Finally, just after the Prom Queen wrapped his pale hands around my neck and stuck his serpentine tongue down my throat, I retreated. It was one thing to dance with the devil. It was another thing to make out with him. The guy had bared his vampire teeth at me a few too many times, and, from the bumping and grinding he’d done against me, I could tell that he wasn’t wearing underwear under his dress. I couldn’t get into cross-dressers. I had visions of trying to make a life with a person like that, sharing a closet, finding my shoes stretched out and my clothing looking better on him. I didn’t think I could take the competition. The girl behind me could have him. They matched, after all. All they needed was a vat of pig’s blood, readily available in the neighborhood, and they could reenact Carrie.
The last I saw of the duo, the redhead was dragging him by his corsaged wrist onto one of the couches lining the walls and straddling him. His silver talons waved a vague good-bye, and then he stuck them up her skirt.
Someone nudged me. I turned to see a glitter-painted face and a gold Lurex wig.
“Do you know who that guy is?” yelled the glittered man, over the music.
“Random vampire in a pink dress,” I said. Not a sentence I’d ever have imagined coming out of my mouth.
“You’re kidding.” He looked at me like I’d just arrived from a voyage with Shackleton.
“Is he famous or something?”
“Hello?” said the guy, and walked away, appalled by my ignorance. I racked my brain as to who I could have been dancing with, but I was clueless. (It wasn’t until I saw a recent photo of Marilyn Manson, a few months later, that I understood what the ruckus had been about. My vampire was either Mr. Manson, or a very good look-alike.)
DISCONCERTED, I WENT TOWARD the bathroom. There was a line. A long line. Apparently, the bathroom cam was on. This meant that one of the stalls was broadcasting live to a room in the club. The rest of the stalls were normal. The line was equal parts people who wanted to be filmed and people hopping with desperation to get out of their leotards.
After a while, I focused on the fact that the person in front of me was wearing a very credible Marie Antoinette costume. He was also about six foot five and shaped like a linebacker. The powdered wig gave him another foot of height. His skirts were silk brocade and crinolined. I’d worked for a summer in a Shakespeare festival costume shop, and I had to compliment him.
“I love your dress,” I said.
“You wouldn’t, if you had to pee,” he said grimly. His voice was deep, booming, and weirdly, perfectly suited to his costume. “I’ve been waiting in this line for years. Fucking exhibitionists. Let me tell you, we’ve all seen enough ass to last us.”
Marie Antoinette and I watched an obviously coked-up guy in three peacock feathers and a vinyl jockstrap shaking his skinny white rump at the door of the bathroom, and yelling out, “Don’t wait for me! I’m going to be in there forevah!”
I didn’t want to think about how those peacock feathers were staying in place.
“That’s it,” said Marie Antoinette. “That is just the end.” He grabbed my hand, and pulled me through the line. People complained, but when they saw what they were being trampled by, they gave up. Marie Antoinette was a force of nature. As we reached the bathroom door, someone whined, halfheartedly, “Why does she get to go with you?”
I’d been wondering the same thing.
“SHE’S MY DRESSER, YOU IMBECILE,” Marie Antoinette yelled. There was a collective nod of understanding. Apparently having a dresser, or an undresser, was completely normal. Marie maneuvered us into the stall with the bathroom cam.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’d never have gotten in.”
“Peons out there. Literally. Let them eat cake. Or let them snort coke, darling. Help me lift this motherfucking skirt.”
Later, I ran into Taylor and Janet. Taylor’s red paint was running. He raised an eyebrow at me.
“I saw you on the bathroom cam,” he said. “Underneath a transvestite’s skirt.”
“Really?” I asked, as though I had no idea what he was referencing.
“Yes, really,” he said. “But I’m not even going to ask you to explain. I don’t know if I wanna know. It’s six in the morning. We’re going to go eat.”
The whole restaurant was full of people like us, looking somewhat the worse for the wear, but happy anyway. There were uniformed cops sitting at the counter, having the same breakfast we were. Looking around the room, at all of us glittering under the neon lights, I felt an unexpected rush of tenderness. It wasn’t for anyone in particular, but for the whole insane, spectacular city.
“I think I might love everyone,” I announced.
“Drink your coffee,” said Taylor, but he was smiling, too.
“WHERE’VE YOU BEEN?” mumbled Zak a couple hours later, after I tiptoed over the sleeping bodies of our guests, kicked off my shoes, and crawled into bed with him.
“Dancing.”
“You smell like hellfire and brimstone.”
“Lots of smokers there,” I said. “And vampires, dead French queens, debutantes…”
Zak smiled blurrily at me.
“I think I’m dreaming,” he said.
“Me, too.” He put his arm around me, and we were out.
I GOT UP AROUND NOON to do my laundry. It was a hundred degrees again, but I was happy enough that I actually danced my way down India Street, balancing my pink laundry sack on my head. My neighborhood Laundromat was called Lavadero Limpio, or Clean Laundry. The first syllable of the second Spanish word usually seemed more appropriate to me: limp. The night of dancing had made my thighs feel like jelly. I adjusted my bag and started to sing. The only way I’d actually make it to the Laundromat was if I wrote revisionist movie musicals in my head, and sang the lyrics out loud. Today, it was “Singing Through the Pain.” It had been unwise to jiggle braless for seven hours. Everything hurt.
That was when I heard someone else singing, and snapping his fingers, too. Every once in a while there was a little shuffling sound, like someone practicing a soft-shoe.
“Chupa, chupa,” sang the voice.
I was not sure what that meant.
“Chupa la paleta, chupa la, chupa la paleta, chupa la…”
I turned around. My serenader was five foot zero, whitehaired, and Latino. He looked like a doll, costumed in a fancy pleated-and-embroidered guayabera shirt, pressed slacks, and a dapper straw hat. He twirled on his polished heel.
“Chupa, chupa!” he sang. I recognized the lyrics now. This was a song that had been broadcasting through Brooklyn for months, piercing my night with a tune akin to that of an ice-cream truck’s solicitation. Though I was unclear on the translation, my impression was that it had a sexy connotation, given that I had seen a herd of fourteen-year-old girls singing it a few days before, sucking lollipops and swinging their hips suggestively. The old man did a little solo salsa in the middle of the sidewalk. He grinned from ear to ear, like a demented, ancient child. I’d been told that my smile was demented, too. Maybe he was enjoying his day as much as I was enjoying mine. I smiled, and hoisted the laundry back onto my head.
“Lavadero,” I told him, shrugging. He tailed me the three blocks to the Laundromat. Unless he was planning on stripping, he was not carrying any laundry that needed to be done.
“Chupa, chupa,” he sang under his breath. He seemed harmless enough, grandfatherly even, and soon I’d almost forgotten him. He sat down in a chair, and quietly drank a bottle of juice, while watching the Spanish-channel soap operas that the Laundromat played all day. It wasn’t until I was unloading my underwear from the dryer that my attention was drawn to the old man again. He came up next to me, and said, in English:
“You are pretty. Marry me, Louie.”
“I don’t actually want to get married, but thanks for the compliment,” I responded, smiling politely at him.
“Qué?” he said. “Un momento.” He dashed from the Laundromat.
I tried, with little success,
to stuff all my remaining laundry into one machine. This was a period of time during which I often ended up with strangely colored lumps of clothing. I hated spending my whole afternoon waiting for the dryer to beep, but if you didn’t stay there, people would steal your clothes. I usually read three or four New Yorkers, or stared stupidly at the soap operas I didn’t understand. Not that there was much to understand. They were the same in every language. I was deeply involved in a doctor/nurse drama when the bell on the door jingled, and Señor Chupa reappeared, dragging another old man by the arm.
“Marco,” he said, and made a Vanna White-esque gesture of presentation. Marco was about the same age as Señor Chupa, but not as well turned out. His skin was lined with deep furrows and he was missing some teeth. He had a brown paper bag in his hand, with a straw protruding from it. His tie was loosened. I’d seen him before, hanging out at the neighborhood bodega, but he’d never spoken to me.
“Louie asks will you go to a dance with him,” Marco said, and sighed deeply.
Señor Chupa gave a little hop and stuck his hand out toward me for a shake. Amused, I gave him my hand, and he kissed it. Anything was possible, I reminded myself. Okay. Maybe not anything. This man was clearly too old for me, and he also seemed to be mildly mentally retarded, but what the hell, maybe he had a grandson.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
Marco looked flabbergasted. He conferred with Señor Chupa.
“Louie will pick you up here, tonight, at seven-thirty,” said Marco, his voice wavering, clearly giving me an opportunity to say that I had misunderstood.
“Chupa, chupa,” trilled my elderly datesman, sashaying his way out the door. The women of the Laundromat rolled their eyes. I would need to find out what that word meant.
“Louie,” said the head Laundromat lady, her lips pursed disapprovingly.
“Yeah?”
“Está loco.” She nodded meaningfully. I had a piddling grasp of Spanish gleaned over two years of required high school classes. I proudly constructed my response.
“Es él malo?” I wasn’t sure what the word for “dangerous” was, so I tried to ask if he was bad.
“Él es un niño,” she responded, and shook her head. He was a child, I thought that meant. Well, that wasn’t terrible. Had she told me he was a child molester, it would have been different. Hopefully I hadn’t missed anything.
“Qué es ‘chupa’?”
“Chupa!” she chortled and went to the jawbreaker machine in the corner and put a dime in it. She brought the jawbreaker back to me, and displayed it between thumb and forefinger. It was enormous, and speckled with Jackson Pollock splatters. I hoped she didn’t want me to swallow it. Big as my mouth was, that would not be possible.
The Laundromat lady put the jawbreaker into her mouth and sucked it furiously. She pointed at her mouth. She exaggerated the sucking. She took it out.
“Chupa,” she explained.
I’d been followed around with a sound track of “suck, suck.” I tried not to think that that was appropriate.
“Gracias. Qué es ‘paleta’?” I might as well get the rest of the meaning.
She went to the Laundromat’s freezer case (due to lack of air-conditioning, all the Laundromats in the area also sold ice cream), and pulled out a popsicle.
Chupa la paleta. Suck the popsicle.
Why was I even surprised?
THAT NIGHT, SEÑOR CHUPA and I walked together to south Williamsburg. I had to keep slowing down, because his legs weren’t long enough to keep up with mine. Without Marco, it was difficult to converse, but he managed to tell me several things which I partially understood, one of which seemed to be a declaration of his love for young girls. He informed me that he was seventy. I asked if he had children, and he said yes, eleven, though I wasn’t sure I understood that correctly.
“Te amo,” he said. “Chupa, chupa.”
I love you. Suck, suck. It was the perfect phrase. Everything you needed to know about relationships. No. No, no, no. I wouldn’t think that way anymore. Things could be worse. I could be kissing a vampire. I could be on my way to France with a psychopathic millionaire, or stripping for schoolboys. Instead, I was going dancing with a relatively polite old man. My life was pretty good, all things considered.
THE CLUB WAS LOUD, dark, and unmarked. I’d passed it a million times when I’d lived in the neighborhood. It normally boasted a couple of old guys playing dominoes outside, but tonight, it had a band wedged into the corner, playing salsa music. A bunch of people were spinning and stomping, shaking everything they had. These were the parties that had once kept me awake. Now I was one of the guests. I got into it. I spun and kicked up my heels. I shook every bit of my rump. Finally, something that would put it to good use!
Señor Chupa looked at me skeptically, and waved some people over to watch me. It was very quickly clear that almost everyone in the room was related to him. It was also very clear that my dancing was the most horrifying thing any of them had ever witnessed. Señor Chupa looked put upon. He held out his arms, patiently, in the universal gesture for “Let Me Teach You, You Idiot.” I wasn’t an idiot! I shook it some more. Now people were laughing. I hadn’t really understood that salsa was something that had to be learned. I thought you just naturally knew how. Not so. Counting was required. Precise placement of arms and elbows and, most importantly, knees.
Señor Chupa handed me off, groaning, to another old man. This one was confident, until I stepped hard on his tiny, shiny foot. Another old man cut in, and spun me twice, before I whirled the wrong way and dislocated his shoulder. I was willing, but willing wasn’t enough. Finally, an old woman, who’d been giving me a dirty look for a while, waved the men aside and stomped over to me in her spike heels. She looked like a prison guard. If anyone could lead the unleadable, it was her.
“Soy esposa de Louie,” she informed me, tersely.
No wonder she’d been pissed off. Chupa had lied. He was married, and this was his wife. Fortunately, my Spanish was good enough to apologize.
“Soy embarazada.” I put my hands up in a gesture of supplication.
“Embarazada?” She looked enraged. “EMBARAZADA?!”
“Sí, soy embarazada.” Maybe she didn’t think I was sorry enough. “Muy embarazada!!”
It wasn’t until several people were screaming at Señor Chupa that it dawned on me.
Embarazada did not mean embarrassed.
It meant pregnant.
“NO! No soy embarazada! No! No!” I couldn’t think of any other words, so I pressed the fabric of my dress against my stomach. I mimed holding a baby, and then mimed throwing it, which in my mind showed that it had never existed. There were gasps of horror. Oops. Charades. The deathmatch version.
“No?” Two women patted my stomach suspiciously.
“No!” I said. They motioned Señor Chupa’s wife over and conferred with her. Whatever they said made her shrug and gesture around at all the people, in a way that suggested perhaps some of them were themselves the result of Señor Chupa’s dalliances. Señor Chupa grinned, and winked at me. His wife clicked her tongue warningly at him, and he went back to his beer.
“Bien,” said Louie’s wife, and then took my hands to dance with me. People started clapping in rhythm. I had a terrifying feeling that I was about to become a piñata, spilling not candy, but all the stories I’d been collecting my whole life. I imagined the people looking at a big pile of my miscellaneous sentences all over the floor, then picking them up to suck on. Why not? Eat my words. Swallow me whole.
Then I was spinning like a dreidel, going too fast to think.
“Uno, dos, tres,” chanted Señor Chupa’s wife, her feet tapping. The band was playing loud. The room was full of people I didn’t understand. Señor Chupa was clapping from the corner. His children were all around us. No doubt someone was making fun of me in Spanish, and I, well, I was dancing. Señor Chupa’s wife was leading, and I was going wherever she wanted to take me. She had her hand in the small
of my back, and she pinched me whenever I got it wrong.
“Gracias,” I yelled.
“De nada,” she said, and spun me until I was too dizzy to stand.
SEÑOR CHUPA’S TWELVE-YEAR-OLD grandson rode my blister-footed self home at 3:00 a.m. He stood and pedaled his bicycle furiously through the streets of Brooklyn, whistling. The temperature had dropped, and there were four bright stars out. There was a breeze in the trees of McCarren Park. All the lights were green.
Maybe it was me, but it seemed like we were flying.
Innocence, A Broad
In Which Our Heroine Sticks with What She Thinks She Knows…
WONDERWOMAN TOOK OFF HER GLASSES and covered her face with her hands. “Sorry,” she said. “This is completely embarrassing. I like to make a regular meal of my feet. Sometimes I swallow both at once, and I have to just roll, like Ouroboros.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not gay right now, but give me a second.”
I was questioning something that it had never occurred to me to question. I’d never been asked out by a woman before. It seemed that I radiated straightness. Apparently something had changed, though, because here we were, sitting in a white-tableclothed restaurant, and Clara—aka Wonderwoman, for her distinct resemblance to Lynda Carter, my television idol for all of the 1980s, and for her occasional donning of a covetable pair of red stiletto boots—had asked me to have dinner with her. I’d thought the meal was an attempt to hire me away from my temp agency. I was flattered. Something must have shifted in my demeanor. Maybe it was dancing with the Prom Queen, who was admittedly male, but was not dressed like any straight man I’d ever met, or maybe it was hitching up Marie Antoinette’s skirt. Most likely it was salsaing with Señor Chupa’s wife. My life was getting bigger and I liked it.
Maybe I liked Wonderwoman, too. It wasn’t everyone who could drop Ouroboros, an ancient symbol of either eternal renewal or mistakes made ad infinitum, into casual conversation. Ouroboros was depicted as a serpent biting its own tail. I felt very Ouroboros, very often. Maybe this would get my tail out of my teeth.
The Year of Yes Page 12