In the City of Shy Hunters

by Tom Spanbauer

  True Shot’s red bandanna. Short black hair getting longer. True Shot’s cinnamon-brown skin.

  How do you know? I said.

  You told me, True Shot said. You’ve been telling me that for about five years now.

  What monster? I said. What maiden?

  I’m leaving tonight, True Shot said. I’ll send postcards.

  TWILIGHT, entre chien et loup, the last time ever I sat in Door of the Dead van. The plastic blue and white Virgin Mary. Brigitte Bardot and her frame of shiny green sequins. The steering wheel. The dashboard. The hole in the floorboard. My red tennis shoes on the floor. The brown vinyl seat cover. The jockey box button. True Shot’s hand. His extra-lovely hand. My open palm in his.

  Who knows how long we sat there.

  I opened the door of Door of the Dead van, put my red tennis shoes onto the pavement, stepped out, closed the door.

  The gap between True Shot’s two front teeth.

  Remember, True Shot said. It’s the responsibility of the survivor to tell the story.

  Door of the Dead van was hot when I leaned my elbows up against the door.

  True Shot, I said, You’ll always be a wise old Indian chief. Either that, I said, Or full of horse shit in his pocket.

  True Shot reached and pulled out his swooped rhinestone mirrors, handed the mirrors to me.

  Here, he said, You’ll be needing these.

  True Shot’s swooped rhinestone mirrors in my open palm.

  Won’t you want them, I said, On the open road?

  Them’s Wolf Swamp glasses, True Shot said. I won’t be needing Wolf Swamp glasses anymore.

  The steady even gaze of True Shot’s jade-green eyes.

  True Shot! I said. Your eyes!

  Only silence for a moment. In all the world, all of East Fifth Street, only silence.

  I put True Shot’s swooped rhinestone glasses on.

  True Shot reached over, touched my throat, touched Charlie.

  All Dodges sound the same when you start them up.

  Happy trails to you, True Shot said.

  Good-bye, Gordito, I said. Until we meet again! I said.

  The sun was just setting when True Shot shifted into first, let out the clutch. I stepped back and Door of the Dead was driving west down East Fifth Street. The van was just three doors away when the brake lights went red.

  True Shot stuck his head out the window and let loose on a loud Geronimo!

  In all the world, this distracted globe, I stood on the rectangle of earth where I’d plant the cherry tree, in the light from another incarnation, one hand waving waving at True Shot, the other open palm to buckskin bag. True Shot turned on Third Avenue, waving as he drove up Third. Then he shifted into second, and just then, just like that—abracadabra!—True Shot and Door of the Dead van disappeared behind the dark six-story vertical wall, and the wall was in between, and True Shot and Door of the Dead van were gone.

  IN MY APARTMENT, twilight.

  All around me, roses.

  All my rooms were filled with roses. In the front room red roses, pink roses, white roses, yellow roses, peach-colored roses. In the middle room, roses. In the kitchen, roses. In the bathroom, roses.

  Floribunda, multiflora, tea.

  Thousands of roses. You couldn’t even smell the cat piss for the roses.

  Roses on the floor, on the windowsills, on the kitchen sink, on the bathroom sink, in the shower. On top of my ladder, roses. Vases of roses among my Art Family. My Art Family with roses in their hair, in their hands, on their lapels, pinned to their clothes. A dozen long-stemmed red roses on the futon.

  And something written on the wall. In black Magic Marker. Above my Father Knows Best table, between two vases of roses, written on the red wall.

  Ah, my friend, if I were king

  Beneath your feet what treasures I would fling.

  The stars should be your pearls upon a string,

  The world a ruby for your finger ring.

  And you should have the Sun and Moon to wear.

  If I were king.

  The kings were crossed out, queens written above them.

  Then the envelope on the table, William of Heaven written on it in Rose’s round curly handwriting. I opened the envelope, and the card was van Gogh’s self-portait with his ear cut off.

  I read the note out loud to my Art Family.

  The time has come for all good men to come to the AIDS of their country. All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune, make for a finer, nobler type of manhood. Don’t worry about the puppies. Elizabeth has taken them.

  Love, Rose

  XXXOOO

  I ran up the stairs to Rose’s room, unlocked the door. No Mona, Mary, and Jack Flash barking barking jumping up onto me. The silver revolver in the kitchen drawer was gone. The two-gallon jar of gasoline was gone. A tourist pamphlet of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral was stuck to the kitchen wall with a butcher knife.

  A butcher knife in Ronald Reagan’s heart.

  A butcher knife in Nancy’s heart.

  Rose was gone.

  True Shot was gone.

  Ruby dead.

  Charlie dead.

  Fiona nuts.

  SAINT PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL, I said to the cabbie. It’s an emergency.

  The cabbie was a woman with long blond hair and pumped-up arms, a tattoo of a butterfly on the back of her hand. She pulled the meter down and put the gas pedal to the floor, squealing tires, throwing me back against the seat.

  Fourteenth Street was a mess. A Mercedes had back-ended a Volkswagen. Steam and car alarm coming out of the Mercedes and two New Yorkers in the middle of the street yelling at each other. Everybody going to hell.

  At 23rd Street, the light turned yellow and I thought the cabbie was going to try and make it, but she stopped. Cars passed in front of us, bumper to bumper, real slow. Some old guy in a Cadillac blocked the box. When the light turned green, the blond cabbie stepped on the gas, then put on the brakes, stopping only inches from the Cadillac.

  The cabbie stuck her head out the window.

  Fuck you, you greedy Jew dirtbag! she yelled. Get the fuck out of my way!

  At 42nd, rush-hour cars jammed up, horns honking. Everywhere you looked, cars cars.

  I gave the cabbie a ten-dollar bill, didn’t wait for change.

  RUNNING. I WAS running up Third Avenue, dodging in and out of people, my red tennis shoes on sidewalk and, when there was no room on the sidewalk, my red tennis shoes on asphalt. When I turned the corner on 50th, I ran smack into a big man, gray at the temples, starched white shirt, dark gray suit, striped red tie, attaché case. Knocked him on his ass.

  Avenues are so much longer than streets.

  At Park Avenue, the WALK/DON’T WALK was DON’T WALK.

  I didn’t stop, didn’t even look, just made my intention across that damned avenue to the median, brakes and squealing tires, jumped clean over the hood of an Austin Healy convertible, got to the median, didn’t stop, didn’t even look, ran back into traffic, horns honking, yelling, some old lady pulling her poodle up by the chain—almost choked the fucker—before she jumped aside. I landed safe on the sidewalk.

  Cussed cigarettes, kept running. At Madison Avenue, the WALK/DON’T WALK was WALK, but I kept running running. The sound of my red tennis shoes on the pavement. The evening air hot from a long day of hot. Things beginning to glow with heat from the inside. The sun low. Running through shadows.

  The door to Saint Patrick’s on Fiftieth Street was locked, so I ran around the comer. In the window of Saks Fifth Avenue, the Art Family was two skinny white women in little black dresses. I ran up the front steps of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, up to the big bronze doors.

  My breath in. My breath out.

  My open palm on Charlie 2Moons.

  My hand on the bronze handle, I pulled.

  Locked.

  In all the world, this distracted globe, there was no doubt in my mind: Rose was inside that fucking cathedral.

 
And I was out, locked out of church.

  My knees went to hard granite. I was kneeling, breathing hard, in and out. Then I fucking let go, let my body sprawl out like a car wreck. The granite was hot through my khaki shorts, my T-shirt, hot and hard on the back of my arms, the back of my head. Behind my closed eyes, blood pumping red.

  WHEN I OPENED my eyes, the front of the cathedral, up the juts and spires and things poking up, up above, the sky was a dark navy blue circus tent hanging from the spires. Two stars on the circus tent.

  My body. My aching fucking body.

  I rolled over, thought I’d lie that way, but the granite stunk of pigeon shit.

  Slid my ass over to the steps. Two steps down, my feet. Took off my red Converse tennis shoes, spread my feet.

  Below, Fifth Avenue speeding light, darkness, speeding light. The stoplights green yellow red, green yellow red. WALK/DON’T WALK, WALK/DON’T WALK.

  And beyond, out there, past Rockefeller’s globe of gold, far enough ahead west it was east, and in someplace not Wolf Swamp, the sun was rising on a new day.

  I did what I always do when I don’t know what to do: started rolling cigarettes. One for me, one for Saint Pat, one for every sorry mother’s son.

  The yellow-stained palm of my hand, my yellow-stained index, my yellow-stained thumb, its bitten cuticle, on the match.

  The orange snap, the flame crisp at the paper, and the smoke in my mouth, smoke around my teeth and tongue, down my throat, down deep inside.

  My breath in.

  Each cigarette, every inhale deep to the top of my lung, on the left, the place where I needed to suck smoke in, where I needed it to hurt, the bum. Down in there faraway inside, already dead.

  From around my neck, I took the buckskin strand, held the bag, the blue-beaded horizontal, the red-beaded vertical. Touched the beads. Prayed Charlie’s buckskin bag like the rosary.

  Sorrowful mysteries, I prayed for all that was lost, locked up, taken away.

  I prayed for when my body knew hope. When I’d live a whole day just on Charlie’s smile. When sunlight on June grass was enough.

  I prayed to come back into my body again. Make it a place where I could stay.

  THERE WAS ONE day, Charlie on ayaHuaska, Bobbie and I on Chub, we played Going Slack down to Spring Creek. But this day instead of going to the swimming hole, where the water was deep and the creek made a turn, ayaHuaska and Chub headed upstream, to the source of Spring Creek, a little waterfall coming out of the plateau.

  It was green all around where the spring came out, and watercress was growing on the water. We tied the horses up where there was some grass, and Bobbie and Charlie and I took off our shoes and rolled up our pant legs and waded through the water, on the rocks the clear water was running over. The sound of the water rolling over the rocks was nice in our ears. There was a wind, too, Idaho gusts that whipped around. The water was so cold I had to keep getting out to stand on the side of the creek in a sunny spot.

  The waters of the spring ran into two other springs at this one place, and the three springs, especially in springtime, coming together, made enough water to look like a river. The rocks there just underwater were red with white stripes in them, and the sun shining into the water onto the red rocks made the water look like there was blood in the water.

  Bobbie and Charlie and I sat down in the sun, right next to the river, in a place where the earth goes down and the water goes down with it and the water makes a wonderful sound and you almost have to shout.

  Charlie lay down on the grass, picked up a stem of grass, put the stem of grass in his mouth.

  Bobbie went off to sit alone. Charlie and I didn’t think much about it. She was older and bored with us a lot. But for some reason that day, I went over and sat down next to Bobbie. She was looking out at the water, the sun shining low into those sad eyes she had. I tried to say some things to her—about the day or the water or something.

  The day was one of those perfect days in spring in Idaho, a green not even green yet, too lime for green. Everything too lime green and the bloody river catching the sunlight. From where Bobbie and I were sitting, all we could see was sunlight, shrub trees, rolling earth, and river.

  Why are you always so sad? I asked.

  Bobbie spit grass juice, pulled out another stem of grass, chewed. She looked like she was thinking. She scratched a mosquito bite on her leg, and made it bleed.

  Bobbie said, The river is going by and the river is beautiful and the day is quiet and warm and green and everything is going by. I can’t make the river stop or the day stop and I can’t make myself stop. And I am here by the river and I could jump in, but the river would still flow on and I wouldn’t be the river, I would still be me.

  WHO KNOWS HOW long I sat on the steps of Saint Patrick’s?

  I’m still sitting there.

  But it’s not the truth.

  I sat there praying on Charlie’s bag, waiting for sunrise. Until the big bronze doors of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral opened at sunrise.

  But I didn’t have to wait that long.

  First it was the sound of the doors, the heavy high-pitched sound of the hinges. My elbows were on my knees, my head was down, and my eyes came open quick. But I didn’t move.

  My eyes on my hands, then my eyes through the space under my right armpit.

  In all the world, through the triangle my elbow made to my knee, just past my T-shirt sleeve, across granite, in the doorway of the cathedral stood Rose and some bishop guy.

  Cardinal O’Henry.

  It’s the truth.

  Rose in drag as a priest.

  Just as my eyes saw, a wind came up to them, their cassocks the sound of sails.

  The cardinal was a big man, extra-lovely, but short next to Rose. He was wearing a black cassock with red buttons down the front, and a black cape that came down to his elbows. Around his big belly was a tied red sash hanging down one side. A gold cross on a gold chain around his neck.

  Duct tape over his mouth.

  Rose’s silver revolver at his ear.

  My body did all those things people describe when shit happens, and before I knew it I was rolling through somersaults and cartwheels, and when I jumped to my feet, just like that, I was standing right in front of Rose, up close.

  Rose was gray under black, his lips chapped, the whites of his eyes yellow and red. Sweat rolled off Rose’s head over the purple bumps. He smelled of wet wool, and his white Roman collar was brown and yellow.

  Backpack straps cut into his shoulders.

  The gap between his two front teeth, Rose’s smile.

  Rose? I said. Rose, are you all right?

  Rose’s free hand wiped the sweat from his forehead, wiped his face. No clack-clack of bracelets.

  Oh, blessed, blessed night, Rose said, I am afeared being in night, all this is but a dream, too flattering-sweet to be substantial

  Rose, I said, Please don’t do this.

  Rose’s laugh was a hard cough, the mucus inside him. Rose bumped his hip against the cardinal’s, laughed again so hard his chest sunk in.

  Too late, Rose said. We’re getting married in the morning.

  The cardinal’s face was so red his whole head was glowing. His twenty-seven years in the navy was in his eyes, James Bond, searching around for escape. His hair was messed up. He’d lost his little hat. Only one lens in his plastic glasses. A little throat hair just above where the red-covered buttons of his cassock were undone. The red satin sash tied at the hip into a big red bow.

  Cardinal O’Henry? I said. Are you him?

  The cardinal’s wide-eyed steel blue into my eyes.

  In the flesh, Rose said.

  Sucking snorting sounds through the cardinal’s nose. His eyes open wider. Deep inside his eyes, fear.

  Rose, I said, The cardinal can’t breathe very well, I said, With that duct tape over his mouth.

  He can breathe all right, Rose said. The cardinal has a bit of a temper, Rose said. A real holy terror.
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  He’s turning purple, I said.

  Wait till he has AIDS, Rose said, And he’s in a respirator, he won’t be able to breathe at all.

  Rose, I said, Let’s go home and you and me can lie down in the Joey Heatherton bed, what do you say?

  Rose ran his tongue along his chapped lips, let his head drop down and at the same time took a long deep breath. Rose raised his chin up as he spoke.

  If the tides were turned, Rose said, This asshole would have you beheaded by noon. I’m dying here, Rose said. This is the end of my life. And you’re not going to fuck it up, Rose said.

  Rose pulled the silver revolver away from the cardinal’s ear, turned the barrel, pointed the silver revolver straight between my eyes, then kept the barrel going around to the side of his own head, pushed the barrel hard against his skin, squeezed on the trigger.

  Now get the fuck out of here! Rose said.

  Only silence, in all the world, at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral’s open doors, only silence.

  Dead silence.

  Don’t fight me on this one, Rose said.

  Behind Rose, through the open brass doors, the dark vaulted hall of the nave, the Gothic pillars, the stained-glass windows.

  My God, Rose, I said. No, I won’t fight you. As long as we get to go home.

  Promise! Rose said.

  I promise, I said.

  Then get me the handcuffs, Rose said. They’re in the backpack.

  My mother’s nerves.

  The handcuffs were in the side pocket of Rose’s backpack. I gave them to Rose. Just like that, Rose handcuffed one cuff around the cardinal’s wrist, the other cuff to the bronze door handle.

  The cardinal pulled his hand against the swinging door.

  The cardinal’s wide-eyed steel blue into my eyes.

  Rose was right. Another time, another place, this man would have me burned at the stake.

  Rose bowed deeply to the cardinal.

  Thank you, My Eminent Opponent, Rose said, For giving me this great opportunity.

  Rose slung his backpack over his shoulder.

  We’re going to leave you now, Rose said, But we’re not going far—just down the steps for a bit. And don’t forget, Rose said, I still have the revolver and you don’t. And I still want to shoot your ass.