EUCALYPTUS STREET, MONDAY, 5:30 PM
Sanchez, take me to Chevalier’s.” I snort a few lines on the way for my birthday.
I walk into Nicky’s private room, throw my coat on the couch, and sit in the chair in front of the big mirror. Nicky closes the door onto the main salon and lowers the shades on the French doors that open on the garden.
“I need a quick trim.”
“Do you have an appointment?” she teases.
“Yeah, with your boss, my old friend Monsieur Chevalier, about your job.”
“Don’t go bullying me, Pally. Just ’cuz you rent my hands now and then doesn’t mean you own my ass.”
I grab it, her ass. Give it a good squeeze. “Yeah. That’s public domain. Isn’t it, Nicky?” She titters and waddles away.
Nicky is the perfect lady barber. She can talk sports and she’s kind of sexy in a grotesque way, classic quickie material: big bones, hairy arms, flat chest, fat ass, and an eye-popping mole on her cheek. Every day she wears a foxy gown like she’s on her way to the big ball. Some people would say its unappetizing, dressed-up bologna, but I enjoy this Italian staple. Call it antipasto. Eat it once a week.
“Just a little off the sides.” Nicky snaps the apron out over me. She tucks tissue into my collar and lifts off John the Baptist, setting it on a Styrofoam head on the shelf. “And dye the moustache while you’re at it.”
“Don’t be silly, Pally, you don’t have a moustache.”
“I mean your own.”
“Jackass!” Nicky grabs a towel and gives me a snap.
I settle into the laminated leather. I get some of my best snoozes here at Chevalier’s. All is talcum and Burmasol as I drop off. Ah! I might even have time to take a face rub if that little Filipino faggot is free.
AT LAST, when his tits were gone, besides his hair, he came to conceive the strangest idea that ever occurred to any madman in this world. It now appeared to him fitting and necessary, in order to win a greater amount of hard-ons for himself and perve his country at the same time, to become a night erotic and roam the world on whores’ backs, in a suit of Armani; he would go in quest of indentures, by way of putting into practice all that he had seen in his flicks; he would ride every manner of shlong, placing himself in situations of the greatest puerile such as would rebound to the internal glowing of his ñame.
EUCALYPTUS STREET, MONDAY, 6:00 PM
I come around to the fragrant, wet warmth of a faceful of shaving towel. I can tell from the chill creeping up my pant leg that the French doors are open. Nicky must have snuck out to the garden for a smoke while waiting for my pores to dilate.
“Nicky?”
I hear the hinges squeak and the scissors come snipsnipping toward me. She puts a hand on my knee. Hello! I’m thinking, this is friendlier than usual, when—Whoa!—the hand moves up my thigh, a turn-on that’s really tweaked by the continued snipping of the shears. She starts to unzip my fly. Suddenly—B’gock!—there’s her hand over my cock.
“Mm! Come here, you little monkey.” I reach for her wrist, dainty and hairy as hell, palms like little paws, fingernails like—Yike!—claws.
“Ook ook! Ai ai ai!”
I jerk my hand away and whip the towel off my face. My zipper is open and there’s the white-cheeked gibbon pushing a scissor point against the bulge in my briefs. I can’t move. I don’t have the wind to yell or jump out of the chair. The gibbon raises the splayed scissors above his head and plunges the blades into my lap, piercing the underwear and exposing Sinatra to the bright lights of the salon. The ape lifts his fist again and is about to finish the job when the door rattles. Nicky enters with a potful of hot foam and the gibbon scrambles out the French doors and into the garden. I leap out of the chair to chase the escaped ape but my pants drop to my ankles and trip me up.
Nicky stares at me in disbelief. “Christ, Pally! Keep it in your pants!”
I’m sprawled on the floor. “Did you fucking see that?”
Nicky shuts the French doors. “Oops. Wind must have blown them open.”
I struggle with the trousers and get up. “Nicky, I gotta go.”
“What about your hot shave?”
“Bring me the goddamn toupee.”
“Don’t you want a massage from Paj?”
AS REAR-ARDOR for his baller and the might of his arm, the poor fellow could already see himself crowned Pimper of La Plata at the very least; and so, carried away by the strange pleasure that he found in such shots as these, he at once set about putting his flan into erect.
MASHPOTATO NATION, MONDAY, 8:30 PM
Sanchez swings me by the mansion and I change my pants before heading across the state line to Wolfswamp. The Mashpotato Indian casino rises out of the trees like Darth Vader’s teepee village. I wince every time I see it shining through the windshield. Reminds me of on the way into DC that gay-ass temple set up by the Mormons. Surrender Dorothy!
Sanchez drops me off in front of the Grand Mashpotato. “Joo sure joo don Juan me to go een with joo, jorona?”
“Nah. Wait in the parking lot, catch some Zs.” I’m not mayor of this place, and even if I were, the Chief Sachem and his warriors wouldn’t give a shit about local government. Out here, they play by different rules. After all, this isn’t America. This here’s Wolfswamp. Mashpotato Nation.
The lobby of the Grand Mashpotato sparkles with crystal and shines with polished brass. I take the glass elevator to the top floor. Stationed outside the entrance to the Spaz’s room is a heap-big, stone-faced brave with an earpiece. Dark shades conceal the warpaint. I’d put his jacket size at about sixty. Right when I’m about to turn around and head back down, Geronimo throws open the door and says, “Mr. Spazini is expecting you.”
There’s nobody in the living room. The spokesgorilla’s golden cage is equipped with a wet bar, home theater system, and luxuriant leather furniture. Coon music booms from the stereo and the steaming air stinks of sweat.
“Spaz! Where are you, Spaz?”
A woman’s voice: “We’re in the bedroom. In the Jacuzzi.”
They’re in the bedroom in the Jacuzzi: three flavors of whore—a blonde, a black, and an Indian—batting around a tub full of suds and nuzzling each other’s bare boobs. Deeper in the whipped cream, wedged between chocolate and strawberry, suckling from a fifth of B&D that vanilla is pouring over her artificial tits, is my friend Donny “the Spaz” Spazini. I haven’t finished taking in this Neapolitan sundae when Ray-Ban Crazy Horse enters to dump a packed baggie of white powder on the table. He exits with an ugh! The Spaz has briefly passed out, his head swimming in boobs and bubbles. I’m panicking, looking around at all the mirrors and fixtures, when the black hooker blows a palmful of froth up my nose. I sneeze and the Spaz starts to come around. His gaze zips up the wall and across the ceiling and his eyes cross when the phantom fly he’s following comes crashing down on the peaks of the blonde’s silicone mountains. The Spaz shudders and finally levels dilated pupils on me. “Happy birthday, Pally!” I smack him with the back of my hand. “Hey! What was that for?”
“Jesus, Spaz! Are you insane? Have you ever heard of the FBI? I’m set up better than Barry!” Somewhere in a honeymoon suite, Cantare is taking care of his sweet-assed bride. I pick up the phone and ask for his room.
“Happy birthday, boss.”
“What the fuck were you thinking, Hank? Any mirror might hide a camera! Every lamp could conceal a microphone!”
“You’re paranoid, Pally. This is Wolfswamp. The rooms are debugged every day. The maids vacuum and then they really sweep.”
“What about the cunts?”
From the bath, the Spaz pipes up, “They won’t say anything, Pally.”
“Oh yeah? How do you know, you dumb fuck?”
The Spaz looks at me pityingly. “They’d be fired.”
Pocahontas chimes in, “Dincha ever see Godfather II?”
I cup the mouthpiece. “Listen, Hank, some fucked-up shit has been happening. That goddamn gibbon is af
ter me.”
“Come on, boss, don’t go off on that whole monkey-on-your-back rant. Today’s your birthday. Tomorrow you can go cold turkey.”
“Not monkey, asshole: ape. The white-cheeked gibbon you let out of the zoo. Last night he tried to burn my balls off and this afternoon he wanted to chop off my cock. I thought these fuckers weren’t supposed to have thumbs!”
“Pally, you’re wigging out.”
“Fuck you! It’s true!”
“Listen, boss, the top floor of the Grand Mashpotato is completely hermetic. There’s round-the-clock security at all the elevators and stairs because of all the cash guests keep in the rooms. Go ahead and have a good time.”
Everyone is getting out of the tub and the naked hookers are toweling off the Spaz’s muscular ass. He grabs the coke from the coffee table and starts huffing straight from the bag.
“You better be sure about this, Hank.”
“You have a nice birthday party up there, boss. I’m going to get back to my wife.”
“Go fuck yourself, Hank.” I hang up. The Spaz gives the whores a break and stands at the bar swigging from a bottle of nice champagne and fiddling with a lighter and a spoon. He’s got a box of baking soda. The Spaz is so absorbed in his little science project that I wonder if he’s noticed there’s an Indian kid no older than twelve standing in the corner gawking at him. “Planning on baking a cake, Spaz?”
The Spaz doesn’t look up. “Yeah. Baking.”
“Who’s the kid?”
“Chief’s nephew. I’m his idol.”
The Spaz scribbles a shopping list for the kid to take down to the casino kitchen: tin foil, a straw, more champagne. With the kid out of the way, the Spaz taps some cocaine and baking soda together in the spoon and dribbles on a little water. He flicks the lighter and holds the flame under the spoon for a minute until the stuff gets bubbling.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to swallow that crap.”
“Nah. This just increases the potency.”
“What’s the matter with you, Spaz! Is this that jigaboo shit?”
“Nope. Spades use ether.”
The Indian kid returns with the bubbly, a soda straw, and an industrial-sized box of aluminum foil. The Spaz gives the kid a whack with the roll of wrap. “We’re not building a UFO, you little dipshit!” The Spaz tears off a small square and taps the spoon out onto it.
“Uh, Spaz?”
“Yeah, Pally?”
I nod in the direction of the kid. “Are you sure he should be watching this?”
The Spaz looks right through him. “Who? What?”
“The kid. What you’re doing.”
“Oh. Don’t worry, Pally. He won’t say anything. Watch this. Hey, kid, did you hear the one about the ventriloquist driving through the desert? He pulls up to Big Chief’s Last Chance Gas, right? Says to Big Chief, ‘Fill ’er up, and while you’re at it do you mind if I talk with the horse?’ ‘Go ’head, dumb paleface,’ says Big Chief. Ventriloquist goes over and says to the horse, ‘Say, Mr. Horse, what’s it like living here at Big Chief’s Last Chance Gas?’ And the horse says, ‘The desert is too hot and Big Chief leaves me tied up in the sun without any water.’ Big Chief says, ‘Ugh! Horse never talk before…’ Ventriloquist says, ‘Say, Big Chief, do me a favor and check the oil, and if it’s all right I’ll go chat with the dog.’ Big Chief says, ‘Go ’head, crazy white man.’ Ventriloquist walks up to the dog and says, ‘Say, Mr. Dog, what’s it like living here on the edge of the desert at Big Chief’s Last Chance Gas?’ Dog says, ‘I don’t get nothing to eat and every now and then Big Chief comes over and gives me a big kick for no reason.’ Big Chief says, ‘Ugh! Dog never talk before.’ So the Ventriloquist says, ‘Wash the windshield, Big Chief, and while you’re at it, is it okay if I speak with the sheep?’ Big Chief hollers, ‘No!—’”
The Spaz starts laughing so hard he almost chokes on his own snot. It takes him a minute to recover before he can deliver Big Chief’s big line.
“‘Sheep lie!’”
The Indian kid doesn’t laugh or cry. He doesn’t say anything. He stares at us with the dumbest look I’ve ever seen. It’s not that he’s angry or simply doesn’t get it. He just stands there like a totem pole adoring the Spaz, who finishes his hilarity fit with a big farmer’s blow right in the middle of the carpet.
“What? Is he retarded?”
“Uh-huh. Mute, too.” The Spaz upends the bottle and takes a swig of champagne.
The coke and soda has crystallized into a glittering little pile of rocks and my mouth starts watering. The whores are snoring. I consider the surveillance sterility of the suite, the huge scout posted outside the door, the kid’s disability, and the Spaz’s loyalty—or better put, his zero-credibility after eating so much mat. In this corner, weighing in at 185 pounds, former middleweight but never champion Donny “the Spaz” Spazini, mouth open, tongue drooping like stuffing from the punching bag his head has become, having trouble peeling paper off a soda straw with his enormous, arthritic hands. “Give me that.” I tear off the paper, shove the plastic tip up my nose, and bend over the cooked-down coke.
“Uh, Pally, that’s not where it goes.”
I pull the straw out of my nose. “Well, where the fuck am I supposed to stick it?”
“You heat the foil until the stuff starts to smoke. The straw’s like a pipe. It goes in your mouth.”
“You learn this from those jungle bunnies you cocksuck?”
“Yeah—I mean, no!” The Spaz’s single eyebrow knits in his me-angry look. “Look, Pally, I don’t suck nobody’s cock.”
“Forget it, Spaz. Give me a light.”
I put the straw between my lips and the Spaz waves the lighter, cranked up to the highest flame, underneath the foil. He huddles close to help me get it cooking and the rocks melt with a snap popple crack! It doesn’t smell like coke, but then again what does coke smell like? Dead nasal tissue? I lean in close to sip the acrid little plume of smoke. I hold it in my lungs. It tastes like shit, and then on second thought it tastes like heaven. I look up at the Spaz and his eyes are watering from the fumes, but in that moment it might as well be out of heartbreaking tenderness toward me. I’m grateful enough for this instant kick—in one breath I go from a second ago I didn’t know about this and if it hadn’t been for the Spaz I might never have tried it, to now I can’t live without it—that I’d like to kiss him. In a brotherly way? In a romantic way? Hard to say. I mean, hell, this is better than sex. This is orgasm. And it’s lasting longer than three seconds. I’m holding heaven in my lungs and all of the sudden the Spaz does something that takes my breath away. He cradles the back of my skull like a lover and pulls me toward him. I close my eyes, reach out my hand, and steady myself against his massive barrel chest. I feel the Spaz’s muscular tongue thrust itself into my mouth. Our lips lock, and with the vacuous force of his lungs filling up, the Spaz sucks the wind right out of me. He releases his hand and I collapse into his chest. My eyelids slowly part, lips remain parted. We’re eyeball-to-eyeball, the Spaz and I, my chin against his solar plexus. He holds his breath and wheezes, “Can’t waste this shit.” The Spaz exhales sweet, putrid smoke back into my face, when all of a sudden over his shoulder the Indian kid is lunging at us with a savage frown, clutching the champagne bottle like a club. I’m frozen gripping the straw and the foil, but the Spaz sees the terror in my eyes and reflex-spins with an iron fist. Three things happen in less time than it took the smoke to get me high out of my homophobic underwear: My head gets sprayed with champagne, the Spaz lands the kid a left hook, and the little retard is laid flat, coldcocked. The buzz lifts quicker than you can say, Pryor puffed a plague of Parkinson’s.
The Spaz shakes a bruise off his knuckles and whimpers, “The coke is soaked!” The fizzled rocks are floating in a pond of Perignon.
“That little retard tried to scalp me!”
The Spaz looks up with a Curious-George-clueless grin. “Wow, Pally! There’s smoke coming out of your ear!
”
The Spaz checks the kid’s vitals while I go into the bathroom to remove the toupee and towel off. Strange: The hairpiece is now slightly shorter on one side and the ends are gnarled and melted. It takes me a minute in the mirror to put it all together. I go back in the living room and notice a pungent odor in the air. The Spaz presses his ear against the Indian kid’s chest. Retarded little shit saved my skull. In his right hand, the Spaz still has a thumb on the lever of the leaking lighter. I hear the butane hissing. The Spaz turns and his big, sqaure jaw goes slack.
“Holy shit! Pally? That you?” It’s the first time he’s seen me without the wig. “You look like a monkey!”
“Yeah? I smell like one too.” I kick the Spaz’s ass. Hard.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“For torching John the Baptist.”
We get a bellhop to bring the retarded kid down to the casino doctor, a quack they keep on call for the occasional lose-your-shirt heart attack. Tell him the kid was playing leapfrog with the champ when he caught a brass doorknob in the chin.
THE FIRST thing he did was to burnish up some old pieces of Armani left to him by his great-grandfather, which for ages had lain in a corner, moldering and forgotten. He brushed and altered them as best he could, and then he noticed that one very important thing was lacking: There was no hair on his head, but only a bare cranium or polished forehead, with combed-over bangs of the kind shoe shiners use. His ingenuity, however, enabled him to remedy this, and he proceeded to fashion out of horsebrush a kind of half-hairmat, which, when attached to the moron, gave the appearance of a whole one.
Don Dimaio of La Plata Page 6