“Oh shit…” moaned the woman Cindy as she threw up beside the sofa. Everyone groaned, turned away, Susan ran to the rescue.
Anyway, Operation Mingle.
I found myself talking to someone who was writing a book.
“It’s this book, and I’ve been working on it, oh hell, say, three or four years,” he said. “In my head, I mean. In my head only—I haven’t put any of it down on paper yet; it will come rushing out at the right time when I’ve let it gestate.” Yeah. “It’s about this film director and how the films he makes become indistinguishable from his own life; it’s called Lights Camera Action.”
Wasn’t there something called that already?
“No, no,” he said excitedly, almost spilling his drink, gesturing, “that’s the amazing thing! Not for fiction, I looked it up in the Library of Congress catalogue—can you believe it? No one’s thought of it. And I think film is such a good metaphor for life. It has a beginning and an end and you gotta fill up the space in between; it’s also visual just like life…”
I drifted away after a while and ran into one of the skinny gay guys I had met at the beginning of the party talking opera with a bored-drunk woman.
“Oh christ, honey no, she’s awwwwwful—you like her? She can’t sing a note. How can you mention her in the same breath as Sutherland? Her Tosca—good god, take her out and SHOOT her. Name me one thing she can sing…”
The bored-drunk woman said a role and he nearly went through the ceiling: “Chriiiist, you bought her in THAT? Oh if you’d ever seen Caballe in that, my dear, you wouldn’t even breeeeeathe her NAME…”
Susan was screaming with hysterical laughter, asking someone “Do you think I should? Do you? Should I?” Instinctively, drunkenly I drifted in an opposite direction, toward two older women, two nice-looking, serious-looking women who … no this was a mistake.
“What does she mean too old? I’m not old—what? She thinks I’m old? You know I’m not old, don’tcha baby, huh?” The older woman began to french-kiss the other woman. These are lesbians, I said to myself. “She said what? What, I’m dried out, am I? I can bleed, I can goddam bleed—I’ll spread my legs and bleed with the best of ’em…”
Bad drunk. Embarrassing drunk. Take this woman away.
Somewhere in here I was seized by Susan who was making a full-party sweep, devastating all in her wake. “Anyone a virgin in here? Come on, any virgins? ’Fess up! I’ll cure that right away—oh you think I’m kidding Julian, I’m not, I’m not. You dare me to do what? Look, I don’t care—man or woman, I’ll take you on right now … Wait, where was that Bill farmboy? Farmboy, where are yooooo? Ahahahahaha. Sooey sooey sooey—I can smell a virgin a mile off! Bill, there you are!”
Oh god oh god oh god—
“Billy’s a virgin isn’t he? Look at him blush! Oh he is, he is! I’ll fix that honeylamb!” She made a lunge for me as I dodged, slipping behind someone I’d seen before as she rampaged in another direction, after another victim. I made conversation with the someone—god, please be normal …
“Hi. I’m Bruce. Hey, haven’t we met? Wait we met a month ago at this party.”
No I just—
“Don’tcha remember? We talked about jazz.”
I don’t know shit about jazz but we talked about it and then I excused myself to the bathroom where I threw cold water on my face and heard through the bathroom wall: “C’mon Dave! Show us—don’t be shy!” Followed by: “Oh Susan you’re wild—you’re a madwoman!” And then (I was waiting for it): “Ahahahahahahahaha…”
I’d gotten high in here somewhere and now I was starving. I went to the refreshment table. I gnawed on a crust of flavorless, yeastless, dusty-tasting natural brown bread.
“Good isn’t it?” said Joan, extending her hand. “I’m Joan and I don’t think we’ve met.”
I said I was with Lisa and Emma.
“Oh,” she said grimacing. She bent down to make a sandwich out of sprouts and bran dust, natural mustard and the flavorless bread, and I happened to look down her front as her loose homemade knit top sagged forward.
Interesting breast—uh, bread, I noted.
“I made this bread,” said Joan, eating her creation. “And I made this top myself. I’m trying to earn money for a loom. If you need a scarf or anything, give me a call.”
Susan from the bedroom, after a whooping laugh: “Oh come on, we allll masturbate…”
Then suddenly: AAAAAIIIIIIIII!
Sally was in the middle of the room, standing like a zombie, screaming at the top of her lungs. Everything fell silent at the party. Joan ran up to her, and others followed … Sally, what’s wrong? Honey tell us … Please, speak to us …
“What?” Sally said, as if awakened from a dream.
“Why did you scream, baby?” said Joan, holding her.
“Scream?”
Others in the support group, taking her hand, stroking her hair, asked her why she had screamed.
“Did I scream? Yes, I think I did … I … I don’t know why I did that. I just…” Tears formed in her eyes.
“Talk to me,” said one heavy-set woman, beseeching.
“I don’t know … I just don’t know…”
WHERE WAS EMMA? WHERE WAS LISA? WHERE WERE THE WOMEN I LOVED? I wandered about desperately, dodging the bores, avoiding the intimates of Susan. There was a partition in the far darkest reaches of the loft and a gray, flickering light emanated from behind it. I peeked around it and Emma was watching TV; Lisa was beside her in a beanbag chair, mouth open, lightly snoring, dead to the world, a spilled drink to her side.
“Oh it’s you,” said Emma, looking up and starting a little. “I thought you were Susan. I am acting in violation of the Host-esse.” She patted the floor beside her. “Sit down. Come be my co-conspirator.”
I told her Susan was looking for her; she shrugged.
“This is Channel 6,” she said, nodding to the TV. “All night long they rerun all the great old shows, when everybody else is off the air. Situation comedies, black-and-whites, and The Family Compton which I never miss. I love that old show—just got turned on to it a few months ago—don’t make ’em like that anymore. Lots of sex and sadness and death, they kill off someone all the time, someone is always critically ill, such good melodrama and I always cry. The show is so old that most of the illnesses can be cured now, so it doesn’t affect my Perpetual Death Obsession which flares up from time to time.”
Susan made a brief pass near the partition. Emma turned down the volume and the brightness so all was dark and quiet. Susan left our vicinity shrieking, “Wait for me, wait for me!”
Emma turned the volume, brightness back up. “I hope the Harpies aren’t having an orgy. No, you laugh, you think I’m kidding—last month they did. Three fat women all kissing each other and caressing each other’s flab. You had to see it.” Emma’s show was over, the credits and music whined from the small black-and-white TV. “Okay, here is the big moment.”
What was, I asked.
“To see if Lollipop comes on.”
Lollipop was this old, bad sitcom with a little adorable tyke named Laliana Papadopolous (Greek ethnic-stereotype family) and she was called Lollipop for short and she went around the tenement making people’s days and patching up quarrels and all things would be resolved because of her, and each episode would end with people hugging Lollipop and saying she was an angel and Lollipop would cock a smarmy little childstar smile at the camera which would zoom in on her, and the theme music would come in for the final credits, amidst the sound of canned clapping … Lollipop, Lollipop, Lala La Lollipop / Lollipop, Lollipop, Lala La Lollipop … all sung by this ’50s nebulous chorus of children. It was the worst TV show in the History of the World.
“I’d like to find that Felicity Glenn, or whatever her name was,” said Emma, glaring at the child actress, “and personally annihilate her. You see Gil, I wrote Channel 6 and told them that what they should do is run two The Family Comptons and can the godawful Lollipops, and they wrote bac
k and said they appreciated my letter, blah blah blah, but no. So I was looking through this Channel Six Fan Club Magazine which they put out for old movie and TV show buffs and they always feature a staff member and there was this middle-aged man named Harry Langston who was their nighttime engineer and button pusher and I wrote him and I told him I would give myself to him, sleep with him unconditionally, if he’d run back-to-back Family Comptons and scratch the Lollipop show—and he DID, because next week there were two in a row. Well I wrote again and told him thank you, I knew he couldn’t do it every night, but if he could JUST see his way to doing it one more night that next week…”
Did he do it?
“That’s what we’re going to find out tonight.”
The commercials were over. The TV went black for a second and then: Lollipop, Lollipop, Lala La Lollipop …
“Shit,” said Emma, “not tonight.”
Well you can’t have your way every night, I said.
“Some people want to run the world. Some people want power, wealth, fame, influence. This is what I want. To every once in a while alter the New York Channel 6 TV schedule, little triumphs like that, played out before millions of people who don’t know what’s going on.”
“Ahaaaa!” said Susan, seizing upon us. “I’ve found you! No hiding from the Hostesse!” Lisa stirred in the beanbag chair, not able to wake up. “Lisa, Lisa, Lisa,” Susan said, shaking her, placing her hands on her shoulders, then her back, putting a firm hand on her thigh. “Time to get up, the party rolls on!”
Emma flicked off the TV.
“Oh was that Lollipop? I wish they’d put it on earlier,” said Susan. “I loved that show as a kid…”
Emma looked at me, raising one eyebrow.
“Billllll, baby,” Susan began.
Gil.
“Gillllll, baby,” Susan went on, “the evening’s young. Lonely for the Midwest already? You Midwestern farmboys!”
Emma suggested we go to the roof and look at the city and Susan said she’d join us later, but fortunately she didn’t. We left Lisa asleep on the beanbag chair, passed out. We took the creaking Death Elevator to the top floor, stepped out, wandered around in darkness, using Emma’s cigarette lighter for guidance, found the fire door to the roof and then propped it open with a brick. You couldn’t see much of the city because to the north was a taller building, the Empire State Building stuck up above it; to the south were the Twin Towers, lit up all night long.
“It costs more to turn the lights off and start the power flowing again the next morning,” said Emma, “so they just keep the lights on all night. I worked there once.”
Doing what?
“Well, before Baldo’s, I worked temporary work, filing and typing and making coffee, playing secretary for $2.50 an hour. I get $2.75 at Baldo’s which isn’t much more but I can work all day and all night if I want. How are you going to get money?”
By working in the theater, I said, I hoped.
“Got a job lined up already?”
Not exactly.
Emma gave me a sympathetic look. “I’ll have my Aunt Leonie back in Indianapolis say a novena for you.”
But I had a connection, I said, an ex-roommate of a drama instructor at Southwestern Illinois who was a casting director at an off-Broadway theater. I’ll be working within the week!
“None of my theater friends like the theater very much,” Emma said. “In fact, I don’t like my theater friends very much. You’re not like most actors.”
Thanks. I think.
We went over to the edge of the roof to look down and then we decided we’d really enjoy throwing something off the roof, so we looked around for something to throw off the roof but there was nothing small and convenient to throw. We thought about climbing down the fire escape—High Adventure—and climbing into Susan’s bedroom window … and then we thought of fifty reasons why that was a bad idea.
“I’m never having sex again. Did Lisa tell you that?” At this juncture, I figured Emma was officially drunk too.
No, I said, Lisa hadn’t told me.
“I’m not. I’ve joined this Celibacy Support Group which meets down here in Soho.” Then she said the next thing in a rehearsed tone, so I figured she’d given the speech before: “One is persecuted these days for not having sex—if you’re not engaging in orgies every night, you’re obviously out of it.”
Yeah, I know what you mean. (Whose side am I on here?)
“I’ve certainly had enough bad Midwestern sex to last me a lifetime, in high school, at Purdue.”
(I was sort of hoping she was inexperienced and shy, which shows I was inexperienced and shy, I guess.)
“Nope,” she said, finishing off her cocktail. “That was my Sex Phase and it’s over—I’m disgusted with the whole thing. Exchanging bodily fluids. Body parts. Viscosities.”
Viscosities?
“Lots of viscosities. Can’t stand viscosities.”
A church in Little Italy rang the time.
“It’ll be dawn soon,” Emma said, sighing, looking down into her empty plastic cocktail glass. “One drink in Emma and it’s just True Confessions. One good reason for going back to sex would be to have something to confess when I get confessional. Hey, the glass.” I didn’t understand. “Let’s throw it over the side,” she said, and we ran to the edge of the roof and did it and it was excitement galore.
“Better take me downstairs before I pass out,” she said, steadying herself against me at the roof’s edge.
Sure, I said, and I put my arm around her waist. Emma was always weird about being touched. You’d hold her arm and it would go limp; you’d hug her goodbye and she’d go strangely stiff—it was automatic, I don’t think she was trying to do it. As we made it back to the elevator, staggering together, I stopped us both and looked at Emma in the moonlight—no, no it wasn’t moonlight, it was streetlamp light, the collected nighttime neon haze that hangs over Manhattan, but Emma was still pretty in it. I got some class, I didn’t maul her—I kissed her on the cheek.
She giggled, stepped back from me, folded her arms around herself. “I’m taller than you,” she said, laughing again.
Just by an inch or two.
“I mean I can’t go with someone who … I mean I don’t…”
Too short for you, huh?
She said softly, “I just better get back to the party, that’s all.”
And we went back to the party, which was in its death throes. We went back to the TV room and as Emma flopped down on some cushions I was very authoritative about how to avoid a hangover, take two aspirin, drink lots of water … I passed out first though, I’m fairly sure.
The next morning was the definition of hangover.
I awaken. Where am I? I tick through the list: Oak Park, Southwestern Illinois’s Stephen Douglas Hall, Grandma’s house … Nope, nope, nope. Oh yeah: New York. I call Lisa’s name.
“She’s not here…” That was Emma’s voice, subdued. I lifted my head slightly. Emma was watching the TV again.
This is the morning, right?
“Yes, it’s the morning,” she said, turning to look at me. “I don’t know who looks rougher, you or Nixon.”
Nixon was on the TV again, making a last statement, saying goodbye to the staff.
You know what my father was? He was a streetcar motorman first, and then he was a farmer, and then he had a lemon ranch. It was the poorest lemon ranch in California, I can assure you. He sold it before they found oil on it …
Pat was crying, Nixon was about to cry. Emma sat there snivelling too, reaching for the Kleenex. What was going on? I asked.
Emma turned around briefly. “It’s his last press conference, and it’s a killer. God, the man could work TV. Why didn’t he use this material before he had to resign?”
Nobody will ever write a book, probably, about my mother … My mother was a saint. And I think of her, two boys dying of tuberculosis, nursing four others in order that she could take care of my older brother for three yea
rs in Arizona, and seeing each of them die, and when they died, it was like one of her own. Yes, she will have no books written about her …
It was sad.
“I’ve got a new theory about why we hate and love this man,” Emma said. “He’s everybody’s Uncle Richard. Uncle Richard with the carpet outlet or used-car dealership, the guy who got things working and yet always blew it, always screwed things up, went bust time and time again only to get back up and take it again. Oh look, that’s it. I’m relieved, I thought he was going to break down and that would have been embarrassing.”
Commentator:… The helicopter will take the former president to Andrews Air Force Base where he will fly to San Clemente, while the vice president, Gerald R. Ford, will be sworn into office by Chief Justice Burger …
I asked where everybody was.
“Most everyone’s gone,” Emma said, passing me a bowl of greasy chips she had been munching. “Have some breakfast. The dip is great—only good thing at the party.” She slid a bowl of white dip over to me. I ate automatically. “Hungover?” Emma asked.
Yep.
“You know that famous chart we got in biology class of man evolving? Starts off on all fours and then through early man and ends up at Homo sapiens?” Yes. “Well I’m at Australopithecus about now. I expect modern man by this afternoon sometime.”
I said I wasn’t going to be erect anytime soon.
“Ha ha, that’s good. It’s gonna be the Emma and Gil Show around the apartment I see.”
Gil and Emma Show, I corrected.
“Look, there he goes,” Emma said, looking back at Nixon going up the steps of the waiting helicopter. “Come on, Dickie baby, give it to me…” And then Nixon, his last gesture in office, gave America the victory sign, two outstretched arms, two Vs, Nixon of the Nixon Imitations. Emma shrieked with joy. “Oh he’s a classic! Look at him, walking away from the mess he made! Oh I’m gonna miss him—we won’t see his like again…”
And Nixon flew away.
We heard a stumbling, a plodding. It was Susan who in a moment peered around the corner of the partition. “God, I can hear you two in the bedroom. Ask me if I’m hungover. I’m hungover—don’t ask. I don’t know what I did last night. Did I disgrace myself, Em?”
Emma Who Saved My Life Page 5