It was Matt who called to tell me. Lynn had a cerebral haemorrhage when she was in the bathtub. The funeral is today at two p.m. He found her when he came in to piss. She was slouched down, knees up and spread wide open. Her head was arched back, in the let’s-do-it position, her Mickey Mouse washcloth between her legs.
I poured myself another tequila, time was fracturing inside my head. Not all our adventures were as delightful as with the soccer players. One night Lynn and I picked up a guy at the Mudd Club. When we went back to his apartment he pulled a knife on us. Another guy suddenly appeared, he jumped out the bathroom door naked and socked me in the face. The door had been left unlocked. We somehow escaped. I was lucky he didn’t break my nose.
Then Bruno killed himself; he jumped out the window of his fifth-floor apartment. His body was covered with welts from the sarcoma. Lynn came over to my place to tell me. As soon as I let her in the door, I knew it was bad. She didn’t have high heels on, she was wearing house slippers and her face was covered with tears.
She put the brown paper bag she was carrying on the coffee table in front of the couch, She sank down and pulled a bottle of Tequila out of the bag.
“I didn’t even know he had it,” she wailed. “Why didn’t he tell me? Did you know?” She opened the bottle and took a big swig. I sank down beside her. I took a swig too.
“He didn’t say anything to me,” I told her. “Besides, he was much closer to you. Maybe he was ashamed.”
We passed the bottle back and forth. Lynn’s tears were big as raindrops and I started crying too until my throat, my ears, filled with tears. We were both trembling, shaking and then I was holding her. Our mouths came together like parts of a puzzle. Lynn unbuttoned my blouse and pulled out a breast, she started kissing my nipples and then she put her mouth there, nursing at my big tit, my baby, my beautiful baby. What soft lips. We took off each other’s clothes. I had never been so close to Lynn, I could see the little freckles on her chest. We shifted position. I sucked her nipples, they were so tiny and so hard like little tacks but they did not scratch my lips. She started kissing her way down the middle of my chest. Her tongue followed my arrow home. When she went inside and started sucking there, it was paradise. I had read scary stories about how women did it to each other using big grotesque rubber dildos with two heads. This was so different. I wanted to taste her like she was tasting me. Her body was rank and sweaty and her labia smelled of piss but inside her cunt when she came I smelled violets. We fell asleep on the couch but in the morning we woke up on the floor clutching each other.
Bruno’s parents, who lived in outer Queens, in Rego Park, did not come to his funeral. Maybe they were afraid that on the long subway ride into Manhattan they would get their jewellery snatched. Chain-snatching and petty crimes on the subway were up eighty per cent because of the new terrifying plague, crack cocaine. It was so addictive and so cheap you could buy a rock on the street for the price of a large coffee and a bagel with cream cheese. Lynn and I tried it once and the high was so ecstatic we knew we should never try it again. First Lady Nancy Reagan unveiled her ‘ “Just Say No To Drugs” programme. On McGinnis Boulevard in Bushwick, where fourteen-year-old girls were selling themselves for a hit, no one could have cared less if Nancy unveiled her sagging tits.
Going out wasn’t such fun anymore. Lynn and I stayed home, hanging out in each other’s apartments. We smoked grass we got from Lynn’s mother Virginia. Virginia had been a head since the Thirties, when she was a regular at the Cotton Club in Harlem.
We re-evaluated our lives; I brought a typewriter so I could type up the poems I wrote in my spiral notebook and send them off to literary magazines. At her mother’s urging, Lynn signed up for a course in jewellery design at FIT.
We only went out once in a great while. At the end of a hot summer day when the city was sweating like a dog, we decided to tie one on. We went into Manhattan, to Pierre’s on Mercer Street, one of our favourite places. The bartender, Picky Dicky, used to work at Remington’s with me. They called him Picky Dicky because he never laid the same woman twice. Another pal of mine from my job was Dan, the Quaalude man. Now he worked as sous-chef at Pierre’s. On a slow night he might send out a plate of fried calamari for us.
Pierre’s was packed; half of Soho seeking comfort there. Cigarette smoke was as thick in the air as phony promises.
There were a couple of seats at the end of the bar. We elbowed our way to them.
“You two could break a man’s back,” said Picky Dicky as he set our Margaritas in front of us. After a few rejuvenating sips, Lynn and I started to talk about this woman in the news who just gave birth to a baby she conceived in a petri dish.
“Believe me,” Lynn said, “now all sorts of new employment opportunities will open up. Women with good eggs will start to sell them.”
“How do they get the eggs out?” I wanted to know. “When doctors want to make money, they can figure out how to do anything,” Lynn answered. “Soon there will be ads in the newspapers, Egg Donors Wanted.”
“That will never happen,” I told her. I took another sip of my drink and then I looked up and saw them, two big beefy men making a beeline through the crowd, straight for us. They were wearing gaudy Hawaiian shirts. The big tropical flowers looked like a flashback from a bad acid trip. Around their necks they were wearing identical silver peace symbols on long leather cords. I knew they were cops, right away.
“Police,” I said to Lynn, nodding my head in their direction
“Yeah,” she said, “Reagan’s Raiders. We’ll tell them we’re actresses or models, and then they’ll think we’re working girls. We can make a score, I want new shoes.”
“Have you gone crazy?” I asked her. “Those days are long past and you know I don’t believe in sleeping with the enemy, no way.” She reassured me, “I don’t either. Trust me.”
They were already behind us. One of them was breathing down the back of my neck. A fat hand, clutching a hundred-dollar bill, pushed between us, nearly knocking over my glass.
“We’d like to buy you lovely ladies a drink,” a slow, southern voice said.
“That’s why you tried to knock this one over,” I answered. I turned and looked at the man behind me. He was blond, buck-toothed and grinning. His smile was so wet; I could see the spit shining on his teeth.
“Sorry,” he said, “but we saw you as soon as we stepped in this place. You are the prettiest girls here. We‘re strangers in town and . . .” then his friend chimed in, “We’re looking for company, and we want the best. So, how about that drink?” This guy had an ugly pug nose and a long jaw. With his red hair and freckles, he looked like Howdy Doody.
“Join us, please, come on,” he said, “We don’t bite, we’re nice guys. You two sure are good-looking. You must be actresses or models. What are your names?”
Lynn batted her inch-long eyelashes at him, “You are so very smart to guess we are actresses. We would just love to have a drink with you,” she cooed.
“I’m Dorothy, “she continued, “Dorothy Parker, and this is my friend, Emily, Emily Dickinson,” I glared at her. She well knew I was no fan of the spinster poet of Amherst.
“I’m Charlie Smith,” drawled the blond. “I’m Mike White,” said the red-head. “Me and my buddy here are up from Georgia.”
“So, what do you do?” I asked Mike. He had pushed in between Lynn and me and was now standing at my side trying to look down my cleavage. I put a hand over my chest.
“Me and Charlie are gun salesmen,” he replied quickly, “We’re here for the NRA convention at the Javits Center.”
“How charming,” I said.
“I just love guns,” Lynn cut in, “there is nothing like a man with a big gun to turn me on. Do you have any samples to show us?”
“Very cute, Dorothy,” I commented. Lynn ignored me as she beamed up at Charlie.
Two Margaritas later, Mike White had his arm around the back of my chair. Every time he tried to move it closer aroun
d my shoulders, I shrugged it off. I had told him I was putting myself through acting school as a babysitter. “Maybe you could take care of me,” was the best he could come back with. I nodded enigmatically.
Lynn, however, had told Charlie Smith that between her roles on the Broadway stage she worked in the phone sex business. He had given her a twenty to demonstrate her technique. Now, she was rubbing her little knee against the outside of his leg. Her hand was on the top of his thigh; her fingers going slowly round and round. There was a lump in his pants at the crotch. It looked like a beer can.
Despite the din, I could hear her whisper, “Oh, daddy, daddy, you’re so, so strong and big. I’ve never felt a gun as big as yours. I know just what I want to do to you.”
His face was flushed; his mouth was open like the mouth of a fish on the hook. He was so gross, so ugly. But Lynn spoke to him tenderly.
She had her hand over his crotch now. She was rubbing up and down.
“Please, please, you have an enormous piece, longer than an AK-47. Will you rub it across my boobies? Please, please,” she implored him. “And then will you put it right between them so I can take it between my lips and suck it. I want to suck you. I want to suck your big gun.” She leaned over and took his ear lobe into her mouth, her sharp little tongue danced in and out of his ear. Charlie was breathing heavily. His pelvis was moving back and forward, he was rocking on the barstool as if he was about to topple over.
Mike suddenly stopped gazing adoringly at my profile. He put a hand over to steady Charlie’s chair. “You need to cool right down there, partner, cool down now,” he said in a stern voice. Charlie moved away from Lynn. He picked up his drink and drained it. Mike reached behind me and patted Charlie on the shoulder.
After a few moments, Mike spoke. “Dorothy here sure seems to know her business. It would be nice if we could all relax and get to know each other better. Would you ladies like to come back to our hotel? There is a little problem, though. Charlie and me are feeling mighty tired. We had such a long day. Maybe you know where we could get a pick-me-up, a little something to give us some more energy?”
“How about a cup of espresso?” I cut in. “Maybe make it a double?” Lynn kicked me hard in the shin with the tip of her pointy shoe.
“What do you mean exactly?” she asked.
“Well,” he said, pausing as if trying to find the right words, “maybe you could introduce us to someone who could find a certain pretty white lady to pep us up, sometimes she goes by the name of Coco, Coco Chanel.” These narcs were so dumb. They were living five years in the past. All they needed to do was to go up to Bryant Park and for ten dollars they could buy enough crack to blow them to Christmas.
Lynn smiled up at him, fluttered her eyelashes some more.
“Oh, now I understand,” she said. “I know just what you mean. I do have a friend who might be able to help you.”
“Can you take us to see your friend?” they asked simultaneously.
“Oh, no, no,” said Lynn. “He’s a very private person, a recluse, really. He lives like a monk. He hates to meet new people, but he’s known me for years. You see, I went to junior high school with him; we were in the same home economics class. That’s the reason we are still friends. Maybe I could go visit him. I can take a taxi over there right now and see if he will help you out,” she said.
“How much do you think it will cost?” Charlie asked.
“Hmmm,” she said, “well really I don’t know, but at the very least two hundred dollars, and also I’ll need twenty for the cab.” Quicker than you could say blow me, Charlie took a wallet out of his back pocket and peeled off two hundreds and a twenty. Lynn took the money from his hand and tucked it into her heart-shaped red Mary Quant purse.
“Now you two, take good care of Emily while I’m gone,” she said. “Don’t let her drink too much.” She turned and made her way through the crowd.
“Your friend is a great sport,” Charlie Smith said. “We need fresh drinks all around. Could you handle another, Emily?” “I think so,” I mumbled.
When our drinks arrived I took a big gulp of mine, I didn’t like the situation. These whacko goons might kidnap me if Lynn didn’t come back soon.
“Well,” I said, forcing myself to smile coquettishly. I probably looked like Joan Rivers. “Who do you two big boys sell guns for?”
“Smith and Wesson,” said Mike. “Colt 45,” said Charlie.
“You work for competing companies?” I pretended surprise, “But, you’re such good friends.”
“We go way back,” Mike said. “Our mothers were girl scouts together.” As if to demonstrate their solidarity, they put their meaty arms on the back of my chair, hugging me tightly, between them.
I felt like throwing up but managed to push the bile back into my belly by downing the rest of my cocktail. They immediately ordered me another. By the time Lynn finally appeared I was demonstrating how I could dance the twist sitting down.
“Sorry it took so long,” she said, “the taxi got stuck in traffic.”
“That‘s OK. Did you find your friend?” Charlie asked.
“Mission successful,” said Lynn with a fetching smile, and she leaned over and slipped something inside the front pocket of his jeans.
He put his hand over the pocket right away, his fingers stroking it as if to measure what was inside. “You got me excited when you put your hand in my pocket, Dorothy.” he said to Lynn.
“You should be excited,” was her reply, “there is a pretty white lady inside your pants.”
“Wow-eee, you are something else! You deserve another cocktail. How about it?” he asked. Lynn answered him. “I would just love one. I need to cool down I got so hot running around and I bet Emily would like another one too, and then we can go to your hotel and really get to know each other in more intimate surroundings. But, first, I need to go to the little girls’ room and freshen up. How about you Emily? Your nose is very shiny.”
I was feeling so dizzy from all that twisting that I didn’t want to get off my seat. I was afraid I would fall on my face. “It is not,” I said.
“But your nose is very, very shiny,” repeated Lynn. She reached over, grabbed my arm and yanked me off the stool.
“Hurry back,” Charlie called after us. When we got to the ladies’ room door, Lynn suddenly stooped low.
“Quick, bend down, bend down like me,” she hissed, “in case they’re watching.”
I squatted down too. She pushed me a few steps sharply to the right and we burst through the swinging kitchen doors.
We entered a scene of frenetic activity. Men in white hats were stirring big pots on a giant stove, turning meat on a three-tiered grill, arranging food on plates. Dan was standing at a big, butcher-block table directly in front of us, holding a long knife over a fat, pink fish.
“This is not a good time for a visit,” he said, frowning.
“All we need is to make a quick getaway. Is the back door open?” Lynn asked him.
“OK, go ahead,” he said, motioning with the knife towards the door at the back of the room.
“What did you do?” he asked as we ran past him, “Goose Norman Mailer?” The pugnacious writer frequently drank at Pierre’s.
The door opened onto a narrow alley that led out onto Sixth Avenue. I could barely stand and I was barefoot. I had left my favourite silver sling-backs under the bar.
“Are you all right?” asked Lynn.
“Yes,” I answered. I leaned against a mailbox to steady myself, “but I lost my shoes.” Lynn went out into the street and flagged down a taxi.
As our cab sped across the Brooklyn Bridge, I asked Lynn, “What did you give them?”
“I went to the deli on Thompson Street,” she answered, “got powdered sugar and some Baggies and made a neat little package.” She opened her handbag, pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and gave it to me.
“Want to go shoe shopping at Bendel’s tomorrow?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said
.
The tequila bottle was nearly empty and I staggered off to bed. I had to get some sleep. I didn’t want to look like a gorgon at Lynn’s funeral.
When I woke up, the sticky July heat was flooding through the open window. It was already eleven o’clock. I had fallen asleep still wearing my red suede pumps.
I got up and tottered into the bathroom to pee. In the mirror over the sink, I did look like a gorgon, a grotesque witch, my face all puffy and swollen. Maybe I could fix it with make-up, maybe not.
My head was pounding as I went back into the kitchen and mixed myself an Alka-Seltzer, adding the last of the tequila for hangover relief. Then I went over to my closet to choose between my dresses, the shoes I was going to wear already on my feet.
I Waited for You by the River of Time
Remittance Girl
I waited for you
by the river of time
but you didn’t come.
Is it impolite to fuck someone because I’m sad and tired of being sad? I don’t know. Perhaps it is. But the afternoon rain has begun and it’s a long way back to my hotel. His is closer and more expensive.
He’s middle-aged and Russian, and has a bald spot like a monk’s tonsure. Fine golden hairs glint on his swollen knuckles in the watery light. Someone, somewhere is walking around with an intaglio of his fist on their face. He smokes cheap Cambodian cigarettes and fondles his weeping glass of beer. His fat, blunt fingertips squeak along the curves of the glass like a suicide who’s changed his mind at the window’s ledge.
At the first rumble of thunder, ice blue Slavic eyes glance up at the squid-grey sky. The sound rolls across the wide choppy waters of the Mekong and up to the riverside café’s balustrade. He leans forward to call for another beer, leaving a dark sweat stain on the faded orange chair cushion. A matching one has turned his light blue shirt to navy where it sticks to his back. But the tiny waitress, puppet-pretty and lithe as a water snake, is too busy fighting with the awning pulleys, trying to shelter the few patrons on the balcony before the onset of the deluge.
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