by Tom Molloy
I asked her if she wanted a drink or anything to eat, but she shook her head no and resumed her story.
“So I’m thinkin’, ‘Jeez, this guy’s real smart, what’s he see in me?’ Ya know? I mean that’s what I’m thinkin’, but I’m feelin’ good, ’cause I figure, ‘Hey this is a nice guy.’ Am I borin’ ya? I’ll stop if I’m borin’ ya.”
I told her I wasn’t bored.
“So he’s talkin’ ’bout this an’ that, an’ then he gets onto politics an’ stuff, an’ he’s talkin’ about the Middle East, an’ oil, an’ Arabs an’ stuff. Then he says, ‘Know what we outta do over in Beirut?’ An’ I says, ‘No what?,’ an’ he says, ‘Nuke ’em.’”
“An’ I says ‘Huh?’”
“An’ he says, ‘Put a glow over ’em. Hit ’em with the big one. Nuke the bastards.’”
The patter of the pipes grew louder and drifted higher in the walls.
“An’ I says, ‘Ya mean drop an atomic bomb on Beirut?’ An’ he says, ‘Ya got it kiddo.’”
“An’ I says, ‘Well I didn’t go to college or nothin’, but I know there’s a lotta different kindsa people in there. There’s Arabs, an’ Christian Militias, an’ guys called Druids or somethin’ like that, an’ Moslems who crouch down when they pray, an’ some are on our side, an’ some hate us,’ though I said I didn’t know who was who doin’ all the shootin,’ ‘an’ the Israelis are there, and them Syria guys, an’ those guys that wear them scarves, an’ that guy, that Ayatollah guy, who personally I don’t like myself, he’s got a hand in there too.’ I says, ‘Hey ya can’t just drop a big bomb on everybody.’
“I says, ‘I seen a show on TV once one night ’cause I had the flu, an’ they explained it. There’s all kindsa people there. Ya just can’t drop an atomic bomb on everybody’s head.’”
As I leaned against the wall I could feel the warmth of the pipes within.
“What did he say to that?”
She dropped her hands with the wet cloth onto her lap and looked at the towel as she spoke.
“He called me a dumb cunt.”
The heat sounded below the floor and she spoke very softly over the sound.
“Jeez, that hurt.”
Now she pressed the towel to her face with both hands.
“I told him not to use that language with me, an’ he says he didn’t come over to talk, he came over to get laid. He says the cognac cost a hundred bucks an’ I should be grateful.”
She stopped talking to shift her weight.
“So I told him what he could do with his cognac.”
She drew a deep breath.
“He tells me I’m cute when I’m mad, an’ trys to slap a make on me. I told him to get lost. Guess that’s when it dawned on him I ain’t gonna hop in the sack, an he just plain slapped the hell outta me. He’s a big guy too, that Charlie is.
“An’ when he’s done knockin’ me around he says he’s gonna go on down to the corner bar there, have a few an’ forget his wasted evenin’. That’s what he called it, ‘my wasted evenin’.’”
16
The human eye can detect sudden movement in darkness, but does not see very slow movement. And I moved very slowly when I had to move at all in the doorway between the bar and Charlie’s car. For a firmer grip I had wound black masking tape around one end of the 38-inch lead pipe I was holding.
The light from the opened bar door spilled onto the sidewalk as Charlie drew his gray wool coat around him. He called a few mock insults to his buddies back inside and started walking toward his automobile.
From the dimness of Montresor’s cellar, Poe tells us that it is essential to revenge that the victim be fully aware of the avenger. But that was a luxury I could not afford. So I contented myself with whispering his name as he passed. He turned to blink stupidly.
I slammed the end of the pipe into his solar plexus, pulling him into the doorway as he fell. In quick succession I got him on both floating ribs, both elbows, and one knee.
As I knelt beside him I pulled the single piece of white paper from my pocket. I had repeated on it the message I had left earlier that night in so many places. The words were clear, for I had used my best penmanship in creating them.
The warm air was coming out of his mouth with a groan, as with a gloved hand I tucked the words between his left cheek and gum. It was a message I had first heard on Nantucket, later in Vermont, and again along the shores of Maine.
SPEAK BUT TO IMPROVE THE SILENCE.
17
The birds hesitated on the sidewalk, the cold breeze turning the tips of their feathers as David’s arm hung over them. He pumped his arm, faking shots with the roasted peanuts and the winged creatures turned and cooed with each movement.
He threw down a handful of nuts and the birds shoved and pecked, ignoring the heels of passersby. David spoke as he explored the paper bag for more nuts.
“A proper course of action, lad. Bear in mind that your Corporate Founder once used a whip to chase the money lenders from the Temple. So I’d say you’re within your common-law rights as well as the bounds of legal precedent. Not to mention the asshole had it coming.”
I took a peanut and cracked the shell, peeling off the thin brown skin before devouring the fruit and spoke.
“I wonder if he’ll make the connection?”
David looked up, the bag balanced on his palm.
“And take it out on the lady?”
“Yeah.”
“I doubt it. Guys like him never make connections. That’s why they’re guys like him.”
The birds danced their patterns on the sidewalk, nibbling and discarding the shells of the peanuts as David dropped more fruit among them.
“Ah,” he said, “to be a pigeon in Chelsea.”
The benches we sat on were at a bus stop and as the bus approached, a hooker, who had said her name was Franny, turned away from the flow of traffic and sat beside us. She had on a red miniskirt and blue sweater beneath a cherry red raincoat. She was short and redheaded, with the full figure of a French Catholic schoolgirl.
“It’s too cold today,” she said. “No guys are out lookin’, it’s just too cold. It must be zero; it must be below freezin’.”
As the bus passed she got up and strode right to the center of the street looking down the line of cars. The fifth car slowed, stopped, and Franny was gone.
“It’s always darkest before the dawn,” said David. Abruptly he looked up at me. “Stop kicking yourself because you dealt brutally with a brute. You did the right thing. But it was a felonious act so be careful to whom you mention it. Myself, I am an incorrigible gossip and rumor-monger but I shall stifle my natural urges in this case and tell no one.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Speaking of felons, you must visit an urban oasis with me tonight. An ideal spot for cleansing the mind and soul.”
“What is it?”
“It is the world as it used to be. The world as it should be, a masculine island. One of the few left, a fragile ecosystem as yet undisturbed by the onslaught of feminism, whatever that is.”
“I’ll ask again. What is it?”
“Steam.”
Like wax gargoyles slouching in a hot sun, the old, naked men sat on the wooden benches, palms flat on the wood as though contemplating handstands. The heat was rising, rising, so that it hurt a little to breathe, and I opened my mouth and swallowed the air. It was 120 degrees, or 140, or maybe it was 160. The moist heat was part of all of us, and it was reassuring to know that these old men had come to this room as boys and their fathers before them.
Younger men came in padding like naked cats, nodding in respect to the older ones who sometimes did and sometimes did not acknowledge the passing youth. When we had entered the room David had nodded, and both elders had acknowledged him. They had been talking, but now with the young men present they fell silent until the youths left the room.
One of the elders had a thin gold chain attached to
a gold crucifix around his neck. The gold glistened moistly around his loose flesh. It was he who spoke.
“An’ that was it with them. That was the end of me an’ them.”
The other pursed his lips slowly, richly. He nodded in agreement, adding his silent understanding. The speaker continued.
“That was the end. A great betrayal Anthony, a great betrayal an’ I’m not the only one.”
The acquiescence of the other was slower, almost morose, as the speaker continued, now louder.
“An’ that music. I loved that music. I cried inside when I heard that music. Them songs don’t belong in English; them ain’t English songs.”
The other picked up the thread of the speaker’s thoughts hurling them down like a gauntlet, as he shouted “An’ the Mass don’t neither!”
The speaker almost leaped up, the chain flapping once against his chest.
“’Course it don’t! A great betrayal an’ to hell wit’ all them ones an’ all them priests an’ them women givin’ communion. Whoever heard a such a thing? That ain’t what God wants. God don’t want no woman on no altar, an’ he sure in hell don’t want no Mass an’ singin’ in English!”
He slapped the wooden bench with a wet towel that lay by his side.
“They bring back Latin, I go!”
He massaged both knees with his hands and spoke evenly while the rage stayed in his whitened fingertips.
“A great betrayal Anthony, a terrible thing they done.”
The sweat was bitter, profuse, it was in our eyes, our mouths. This was a splendid, a merciless heat. Even my hair was hot and I made my way to the big bucket of water, cupping my hands and pouring the liquid over my head. The water ran down my skin growing warm even as it flowed.
A few feet away David was on the bench, slouched against the stone wall, mindless of its intense heat as time passed, unmeasured in this windowless cubicle. At length David sighed and said to no one, “Beautiful.”
The minutes slowed and went on, and the moisture came out of us. All eyes were closed to the heat’s embrace, mouths were open slightly. I thought of my father dying so young, and of his father at 90. The voice seemed very far off.
“Anthony, give us some heat.”
It came almost at once. The body recoiled in alarm, but then the flow of moisture took on its own reasoning and I slumped on the bench close to David who lay back in a hot, moist reverie, his mind, I sensed, wandering in boyhood.
After many minutes, through the opaque door that led to the showers, voices rose and as I opened my eyes I could see the agitated movement of white flesh beyond the glass. But here in the heat it seemed very far away, and I closed my eyes again, contemplating the heat-wrought numbness of my lips, when the door swung open and two of the young men came in. The one who spoke was respectful and sincere.
“Santino, Anthony, you come in a broad’s mouth, you know, a broad sucks you off, you kiss her after?”
Drawing a deep breath Santino shook his head.
“Ya do not. A man don’t kiss no woman after that. A fag kisses a woman after that. It’s disgusting. Ya don’t kiss her.”
Spinning on the toes of one foot the naked young man slapped his friend on the arm.
“Ya hear that? A fag kisses a broad after. See, you don’t know nothin’.”
The friend protested as they disappeared through the door.
“But I like to kiss her after.”
“’Cause you’re a fucken fag, that’s why.”
But the argument didn’t stop and the tone of the glass changed from all of the bodies that gathered on the other side. The volume of the noise grew and the door opened, as some young men stood in the shower room and others spilled into the heat room. One man, crew cut, with a moustache, and the only one genuinely angry, yelled.
“Ya don’t kiss her after, ya don’t, ya don’t do it, it ain’t done.”
He overwhelmed the arguments of the other side which were,
“I love her, she likes me to.”
A man no one knew yelled to no one in particular, “You’re the fucken fags, you assholes!”
But no one listened to him. As quickly as it started the argument was almost over, and it died when Anthony said, “You’re killin’ the heat.”
When they all went out to the shower room the heat again descended, seeming even hotter than before, and the four of us settled back. The awareness of cold wind in the black air outside made the heat a sensual thing, and the sweat and the salty numbness of our lips seemed proper.
I raised my hands to the ceiling and it was like holding them close to a flame as blood pulsed in the fingertips and the great heat flowed and flowed. I was beginning to need the relief of the shower room, but I stayed, looking at David whose body seemed temporarily empty of his being. The time went on and the thought of black air was thrilling.
Santino spoke and Anthony answered.
“A man don’t do that.”
“’Course he don’t.”
As the minutes slid past, the heat induced in us a growing heaviness. At length David spoke.
“What would the temperature be in Maine, lad?”
“I’d say about 20 below zero.”
He nodded, then spoke, “A wonderful cleanliness to a temperature like that.”
“Yes.”
“A certain clarity of thought.”
“Yes.”
He glanced at me.
“So, you like our little hideaway?”
“Nice.”
“Then you must have the full treatment. What the plebeians call, ‘The whole nine yards.’”
He ambled out the door, the room’s air trying to follow him. He was back in a few moments with the moustachioed man who before had been so angry. Now he smiled and said, “How ya doin’, chief?”
David gestured toward a wooden table in one corner of the steam room, and I lay on it as another man brought in a large bucket made of cedarwood. From the bucket of soapy water he produced a large brush explaining that it was made of oak leaves.
As I lay face down, he began lathering my head with the brush, massaging and working his way to the soles of my feet. The white lather soothed my flesh, and the muscles below it. The pungent odor filled my nostrils and the hands of the masseur moved in widening circles. As the soap covered me, inches thick, he said, “Sit up.” When I did he said, “Brace yourself buddy, this is gonna be cold.”
With a slight grunt he hefted the wooden bucket over my head. The frigid shock of the cold water sucked the air from my lungs, scaring me so that I gasped aloud as the water continued to pour, chilly and plentiful. When it trickled to a stop I felt cleaner, fresher, healthier, than I ever remembered feeling, and he said, “How ya feel, pal?”
I said I felt wonderful and he told me that was the whole idea.
We left the room and David held the door open, saying, “Now we get sheets and sit down and relax. The sheets let the heat out real slow. You don’t want to let the heat out too fast; you don’t want it to stay inside either, so we get the sheets and we let the heat out nice and slow.”
Picking up the sheets at a counter we entered a lounge lined with big green easy chairs, and in these chairs, wrapped like survivors from the sea, we lay among the other men just below a thin bluish layer of cigar smoke.
Close by, two elders spoke of frozen ponds and the color of ice in childhood. One remembered blue-black with sharp white slashes, while the other recalled very light green. Both knew the winters were much colder then.
David and I did not speak but rather became monitors of all other conversation. We breathed the traces of cigar smoke and heard all the words. We nearly fell asleep, and as the sheet around me became cold I knew the time had come to leave.
After great comfort or vigorous exercise, there is a silent glory to clothes as they are put on. Not mere covering, at such times they become a wonderful extension of the body itself, the colors and richness of the clothing interacting with the spirit, adding to its well-bein
g. That was how I felt as we stepped into the solid mass of the New England night.
As we walked, smokestacks and chimneys offered their grays and whites in straight streams flowing to the skies. I told David it was time for me to leave and he asked, “Maine?” and I said “Yeah, Maine.”
We shared an aversion to overlong good-byes, and with a few words and a quick handshake we parted.
I have long thought that the natural forces that bring people together provide the same ease of departure through mutual understanding. That was the thought I held as I prepared to say good-bye to Frances. She nodded as though expecting it all along.
Then she brought a pack of cigarettes up to her mouth, a book of matches tucked into the cellophane. With the fingers of one hand she pulled out a butt, lit it and spoke as she examined the pack.
“So another guy’s walkin’ outta my life.”
“Guess so.”
She turned the pack on its side squinting as though reading a secret message.
“Men. You’re all assholes, an’ I don’t think I’m givin’ away nothin’ top secret by tellin’ ya that.”
“Guess not.”
She nodded, then looked up at me, the tears gently forming at the corners of her eyes to fall exquisitely down her cheeks. She took a step and we embraced, her head against my chest, the sobs shaking her, until she whispered one word.
“Shit.”
“They won’t let you into Heaven if you don’t stop swearing.”
She laughed softly and with one hand on my shoulder pushed herself back.
“Hey, I been there once or twice.”
“I can imagine.”
“No ya can’t but that’s another story.”
She put her arms around my neck, kissing me once on the cheek.
“Pardon my French, but will ya just screw off before I start bawlin’ an’ maybe don’t stop for a freaken week?”
I put my hand on the back of her head and kissed her hair.