“You don’t mind the top?” Florian asked, as if he were giving Thomas a choice.
“No.” He gazed up. “At least one of the lights is here.”
“You read?”
“Yes, and write . . . letters and such.”
“And such? I’m big into reading and I love to write, but nothing I’ve spawned has given rise to a litter. I have an uncle in the trade. Still, it hasn’t given me a leg up on getting anything done worthwhile.”
Thomas sat on the remnants of a footlocker. “In the business?”
“Publishing. Well, what they call a boutique press. He owns a bookstore — a very old and distinguished bookstore in New York.”
“I am from New York. Brooklyn.”
“Brooklyn. You don’t sound like you’re from Brooklyn. What did you do to your accent?”
Thomas smiled. “I have one, but I have spent some time suppressing it.” He smiled. “But dotcha go pokin’ fun at my mudder tongue, or I’ll change yer earl fer ya. D’ya understand?” He laughed.
“I’m rather glad you’ve suppressed it,” Florian said.
The outside noise, which had softened, was in crescendo again.
“I guess I will need to get accustomed to that racket.”
“You can get used to anything. And, that, next door, is a Prison . . .”
“Prison?” Thomas said. He went to the window “Well, damn me.” He turned to Florian. “So, we are it?”
“We’re it,” Flo said. “Relax. Enjoy the quiet or the noise, and get ready for a week of sprockets and film repair; old newsreels and other shit.”
“Sounds boring,” Thomas said.
“Do your bunk up. Throw your shit in the lockers and let’s eat.”
“They must have a lousy mess hall, if the barracks are any indication.”
“I know a place.”
4
“I remember,” Thomas said to the dark ceiling. He thought he heard Philip snoring, but he was still awake. “Yes, I remember, we ate in a Bulgarian restaurant. Old saddles hanging from the wall, native instruments — cowbells and the like. Afterwards, he took me to a few bars, and then to a risqué movie. While in the movie, I noticed that Flo, being beyond his saturation in Cognac, let his hand stray in the dark. His leg rubbed against mine.”
“Floozy,” Philip said.
“I assumed it to be the beer. Still I enjoyed it. And when we returned to that shit hole of a barracks, I undressed him and got him into bed. Then, he kissed me.”
“You should have seen that coming,” Philip remarked.
“The next morning, except for his headache, he did not remember a thing. I did. I remembered that kiss. It made me feel alive; and nothing any woman ever gave me could compare.”
“You mean you didn’t know before Flo kissed you?”
“I had known that I was different by age eight or nine. I peeked at friends whenever I got a chance. I scrounged for all those Muscle Boy books, those meager lot of flesh we had in those days to inspire the sexual imagination.”
“Long before my time.”
“Yes, but a historic legacy that you should absorb to understand the nettles of your current perch.”
“Lost me.”
“Not to worry. I stayed in the closet until Flo’s drunken kiss woke the wonder in me. However, that next morning, he never mentioned it. So we went to this boring Projectionist class, and on the last day, perched atop my bunk writing . . .”
5
“Hey, Tee,” Flo said from the bottom bunk. “You’re no fun today. Let’s go drinking.”
“I think I would like to finish what I am working on.”
“You’re always writing. What now?”
“You do not want to know,” Thomas said.
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked.” Flo bounced to his feet and leaned on the top bunk, his nose sniffing as if the ink and Thomas were one, and the paper some sultry rival.
“If you laugh . . .”
“I won’t.”
“It is a poem,” Thomas said.
“Dick-head. Fire it up.”
Thomas sat at the bunk’s edge, the blue-green paper held loose in his hand. He seemed reluctant to recite, but Flo rubbed his knee and patted the bunk. Thomas began:
“They march and drill all day
Like fire kept at bay.”
6
“I still remember that poem,” Thomas said, almost in a reverie. “Piece of crap, but a cathartic moment.”
“Let’s hear it,” Philip said.
“No. I shall feed you some of my best stuff first before you choke of the offal of my youth.”
“No, I insist.”
“Very well:
.
“They march and drill all day
Like fire kept at bay,
Left to smolder in the sun,
To quench their sense of burning.
I hear them and am filled with yearning
Not to be inside them
But to have them inside me
To drill and march on my prison soul,
To smolder in my sun.
Locked away in a dark place,
A fetid place that knows no growth
Or truth be told,
This high wall holds my soul from flowing
To the ebbing seas.
Not the prison marchers drilled.
But, the soul that speaks of me.”
“It sounds beautiful,” Philip said. “I don’t understand a word of it, except you were inspired by that prison and all. You must have felt imprisoned to write such a thing.”
Thomas smiled. “You may not have understood a word it, but whatever word you did catch, you hit a home-run with a perceptive bat.”
“I’m known for my bat.” Philip laughed.
“So is Flo, you smart-ass. So I had read this poem and when I finished reciting it, Flo kissed me again. One thing led to another and . . .”
“Your first time?”
“Yes.”
Philip sat up. He pushed Thomas’ arms, a bit harder than a love tap. “You were lovers then. I asked you if you were together and you said you weren’t.”
“We are not lovers now. We have not been lovers for twelve years.”
“Are you sure? I believe he thinks you still are. I can tell.”
“That is Flo’s way.”
Philip slammed back on the pillow. “So you became lovers and broke up. Still, you see him every day.”
“Twice. Sometimes three times. And more than that. For the first two years after we broke up, we still shared the flat.”
“This flat?”
“There are two sides to my relationship with Flo. The love side is gone. Dead and buried. I have concern for him, as he does for me, but that leaves us the business side only.” Thomas took a deep breath. He felt he had perhaps gone too far in these revelations, but the aftermath of the best sex he had ever had in his life provoked it. Called for it.
“Flo was discharged before me by three months, and when I returned home, he had already taken the draft of my first novel and had an editor working on it. His uncle liked it and before I knew it, I was published. I had an editor, and . . . an agent.”
“Flo.”
“A good agent. I have a bookshelf filled with published works and, God knows, I could have never managed to get them onto the racks myself. So things happened. We moved in together. With the advance on my third book, I bought this little bordello. We seemed set for life.”
“Seems so,” Philip said. “What happened? Well, that’s really not my business. I just can’t understand how lovers can break up and still remain friends.”
“Sometimes I wonder at that also. It was my fault . . . initially. I had a fling with . . . well more than one fling. Flo always remained faithful. So we agreed to an open relationship, whatever the hell that means, and that led us to our darkest days. Fights. Cups flying. Manuscripts shredded. It was not something you should ever experience.”
“
I’ve had my own stress.”
“I am sure, but as you point out, age accumulates all the bad blood and leaves deep wounds. Things were too tense for me, so I asked Flo to leave. I thought it would kill him, but after a few months, he became much as you see him now.”
“A stalker.”
“He is not a stalker. He shadows me a bit. I guess that is my penance for my own shabby behavior. He is, however, not a stalker.”
“Just my opinion.”
Thomas sat up. He stared at Philip’s soft hair as it graced the silken pillow. He kissed him. “If Flo is a stalker, what does that make your Sprakie?”
Philip pushed him away.
“Sprakie saved my butt.”
“Do tell.”
Philip shuffled to the bed’s edge. He bounced in indecision. There was security in keeping the hard secrets. Philip kept his share like a dragon keeping its trinkets.
“I’m only going to tell you about Sprakie and me, because you told me about you and that stalker.”
“Flo, and it is Sprakie and I.”
“Whatever. If you’re going to correct my grammar, what’s the use of telling you anything?”
“No. Go ahead. I shall behave.”
Philip slipped tongue over lips, and then lay back down. His turn as raconteur had come.
Chapter Eight
In the Shadow of the El
1
The Culver El had rattled across the Brooklyn landscape for over a century. It shadowed the avenue beneath, which was now called MacDonald, but had other names during the course of its shady history. It also had rambled at a greater distance when first conceived, including a dire turn near Avenue C, which was now straightened, the tracks sloping into the maw of a tunnel connecting to a latter-day subway. In any case, like all the Els of Brooklyn and the outer boroughs, the Culver was an artery that channeled the life of millions.
Now dubbed the F-line, it wended its way precariously toward Coney Island past many tumble down buildings that, in their day, had bristled with better temperament. As the tracks neared the expanse of a cemetery, a fitting companion for this steel trap, the buildings were closer cropped to the buttresses. Windows were caked with decades of grime that even this day’s heavy downpour could not cleanse. The sky, guessed at because it couldn’t be seen, rumbled with the storm, which at times out-clattered the train. Lightning flashed on the tarnished rails like intermittent strobes at the devil’s disco. The rain came in torrents, filtered through the El’s scaffold, ricing the street below and any small object that happened to be out in such inclement weather. Philip was one such mouse caught in the deluge. He sprang across the street to a tattered building, one that had companioned the ancient El like an old beggar woman fussing about her shopping cart.
Philip dodged into this building — Number 420 — into the foyer. The drops danced about his bangs and eyelashes. He took a breather here before charging up the two flights to the place that he called home. He paused on the first landing. He was late for supper and his father would have a fit, he supposed. Philip was always late — part of his nature, he guessed, but he had found dalliance with a new friend, who was teaching him some extraordinary ways to relieve tension. Time escaped him. If he were still in school, there would be no point to a wristwatch, but he supposed he needed one, given his track record.
Philip whipped around the first landing — a slipway more than a landing, and took the second flight at a double bound. As he approached the apartment, he heard his father’s voice. It had a gravelly sound, which gave Philip pause again. His father was rarely in a good mood, and was frequently angry. The deeper the voice, the deeper the anger. Philip also heard his mother. Her voice sounded only one way — sweet, but diminished. With every bark that his father now made, there was a mousy punctuation from his mother. However, there was no help for it. Philip latched his hand on the door, pushed, and then entered.
The apartment was small — just four rooms. Still, between the thunder, the ricing rain and the train clatter, it seemed smaller still. Philip always felt his father’s voice was raspy because he needed to talk over the rattling windows from the rambling train. This apartment had been passed down from his grandfather, who lived his entire life here. When grandpa was alive, the place was smaller still. Grandpa owned a small luncheonette on Ocean Parkway, of which Gregor Flaxen was now the proprietor — not a bad living, but one that didn’t raise him above the El.
The door opened onto the kitchen. Philip saw his mother and father sitting at the table. His mother was crying. His father trembled, his fist clenched, his face red. He had a whiskbroom mustache and a receding hairline that made him look like Sam Breakstone, but a seriously pissed Sam Breakstone.
“Your mother was cleaning your room,” Gregor stammered. “What do you think she found? She found these.”
His mother winced and burbled. His father pushed a stack of magazines across the table.
“Shit,” Philip said.
His father stood. Philip knew the belt was coming off. “These are filthy faggot books. Disgusting pictures of men doing . . .”
Lydia Flaxen burst into tears.
“They’re not mine.”
“Bullshit.” Gregor slammed his fist on the table. Lydia exploded with tears.
“Mom,” Philip pleaded. “Believe me. These books belong to Stew.”
“Who’s Stew?” Gregor said, his eyes matching the quake of the passing train.
“This guy I know from . . .”
“From no where. That’s where.” His father spread the magazines. “If this Stew wouldn’t keep such filth in his own place, why would he keep it here? You know what? These are yours, and I’m not having any son of mine be a filthy, goddamn faggot.”
New gush from Lydia, who now collapsed over the magazines, and then realizing that she had touched them again, pushed them aside.
“Please, Mom. I’ll throw them away.”
“Better still,” Gregor said. “I’ll throw you away.”
“No,” Lydia gasped.
“I’ll not have a Sodomite living under my roof. This would have killed your grandpa. It’s going to kill your mother.”
Philip rushed to his mother, who took him into her arms. “I’m sorry Mom. I’m sorry. I’ll be good.”
Lydia hugged him, and then looked to Gregor, whose ire ran even higher now.
“Out of here, you filthy faggot,” he roared.
“No,” Lydia cried.
“Give me another chance.”
“If you murdered the cat, I’d give you another chance. But this.” He raged about the kitchen. Philip panicked. He thought his father might dip into the knife drawer and settle the issue. His mother tried to stop the man, but he shook her free.
“No,” she cried again and again and again.
Suddenly, Gregor ripped Lydia into his arms, holding her hostage. “He’s dead to us.”
“No.”
Philip trembled. He scarcely noticed his own steady stream of tears. All he wanted now was his mother, and Gregor held her back, separating them like lovers caught in the act.
“I can’t go,” Philip cried.
“You have no choice,” his father screamed. “Fend for yourself. You get nothing. You take nothing. Yes, here’s what you can take, faggot. Take a good long, last look at your mother, because you will never see her again. I forbid it.”
Lydia collapsed. Philip rushed his father, but the knife drawer was open. The carving knife shone in the dim light. Philip desisted.
“I can’t go.”
The knife pointed to the door. It shook so much that Philip feared that the man might do his mother harm. Philip gasped for air. The world was ending and he was helpless — eighteen and as hapless as prey in talons. He turned, tripping over the threshold and fled down the stairs. A shower of pornography followed him — that and the sound of a slamming door.
2
Philip tumbled onto the street, slipping on the wet pavement, his eyes streaked and his so
ul seared. He gasped for air as the thunder rolled as loud as the train on the overhead El. He paced in a circle searching the ground for purchase. A chill swept through him, his jacket soaked through and affording no comfort. Philip thrust his hands into his pockets and crouched in the indent of the metal buttress nearest the doorway.
Terror raced through Philip’s heart. Where would he go? What would he do? His jaw hung low catching the torrents, his red eyes glancing up at the window. He could still hear his father. It was a double dose, because his father’s words raged in his temples — Take a good long, last look at your mother, because you will never see her again. But he also heard his father still screaming through the small apartment as if to atone to God for having spawned such filth in the first place. His mother’s weeping simmered beneath it like a lamentation. Philip jumped up.
“Mom,” he cried. “What can I do? I can’t help it. I can’t help it.” His lips quivered, filled with all types of flood. His voice failed now. “I’m not like the rest of you,” he whimpered. “Where can I go? What can I do?” He wiped his cheeks. “Mom,” he shouted. “Mommy, don’t leave me here. It’s a bad place and I’m afraid.” He slid down the buttress. “I’m afraid. Mommy, it’s raining. Look at me. Please, look at me. My heart hurts so. It hurts.”
The window slid open. Philip jumped to his feet.
“Mom.”
Lydia’s head popped out. She was the picture of torment. Her hands shook, but they held something that Philip couldn’t perceive in the storm. His mother turned, just in time to avoid a clout from Gregor. She tossed the object, which plummeted into a puddle. Philip hovered over it. A wallet. He scooped it up, unfolding it. There had to be a few hundred dollars in it.
“That’s not yours,” his father screamed.
Philip didn’t wait for the man, who would be down in the street, perhaps with the knife or a bat to assure that the outcast had no quarter. Philip skidded over the curb and crossed the street. The stairway marked TO MANHATTAN showed the way. He had a sudden glimmer of where he could go. A soaked rat deserting the sinking ship may have found convenient drift wood in the wave to ride ashore, but Philip had only one way to go — downtown; to a marginal acquaintance — a one time trick, who Philip knew lived a short haul from Canal Street station. So with his ill gotten wherewithal applied to a Metro Card and a slippery seat, Philip Flaxen saw his home for the last time through a rain streaked window on the rattling monster that had often shaken him asleep with metallic lullabies.
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