In the City of Shy Hunters

by Tom Spanbauer

  Think about it! Rose said. White powder that gives you a sense of potency, importance, and lucidity.

  One snort and voilà! You act as if you’re the primogenitor of Mountbatten.

  Snorting cocaine, Rose said, bracelets clack-clack, You always end up in the burbs in somebody’s bright kitchen at four in the morning talking about municipal bonds and real estate.

  Every line of that white powder you put in your nose or in your veins, Rose said, You are perpetuating the illusion that there is something profound out there and you are privy to its profundity.

  Adding insult to injury, Rose said, Every line of that white powder you put in your nose or in your veins, you are putting your good money into the pockets of the White Paranoid Patriarch Vicious Totalitarian Republican Assholes.

  Ergo, the enemy, Rose said.

  I’d be willing to bet, Rose said, That at this very moment, Noriega and George Bush are dining on Beluga caviar—champagne and dancing boys—on us, Rose said, On the ‘Merican people, on all us welfare queens in designer jeans.

  Even myself, Rose said, I only take drugs that enhance the folly, the pageantry, the foolishness, the lie, Rose said.

  I was rolling cigarettes.

  WITH THE TWO martinis, I had to stand for a while up against the wrought-iron fence of Sheridan Square Park. Rose put his navy blue cashmere overcoat on, didn’t button it, and for a moment stood next to me and stared up into the trees too. Then he grabbed my arm and Rose and I were walking arm-in-arm along the park fence with the bare trees and the chirping sparrows.

  A black guy with long dreads every which way, smelling of old wine, a big rip in his pants and wing-tip shoes, no laces or socks, something on his face—dried blood all over his face—stopped on the sidewalk, held out his hand, palm up, and said, Hey, brother, can you spare some change?

  Rose reached into his pocket and pulled out some change and put it in the guy’s palm.

  Two or three more steps, and from behind us, the guy said, Nigger? Is that all you got? Eighty-five cents?

  Just like that, Rose wasn’t walking next to me anymore but was back to the guy. The guy didn’t move, just stood there with his hand stuck out, palm up. In the streetlamp light, the guy’s eyes looked red, just red, and the silver change in his palm was shining. Rose hit him—I mean that’s what I thought at first—but the swipe I saw of Rose’s arm wasn’t a blow. The swipe was Rose snapping up the change from out of the guy’s hand.

  Hey! Fuck you, man! the guy said. Give me my money back! This guy stole my money! the guy yelled. The motherfucker stole my money!

  Rose in the streetlamp light, his coat collar up, patent-leather shoes flash-flash: Rose walked back to me, then was walking next to me, and at Seventh Avenue, Rose threw the eighty-five cents into the gutter.

  Fag! the guy yelled. Nigger fag!

  People on the street all around us stopped. Quiet as only New York can get that fast.

  Rose’s hands were in his coat pocket. He was looking down in the gutter at the three quarters and the dime.

  That nigger, Rose said, quiet, Better watch his mouth in this neighborhood. Old African proverb says, Never insult the crocodile in the middle of the stream.

  CHRISTOPHER STREET WAS a merge of yellow cabs, red brake lights, headlights, horns honking. So many people, no place on the sidewalk to walk, people walking in the street. A convention of policemen and drag queens, or some kind of holiday for women on Harleys. The sound of things so different too—there was still the traffic and the trucks and garbage trucks and sirens and the Harleys and the squealing tires, but underneath was a Saturday-night sound and it wasn’t Saturday night.

  Not far down the street, some wild-ass cowboy, silver-studded boots, John Wayne hat, stepped out of a bar, the open door of the bar so loud the disco beat Tainted love, oh tainted love, and the cowboy stood on the stoop, smiling like a goon, half again as tall as the humanity on the street, high enough to think he was New York. He leaned back, took his hat off, let out a big Ya-hoo!

  Across Sheridan Square, Rose stepped out onto Seventh Avenue and made a high-pitched whistle by putting his fingers in his mouth the way Bobbie and Charlie used to. One yellow taxi cut across traffic—all honking horns—and drove right over to Rose and me, slowed down to right in front of us, and then sped up again, drove a ways down the street, and stopped.

  I’ve never seen Rose move so fast. Just like that, Rose was down standing by the taxi. When I caught up, he had his hand on the open back door.

  Rose hunkered down, put his extra-lovely body into the backseat of the cab, pulled his legs in. I got in after him, closed the door.

  It was one of those taxis that doesn’t have bullet-proof Plexiglas between the front seat and the back. Rose leaned his body over the front seat, put his one arm over the seat. His face right up next to the driver.

  No yelling or screaming or anything.

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

  Rose put the barrel of a silver revolver at the driver’s temple. Pushed the barrel hard into the driver’s skin. The driver kept looking straight out the windshield and Rose’s lips were right in his ear, moving slow.

  Above the meter, the taxi driver’s photo, a rough-skinned big-boned face stared out; above the photo, Andre Something with a bunch of consonants all together and his driver number.

  Rose? I said.

  Shut up! Rose said.

  I did what I always do when I don’t know what to do. I pulled the tobacco and the papers out of my pocket, and started rolling a cigarette.

  Turn the meter on! Rose said.

  The driver slow reached his hand out, not moving any other part of his body, pulled the meter lever down.

  The red lights of the meter flashed on $1.75.

  Drive! Rose said, and pushed the driver’s head over more with the silver revolver barrel. Two-oh-five East Fifth Street, Rose said. Between Second and Third.

  The driver took Seventh to Houston, turned left on West Houston, the whole time Rose’s silver revolver at the driver’s temple. In the mirror I could see Rose’s lips moving, speaking into the driver’s ear, but all I could hear was a low mumbling, couldn’t hear what Rose was saying. Outside the cab, speeding light, darkness, speeding light.

  The driver didn’t say a word, stared straight ahead.

  I lit the cigarette.

  The meter was $2.25, $2.50, $2.75, $3.00.

  At the stoplight at Houston and First Avenue, the driver turned left. Rose, I said, Put the gun down. Please!

  Rose didn’t turn around. Didn’t move at all. Just kept the revolver pushed up hard.

  We’re not home yet, Rose said.

  At Fifth Street, the driver turned left again, past the A&P, past the Ninth Precinct. On the sidewalk outside the Ninth Precinct there were two cops, sitting on motorcycles, talking to each other. The traffic light on Second Avenue was red: $5.25. $5.50.

  Inside the deli, an old woman was picking up garbage out of the garbage can and throwing the garbage at the man behind the counter.

  The light went from red to green and we drove across Second Avenue.

  Toward the end of the block, Rose said, On the right.

  The driver stopped in front of 205 East Fifth Street.

  Stop the meter! Rose said.

  The driver slow-reached his hand out over to the meter, pushed the lever up.

  Let’s see now, Rose said. Five-seventy-five plus twenty percent is what?

  About seven dollars, I said.

  Give him eight, Rose said.

  I reached in my wallet. Thank God I had a five and three ones.

  I handed the eight dollars over the seat so the driver could see them. The driver’s hand was shaking shaking. He curled his fingers around the money.

  I opened the door, got out of the taxi, policing my body, new-shoe stiff, walked over to the rectangle of earth where I’d plant the cherry tree, stood in the dirt.

  Rose stayed in th
e cab, the revolver still at the driver’s head. I listened for the gun blast and blood all over the windshield. But all I could hear was Rose talking low. Then Rose poked his extra-lovely butt out the door, stood up, slammed the door. Kept his revolver in his hand until the taxi was at the end of the street and turned the corner onto Third.

  Rose sat down on the stoop.

  I sat down on the stoop. My breath in. My breath out.

  Fuck! I said. I thought you were going to shoot him.

  A piece of thea-tah, Rose said, slapping his palms together, bracelets clack-clack. Performance art.

  But a gun? I said too loud, then quick looked around us.

  Across the street, the Doberman in Mother’s Sound Stages sat in the window. A blue car drove by. Then a black Cadillac.

  When I spoke again my voice was low.

  Is it real? I said.

  Of course it’s real, Rose said, bracelets clack-clack. Of course it’s loaded. To the Shy Hunter every battle is a battle of life and death!

  But a gun? I said. You had the gun against his head!

  The lucid compulsion to act polemically, Rose said, Crystallizes my freedom.

  By putting a gun to somebody’s head? I said.

  By putting a gun to somebody’s head, Rose said.

  But why didn’t you put your gun against the head of that black bum back there who called you a nigger? I said. Seems like you’re being awfully selective on whose head you threaten to blow off.

  In fact, Rose said, I am very selective. That black bum back there was born with a gun at his head.

  But what’s the fucking point? I said. Like your gun up against that taxi guy’s head is really going to make him stop his cab for the next black person?

  I don’t give a fuck if he stops or not, Rose said. The issue here is not better race relations. Race relations died when Octavian burned the library at Alexandria, killed Cleopatra’s son, Caesarion, and the Western World scorned Mother Africa.

  The white jig is up! Rose said. The dominant culture is already no longer the dominant culture. It’s the white guy’s last gasp. Right now in New York City, Rose said, It’s about sixty-forty nonwhite to white.

  Those who would hunt a man, Rose said, Need to remember that a jungle also contains those who hunt the hunters. Malcolm X said that, Rose said.

  Christian Fundamentalism, Rose said. Return to family values. Increase in police forces, emphasis on law and order, construction of more prisons—all these are signs of the White Paranoid Patriarch’s approaching extinction.

  All these white yuppies, Rose said, In their Volvos with zero population growth, and all these black people fucking their brains out—I’d say, by the year 2020, you white folks are overrun and basically fucked.

  When you’re old and your skinny white ass is sitting in a old folks’ home, Rose said, You watch. It’s going to be some really pissed-off brown person who’ll be wiping your ass and pushing your wheelchair around.

  The effect, Rose said, of my silver revolver, against this fucking immigrant Russian’s fucking head was not to make the world a better place to live. My sole intention, Rose said, Was to inform this white man—or any white man who dares to personally insult me—that the jig is up. The prey this White Paranoid Patriarch asshole has been preying on for centuries, Rose said, Is now preying on him.

  IN THE NARROW blue hallway, in the unrelenting fluorescence, my hands were shaking shaking. The key just wouldn’t get into the lock.

  Rose put his Sahara Desert palm onto my back. I swear it was the voice of Isaac Hayes who asked, William of Heaven. Will. Please come upstairs with me.

  Rose put his arm over my shoulder. His aftershave smelled clean and cool. I put my arm around his waist. Never touch me. We walked that way up the stairs. Each step we took, I thought the step would break.

  The blonde on the blonde-fainting couch. I was my mother’s nerves, rolling cigarettes. Rose took the silver revolver out of his jacket pocket, opened the chamber. In the kitchen drawer, the sounds of bullets hitting pressboard. Rose spun the chamber, closed it, laid the silver revolver in the drawer, closed the drawer.

  He pushed some buttons on the stereo.

  Rose sat in his purple-velvet overstuffed chair, Mona, Mary, and Jack Flash on the floor around his feet. His tie was undone. On the brass table, two glasses of beer and the erect pink penis full of rabbit turds, pointing my direction. Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane on Rose’s stereo. They say that falling in love is wonderful..

  Wanna dance, stranger? Rose said.

  Only a body can know another body. My head fit perfectly under Rose’s chin. My hand fit perfectly on the muscle of chest above his heart. Under Rose’s Italian chandelabra, Rose’s big arms around me, I was completely present and the moment I was in forever expanded.

  Who know how long Rose and I danced?

  We are still dancing.

  ROSE PULLED OFF my Jimmy Stewart jacket, undid my tie with the pattern of butterflies and dice, started unbuttoning my shirt.

  Rose, I said, Don’t.

  My shirt was undone, the cuffs, my shirt was off. Then Rose knelt down and I watched the muscles move under navy blue gabardine as he undid my Jimmy Stewart wing tips, pulled the wing tips off, pulled my socks off.

  Rose, I said, I can’t do this.

  Rose was standing up, his face way too close to my face. Rose’s left eye.

  Do what? Rose said. Let a friend touch you? When’s the last time someone touched you?

  Not long, I said.

  Bullshit, Rose said. I mean touched. Maybe you’ve had skin next to your skin, but when was the last time you let yourself be touched?

  Rose’s open palm on my forehead, pressing.

  Never touch me.

  My Jimmy Stewart pants were unzipped, the fly button unbuttoned, the suspenders off, the pants a pool of Jimmy Stewart around my feet.

  Please, Rose, I said. Stop it.

  Quit worrying about your famous fucking cock, Rose said. You and your cock don’t need to do a thing. All you have to do is lie down on the bed. I’ll light some incense, put some music on, and I’ll take a white hundrd-percent-cotton Bloomingdale’s washcloth and I’ll rinse it out with cool water and I’ll wash your body.

  My breath in. My breath out.

  One foot, then the other, I stepped out of my pants.

  Down below, under my eyes and my chin, I could see my big nipples poking out, my skinny arms, my stretched-out Fruit of the Looms.

  Rose put his extra-lovely palms one on each of my shoulders, bit his lower lip, and looked me straight in the eyes. His left eye too wide, his right nearly shut.

  Rose ripped his mustache off, his Fu Manchu, undid his tie, unbuttoned the white buttons of his starched white shirt. Rose’s skin so close. When Rose lifted the navy blue gabardine jacket off, his armpits mixed with rosemary oil, his aftershave. Then Rose’s hand on his belt buckle, the unzip of zipper.

  In nothing flat Rose was just Rose, smuggling grapes under French-cut white cotton underpants.

  It’s OK, Rose said. William of Heaven, You can trust me.

  Trust? I said.

  Trust, Rose said.

  Rose’s lips were right at my eyes.

  Rose hooked his thumbs each on the sides of my Fruit of the Looms, his thumbnails against my hip bones.

  The inside color of Rose’s lips.

  Rose pulled my shorts down.

  Rose pulled his shorts down.

  The insides of Rose’s apartment, the chandelabra, the purple-velvet overstuffed chair, the faux zebra skin, the brass tabletop, the light, the red velvet curtains, the steam heat from the radiator: everything touched me. In front of the dogs, in front of the photos and paintings of Elizabeth Taylor, everything, everything touched me, air wind breath spirits on my cock and balls.

  The surprising weight of me down there.

  I stood Art Family, just stood. Rose lit the candles on each side of Buddha. Sitar music on his stereo. The porcelain pan filled with wate
r in front of Buddha.

  Four giant steps to Rose’s Joey Heatherton bed. I was butt up, flat on my belly. The sound of water dripping into water when he squeezed the cloth.

  Rose sat on the bed and my arm touched Rose’s thigh. Then his hand, the cool washcloth, against my back, down my sides, down my spine to just above my butt crack.

  A drop of water running into my armpit.

  Is this, I said, What Antigone did for her brother?

  Something like it, Rose said, Yes.

  Down my arms, the slow soft cool washcloth down my biceps, on my elbows, my forearms, my hands. Rose held my hand as he washed my hand, the washcloth between each finger.

  Mother was crazy, you know, I said. Certifiable. We played a game where I was her boyfriend, Errol Flynn or Rory Calhoun. Or her girl-friend, I said, Hedy Lamarr or Garbo. Hedy Lamarr was the green dress.

  The wet cool washcloth down my arm, slow into my armpit.

  We called the game Lunch at the Waldorf, I said. That’s why I wanted to go there with you, I said. Have lunch at the Waldorf.

  Mother killed herself, I said. They say it’s inherited, I said.

  Wherever Rose had touched me was warm, the rest of my body was hot or freezing, I couldn’t tell which.

  I knew you were nuts the first time I saw you, Rose said.

  The sound of water dripping into water.

  Rose lifted up my leg from the knee, touched the pad of my foot, around and around, then up in between each toe.

  And Father, I said. In prison for life. He was a rodeo clown and a drunk.

  My father wasn’t a preacher, Rose said, He was a custodian at the high school. He stayed away from drink, but he could be a crazy old goat.

  Rose lifted my other leg up from the knee, the washcloth onto my toes. Rose’s other hand, the touch, on my lower back.

  And Charlie, I said. I betrayed my best friend, Charlie. And my sister too, I said. Bobbie. Father started fucking her when she was eleven or twelve.

  The washcloth across my shoulders, up the back of my head, into my hair.

  Then: Rose? I said. I fucked her too.