamarr or Garbo.
On the corner of Park Avenue and Fiftieth, I was Jimmy Stewart, including the hat, rolling a cigarette, standing in front of the bright doors of the Waldorf Hysteria, just at the place where True Shot had parked Door of the Dead van my first night in Manhattan with the French Vogues. The sky was real blue with sifty clouds pointing at the sun. Warm, big gusts of wind up the avenue.
Two o’clock the third Thursday in October, on the corner of Park Avenue and Fiftieth, a cab pulled up and a guy with a long white beard, no mustache, wearing a black turban and a long blue-black velvet cape got out. Lots of gold. Gold rings, gold bracelets, a gold loop in his queer ear, a thick gold choker. Purple fingernail polish. A gust of wind blew the velvet cape and the cape flew up, the wings of a crow.
It was Rose.
Rose and I embraced and kissed like they do in Europe, both cheeks. The doorman opened the door and I took Rose by the arm, the way a man takes a woman by the arm, and Rose and I walked that way, the Sheik of Araby and Jimmy Stewart, into the Waldorf Hysteria.
The people in the foyer, the Calvin Klein Polo tweeded Ronald Reagan and Nancy Connecticut blond tourist Republican people, were staring at us. Every eyeball on me and Rose.
Rose smiled theatrically, bowed deep to the crowd.
L’Amérique profonde! Rose said.
My first impulse was to run. I’d never been out in L’Amérique profonde with Rose before. But Rose’s hand was tight around my arm, and so I stood. Rose was extra tall in the black turban, extra strong. And Rose’s black eyes, two shiny round ebonies steady straight ahead, meeting every gaze with his.
All my life I’d been new-shoe stiff, clean, pressed, polite, driving the speed limit. All my life I’d done all I could not to get noticed, and there I was in all the world in the lobby of the Waldorf Hysteria, every eye in the place on me, arm-in-arm with the Queen of Conspicuous.
Rose and I walked arm-in-arm up the stairs, through the crowd, Rose smiling and waving his hand, elbow elbow, wrist wrist wrist, the Queen of England.
The huge clock in the foyer struck two chimes just as Rose and I stepped into the restaurant. A Brazilian version of Daniel the boss’s brother in a tuxedo flashed his Rolex and showed us to a table in the back comer. One business-suit guy looked up and poked his friend, but Rose didn’t see.
When I put the match flame onto Rose’s cigarette, Rose’s eyes were on the match, then Rose closed his eyes, inhaled, and leaned back, and, just like that, Rose was an old photograph of Rose.
BLACK AND WHITE, a shadow across his face, Rose in a black turban and beard leaning against a fringed brocade cushion between a peacock mural on his right and a brass vase of primroses on his left, Rose just opening his eyes, just about to look at me, just starting to smile.
Rose is just about to say, Even myself, I am just here, isn’t it?
You put the photograph in a magenta velvet photograph album with gold edges. This is when I lived in New York City, and I had lunch at the Waldorf with my friend, an Arab prince.
WHAT YOU LOOKING at me that way for? Rose said.
I’m taking a photograph, I said.
Paparazzi wherever you go! Rose said.
You ever know a guy named Ruby Prestigiacomo? I said.
The magician, Rose said.
What? I said.
Prestigiacomo means magician in Italian, Rose said, And no, I do not know him.
You’re a lot like him, I said.
The magician? Rose said.
Ruby, I said.
We both exaggerate ourselves so we can be noticed? Rose said.
Is that what you do? I said.
No, Rose said.
TURN THE PAGE of the velvet book; the sound of the page turning sounds like fire.
The photograph of me, my elbows on the table, my Jimmy Stewart hat pushed up off my forehead, my tie an old pattern of butterflies and dice, my big face, crooked bottom teeth, intelligent Tom Selleck– handsome Einstein, the look on my face like I’m about to ask a question.
Rose? I said. You’re a Shakespearean ac-tor, I said. You know all about the Greeks, you’re doing a one-man show of Antigone on the accordion and piano and maybe the violin, you’re a Shy Hunter, Elizabeth Taylor is your best friend, you’re an extra-lovely African American who lives upstairs from me with your three dogs, and you kissed me on the lips.
I think of you as my friend, I said, But I don’t know anything about you. Rose, I said, just who are you? Where did you come from?
Rose looked down at the Gauloise box, closed the box with his fingers, the purple nails, then looked back up, his ebony eyes hard stones.
Bloomingdale’s, Rose said. I had some things to pick up.
The Bloody Marys came right then. The waiter’s name tag said RAMON and he was short with black hair and had a little mustache and those big glasses that are light sensitive. He set the Bloody Marys on the white linen tablecloth.
Rose tapped the ash of his Gauloise into the cut glass ashtray, then raised his Bloody Mary. I raised mine and we toasted.
The story, Rose, I said. Tell me your story.
The black turban, the glued-on Sheik of Araby beard. The gold loop in his queer ear.
Rose put both his arms up on the back of the banquette. His right hand under the peacock mural, his left next to the brass vase of primroses. Rose’s Adam’s apple up and down, just above the gold choker.
You want story, Rose said, Or do you want history?
Sixth rule, Rose said. The stories you tell tell more truly who you are.
Jimmy Stewart took a bite of his celery.
So tell me your stories, I said.
Then I’ll tell you about Antigone, Rose said.
Antigone?
Rose’s eyes were even darker under the black turban, the coiled-up black serpent, ready to spit.
Hers is the story I’m telling these days,
Rose said.
For lunch Rose ordered a bottle of the Graves, and the medallions of veal with basil and oven-roasted tomatoes and cappellini. They didn’t have a Waldorf salad, so I ordered the chef’s salad with fresh grilled artichoke, roasted beets, and spiced green lentils.
When Ramon presented the bottle of Graves, Rose asked me to test the wine, so I did my Vin et Vous gurgling routine and didn’t get a drop on me.
Dry, spicy, I said, Just the right touch of fruit.
The primrose color inside Rose’s lips. Rose’s big Harlequin smile. The liar’s space between his two front teeth.
Then: Your story first, Rose said, bracelets clack-clack.
No, I said. I asked you first.
But, Rose said, You are my guest. Guests always go first. Will Parker, Rose said, What on earth is your story?
The crystal wineglass was at my lips. Through the bottom of the glass, Rose was distorted like I was on True Shot’s mirrors. I put the glass down, wiped the moisture of my fingers against the starched white tablecloth.
William of Heaven, I said.
What? Rose said.
My friends all call me William of Heaven, I said, And I was born in a trunk, I said, In the Princess Theater in Pocatello, Idaho.
Rose smiled big, the gap between Rose’s two front teeth. He raised his wineglass.
Well, then, William of Heaven, Rose said, Here’s to stories!
Here’s to stories! I said and lifted my wineglass. We clinked.
Fuck history, Rose said.
Fuck history, I said.
Fuck hope, I said.
Then: Why Antigone? I said.
Rose lowered his chin, his face up close to my face, his ebony eyes hard stones.
In the City of Shy Hunters Page 31