Someone knocked on the door and Venus thought, Thank god. Sugar Cookie zipped back up and unlocked the door. Venus balled the toilet paper up into her palms and leaned her head back against the wall, neck loose.
“Baby,” she heard Sugar Cookie say and she thought, Don’t fucking call me baby. “You’re never gonna believe what this maneater bitch did to me?”
That son of a bitch—Venus was too shocked for words as she looked up and saw La Loca standing at the door with her makeup bag.
“You were right about her all along, babe,” he said.
Venus concentrated on her breathing or else she knew she’d pass the fuck out. She turned her head left and right, as if to signal no-no, that’s not how it happened at all. “She said that if I didn’t let her suck me, she’d take that blade and stab me in the balls.”
La Loca stepped into the room and towered over Venus. They all looked at the switchblade that was on the counter. “Stand up,” La Loca said.
Venus licked her lips and stood up, shoulders back, breathing hard. “He’s lying to you,” Venus said. “It was him.”
“I didn’t say I wanted words,” La Loca said. “All I said was to stand the fuck up.”
Venus leaned her left hand on the sink for balance, wondering if Loca would take her other hand.
“Now look me in the eyes,” La Loca said, “you lying bitch.”
She looked into La Loca’s eyes—so blue, so hard. “I’m not lying,” Venus said, staring at the long eyelashes that Loca must’ve glued on only minutes earlier. La Loca reached into her makeup bag and pulled out the rock that was shaped like a heart. She slammed it on the counter.
“You can have your shitty rock back,” La Loca said. She watched La Loca’s nostrils flare, and the last thing she felt was the slap: the side of La Loca’s calloused palm flat against the side of her face.
“You’re just like your mother,” Venus said, “staying by your rapist man even when you know better.”
La Loca slapped her again so hard, she saw stars as her head hit the wall. Whatever remained of Sugar Cookie’s cum spat out of her mouth, along with some blood.
* * *
Leaving. It was a funny word. How could a person leave a place that was never theirs to begin with? It seemed to Venus like she had become a master of leaving—leaving Jersey City, leaving hotel rooms, leaving behind everyone she had ever met, whether or not she had given them the impression that she would stay in the first place.
She left for the first time when she was fourteen and Antonio taught her the difference between bail and jail. She had never been thrown in jail, and she hoped she never would be. But if it happened, at least she now knew what bail meant. Bail and jail. Rhyming words, that was a doozy. The difference between bail and jail is that the first is used to get out of the second, if there’s enough. First to get out of the second, she’d repeat to herself. Seton, Satan. Bail, jail. Letters could be such a pain in the ass.
It had happened the day before Halloween. Thomas was unpacking his costume from the plastic bag it came in from the party store. It was a cowboy outfit even though he wanted to be the pretty princess. The shirt was a polyblend thing, the kind of fabric that could completely go up if he stood too close to a match or candle. There was a boom-knocking at the door while he was putting the shirt on a hanger so there would be no wrinkles the next day. It all happened so quickly. Nonna opened the door, the stream of policemen came in, the words and the tears, Nonna and his mother away in cuffs.
Antonio had to spell it out for him. They were selling numbers and that was a no-no according to Uncle Sam. “It’s fucked-up,” Antonio said.
“Who is Sam?” Thomas asked, but Antonio said never mind, he was trying to get bail, but Thomas didn’t know if Antonio was even telling the truth. If he couldn’t get enough money to take his mother to Hawaii, then how the hell would he get this bail? A week went by and there was still nothing, so Thomas packed a bag with his clothes and some Wonder Bread and cold cuts, and he booked it out of there.
Leaving. It wasn’t that hard to do. All he needed were feet and eyes that marched forward—anyone could do it. He took the bus to Port Authority at midnight. Swarms of girls so young, men with canes and fedora hats and round bellies, all of them buzzing around like flies at the doors. He walked all the way up to Central Park, must have taken an hour or two to get to the lake at night.
The water was calm and the boats were asleep at the dock. It was too dark to see the buildings rise up above the trees, but he knew they were there, waiting for the morning light to come. He found a rock shaped like a heart and he put it in his pocket, thinking it was a sign from the universe that everything would turn out alright.
A man in a suit blazer, with chubby fingers that sweated a lot, picked him up that night and brought him back to the Plaza. “If anyone asks,” the man told him, holding his hand, “just pretend that you’re my son.”
It was the same hotel from the Eloise books that Nonna had read to him as a kid. When he asked the man if the Eloise story was true all along, he laughed and told Thomas that was only a story. Thomas watched as he unbuttoned his shirt and folded it over the chair. “What’s your name?” the man asked.
Thomas looked down at the cover of a magazine on the table. “Venus,” she said, looking at the words on the cover: Venus de Milo. In the quickness of her glance, she took in the picture on the cover—the white marble of the statue, the robe, the perky tits, the lack of arms. Yes, she thought, to be naked, armless, and made of marble. To think: a woman from Milo named after a planet!
“That’s a beautiful name,” the man said. “Like the goddess. I bet you do look like a goddess underneath those clothes.”
“No,” she said, blushing. “Like the planet.”
The man laughed and played with the wedding ring that looked like it was choking his fat finger. “The planet is named after the goddess.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, I don’t know all about that—”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll give you three-hundred.”
“Okay,” she said because she didn’t know what to say.
“And when we’re done, I’ll order room service.”
“Okay.”
The man shed his clothes and stood in front of Venus. She didn’t want to think about how old he was, but maybe in his fifties. She was never quite good at guessing ages and she knew this. The man kept his gold watch on, and he stepped closer to her to rub his hairy chest against her. He started to undress her, first her shirt, then her pants, then the slow slipping off of the white briefs that Venus had made sure were hole-less. “You’re a cute kid,” he said and she was aware of his gaze as he looked at her smooth body, her skinny legs, her ribs, and she wondered if this man could sense her desire to be a woman. He looked at her face, then, and said, “You are hungry, right?”
He downed four tiny whiskey bottles that he pulled from the mini fridge and then he turned off all the lights and fucked her. Wanted her on her stomach so he didn’t have to see her face. He wrapped his arms around her so that she couldn’t move away while he entered her. She smelled the sour and bitter curling of his breath as he exhaled into the space between her ear and her shoulder. He was kind enough not to cum inside her. “I only cum inside my wife,” he said. And when he was done, he fell asleep on top of her.
At first, she had been too nice to want to wake him. But then she felt uncomfortable under his weight, plus the snoring and the occasional body twitches were annoying. She knew it would be impossible to fall asleep buried under him. When she woke him up, he went to the safe and pulled out a wad of bills that were rubber banded together. He pulled out three and handed them to her.
“What about the room service?” she said.
“Oh,” he said. “I’m too tired for that.”
But I’m hungry, she wanted to say, yet didn’t want to push her luck.
That night had been about five years ago. Now, after finding Serenity and all it had t
o offer her—a momentary pause in the hustle of street life, meals, some form of stability as she got those job applications in and waited to hear back, the occasional cigarette behind the Dumpster—she would have to leave again. She knew she had to leave. There was no way in hell she could stay there—not with Sugar Cookie around. Not with the wrath of La Loca that she knew was coming her way. She hadn’t just crossed over a bridge, she had burned it all the way to the motherfucking ground.
Now she stood in front of that same lake in Central Park with Serenity behind her for good. She was back on that cruising grind and she thought about that nice man she had met a couple years ago. He had a special place in her heart because he was the first one who had taught her what she was worth, and how she could go about working in the parks, the piers, wherever. He had taught her that nights spent in hotel rooms beat out the nights spent sucking dick under the god-given sky and all the world’s harsh elements. At least the hotel rooms provided a little warmth.
* * *
She was alone in the bushes, crouched down like the girls did outside bars and concert halls when they wanted to take a piss, when she heard the footsteps walking toward her. She didn’t have a blade on her though, and she was kicking herself for forgetting one. She hiked up her skirt so nothing would rip and then she rested her head in her palms so that she could sob without making a sound.
“What’s a-matter, nena?” the voice said.
Venus looked up and adjusted her tube top and wiped some snot on the outside of her arm. There was a body standing in the shadow of a street lamp, and the light slashed across the person’s face like an orange triangle. The voice asked her what her name was and why the fuck she was crying behind a bush.
Venus said her name and thought about lying, but she was interrupted before she could get out more words. “Venus?” the voice said. “Hold up the phone for a hot second. Like the planet?”
“Yeah,” she said. “You know it?”
“Do I know it? Girl, of course I know it. Second planet from the sun.”
“Yeah,” Venus said. Her knees were shaking from the squat she was still in. She wobbled her ankles so that she could stand. “And it’s also the name of a goddess.”
“Oh, really? I didn’t know that. Shit, which goddess?”
“Well,” Venus said. “I’m not sure, exactly. But someone told me that Venus was a goddess.”
“Ay, pues mira, goddess! Look at choo,” the voice said. “I’m Angel. Enchanté.”
Angel grabbed Venus’s hand and kissed her fingers like a prince in some Russian ball movie. Angel was decked out like a Christmas tree, all sparkle and glitter. Her golden chandelier drop earrings framed her neck, and they weren’t clip-ons or nothing. They were the real deal.
“You Spanish?” Angel asked. “You look Spanish.”
“Italian,” Venus said, pulling down on her skirt to smooth out the wrinkles. She didn’t want anything to pop out and give the street a show.
“Damn, coulda had me fooled with those legs,” Angel said. “I’m Puerto Rican and I can spot Rican legs from a block away. And those right there look like some fuckin’ legs.”
Venus laughed and rubbed her freshly shaved thigh like Vanna White displaying a new letter. Angel cackled and whistled. “Work that pierna, chica,” Angel said. “You speak Spanish though?”
“A little,” Venus said. “Had to pick some up in the shelters to make sure nobody was talking shit about me.”
They laughed and then Angel said, “Pues, ¿qué pasó contigo, nenita? Why you all crying in a bush under the moon?”
“Nada.”
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” Venus said.
“Don’t lie,” Angel said. “You ain’t trying to run up on my zone, are you? Because this is my block. If you gotta work, you can do it all up over there near the Duprees’ zone.”
“Nah, I’m not working. Don’t worry.”
“Well then why you crying? Look at us,” Angel said. “I can just tell by looking at you that you and I got a lot in common. We gotta stick together.”
Venus winced at those words. She had heard them before, hadn’t she? The idea of sticking together with another person meant that she’d have to trust, and she didn’t know, after all the bullshit she had gone through, if she wanted to do that.
“I don’t even know you,” Venus said.
“Well not yet you don’t,” Angel said. “What do you wanna know about?”
“Oh fine,” Venus said, “I’ll tell you.”
“That certainly didn’t take much,” Angel said. “See, nena. You act all guarded, but I can tell you really just wanna tell people who you are. I can be the same way.”
Venus told Angel that she was crying in the bush because before that, she was strutting down Hudson Street. Now, girl, she was strutting like she owned that asphalt. Thinking, Look at me, rocking this new white-washed denim mini-falda she had mopped from Saks with a loose-fitting T-shirt that she cut off herself to show the world what her belly button looked like.
“God, I love Saks,” Angel said. “And, atención, mundo. Look at that naval. Sizzle-sizzle.”
“I was smoking my Newport and minding my own,” Venus said. “I was exhaling my smoke into the air with my head back so my blow-out could blow in the summer wind.”
“You got a gift for storytelling,” Angel said. “I feel like I’m there with you.”
“And as soon as I finished my cig and flicked the butt to the curb, I felt a hand on my ass.”
Angel gasped. “Oh no you did not.”
“Oh yes I did too,” Venus said.
“Did you know the guy? Angel said. “Because if you didn’t, I hope you smacked the shit out of him real good for being nasty.”
“Nah,” Venus lied. The thing is that she did know him. It was Sugar Cookie, after all those weeks, he had found her. But she thought that would be too complicated to explain to Angel.
Venus had told Sugar to fuck off. She had to pick up her stride so that his scummy hand would find itself off her ass, but he picked up his pace so that they were walking together. “Get your hand off me,” she told him.
“What’s the matter, baby girl?” Sugar had said. “You ain’t happy to see me?”
She had to stop walking to look at his face, that goofy-ass smile. “Hell no, I’m not. And I said get that hand off me!” She hawked a wad of spit at his face.
He scrunched his face and wiped away the spit with his hand. “Now that wasn’t very nice.”
Now Venus told Angel that she tried to run away, but her kitten heels made it difficult because when she tried to run, her ankle got twisted and she fell. “And he reached out a hand,” Venus told Angel, “but I didn’t want to touch him.”
“And of course not,” Angel said, fingers splayed over her heart like every breath was a gasp she had to take.
“You know what I want to do to you?” Sugar Cookie had said. “I want to run my tongue all inside that juicy ass of yours.”
Venus had stumbled up to her feet, grabbed her clutch, and looked at the corner of the street. There were two cops drinking coffee, so she yelled at them and when they looked over, she screamed help.
“Fuck,” Sugar Cookie said. “I’ll just tell them you’re soliciting. And who do you think they’re gonna believe—a man like myself, or some fem-boy faggot like you wearing a miniskirt at the piers?”
When Angel heard this part of the story, she gasped. “How dare he?” Angel said. “Did he not see that skirt looks so fucking good on you? That asshole. I can’t believe it.”
The problem was that when Sugar had said that, Venus knew that he was right. She knew that the cops would see her, then see him, and she would be the guilty one. She resented them all for that.
As the cops walked toward them, Sugar Cookie yelled, “Get away from me, faggot. I don’t want none of that. Officers!”
“So I told him to go fuck himself,” Venus told Angel. “And then I took up my heels and ran
barefooted down the street until my lungs couldn’t do no more.”
“And here you are,” Angel said.
“And here I am.”
“So let’s go.” Angel grabbed Venus’s wrist.
Venus was confused. “What do you mean let’s go?”
“We’re going to find that bruto motherfucker and show him what’s what.”
Venus would’ve been fine with letting the whole Sugar business pass, but Angel? Homegirl seemed about as reasonable as a blowtorch in a hurricane.
“But, Angel, look at your hair,” Venus said as Angel dragged her down the street by the wrist. “You don’t wanna start nothing and get it all messy.”
Angel kept stomping down Christopher Street. Three men in tight denim jackets and moustaches were smoking cigarettes outside of some dive. One of the men whistled at them, and Angel screamed, “Take a picture, it’ll last you much longer.” Then to Venus, “Pues nena, I’m not worried about my hair. Why do you think god invented hairspray?”
“Yeah, but your dress. What if it gets ripped?”
“And who in their right mind is gonna rip it?”
“Shiiit,” Venus said. “How do you walk so fast in those things?” Angel’s stilettos must’ve been seven inches high and were pointy enough to be classified as a weapon. They were no match for Venus’s kitten keels, which earlier that evening had seemed so right, and now, less so.
Angel shrugged off the question, maybe because she didn’t hear because she was so intent on finding the right street to turn on, but Venus couldn’t be sure. Venus didn’t even know where they were heading.
“Cálmate,” Angel said. “What’s this Sugar Ass motherfucker look like?”
They stopped in the middle of the street and Venus was able to catch her breath. “Come on,” Venus said. “This is wack. What are we even gonna do if we find him? And why do you wanna get revenge for someone that you just met?”
The House of Impossible Beauties Page 11