The Fuck-Up

by Arthur Nersesian

  “This way” He led me to a staircase behind the stage and to a downstairs room. The place looked and sounded like a medieval dungeon, with dark stone walls, puddles of water, virtually no lighting, and the moans. There was constant moaning all around. A hand out of the darkness groped my thigh.

  “Fuck off!” I yelled.

  “Shhhh,” Miguel whispered back. “Occasionally someone might reach out; all you do is simply take their hand and push it away. Not rudely or quickly, everyone here is as human as you are.”

  We went back up a staircase to the front of the theater. “Now look here.” He pointed to a burnt-out bulb. “Ow, see that? Ow ow, you should smart when you see that. A bulb is burnt-out and now the theater is in pain. Say ow.”

  “Ow. Why?”

  “You should be in pain until you replace the bulb. You’re both the nerve system and the lymph node system of the theater.”

  “You mean the white blood cells,” I corrected his little metaphor.

  “Why not the lymph node?”

  “Well, isn’t the lymph node just sweat and pimple pus?”

  “So?”

  “Well, the white blood cells destroy foreign objects that enter the body Didn’t you see the movie Fantastic Voyage?”

  “I thought the spleen does that.”

  “No, the spleen stores blood, and I think the liver cleans it.”

  “All right, enough. You’re the spleen, the liver, the white blood cells, the lymph nodes. You’re all of that and anything else you can think of.”

  He gave other pointers as we walked back through the dark theater. Looking up at the beam of projected light, I saw something strange. As I walked down the aisle, I noticed the ray from the projection booth was parallel to the seats. Out of an architectural interest, I squatted to inspect the incline of the floor.

  “You wouldn’t have a level, would you?”

  “Very good,” he replied, and yanking me up to my feet, he quickly put his finger over my lips and murmured, “I’ll explain later.”

  “Explain what?” I asked as soon as he closed the office door behind us.

  “Did you notice the angle of the screen?”

  “No, what’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s slanted backward at the top. And all the seats are anchored at such an angle that everyone sitting has to apply a soft but constant thrust to sit back in the seat.

  “Doesn’t anyone complain?”

  “No”—he grinned—“they just leave. No one can bear it for more than a couple of hours.”

  “You can probably get a team of carpenters to fix it,” I replied. “Who fucked up?”

  “Fix it? That’s like fixing the Mona Lisa! It’s brilliant.”

  “Brilliant?”

  “Look, porn theaters aren’t like other theaters. People come to a porn theater and they stay forever. This way they either leave or they suffer.” It was an interesting theory, but who could guess how many patrons never returned because they didn’t care for the back strain?

  “Who thought of it?”

  “Only one man could come up with something so ingenious, Otto Waldet. Did you ever see the last scene of Lady from Shanghai? I Otto built that set for Welles. He was a set designer up until the early fifties, when he was blacklisted. By the early sixties, he started one of the first chains of gayporn theaters. He just died last year.”

  “Is that why the projection booth is at that strange angle?”

  “Oh no, that’s something entirely different. This theater was initially a nursery school. The projection booth was built between the second and the third floor.”

  I was introduced to my staff: a middle-aged box office lady named Rosa and a Cambodian porter named Thi. Miguel finally led me back into his office and had me fill out a W-4 form and then we agreed on a mutually accommodating schedule.

  “Why don’t you work with me the rest of this evening so we can get to know each other?”

  The evening was almost over anyway, so I decided to stay for the remainder. Opening up a compact refrigerator hidden under the desk, Miguel took out a couple beers and a bag of banana chips. Then he pulled out a small television and we decided on a football game. It was a remarkably American evening for a neo-hippie in a gay porn theater.

  As we watched the Forty-Niners beating the Jets, I remembered how in the past working had meant something far more physical, under the constant supervision of usually someone conspicuously dumber. I sputtered through a mouthful of chips, “I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this.”

  “This is really a pretty smooth operation and if nothings broken …”

  “Sounds comfy.”

  “It’s boring, that’s the real job.” And we didn’t talk much more until the end of the game. By the time the Jets had won, we were both pretty tired from the beer and the little room had gotten pretty humid, so we stepped out front and watched guys stray in and cars cruise by for corner whores. Miguel took out a cigarette.

  “Aren’t those bad for your health?”

  “They’re organic,” he replied, and lit up.

  Suddenly when a long American car turned up Third toward us, Miguel snuffed his cigarette and spoke under his breath, “Quick, get into the theater.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Ox is here. He’s the district manager. I didn’t tell him I hired you yet, and he lives to yell. I’m sure he won’t pass up this opportunity. Just make like a patron until he passes.”

  Out of a purple Cadillac that pulled up in front plopped a pudgy middle-aged man with a curly beard. He was wearing such a distinctly tasteless suit that it seemed to make a kind of agonizing fashion statement. His upper torso rocked solidly as if he were entering a boxing ring.

  “You sure I shouldn’t meet him now?”

  “Just disappear until he does.”

  Hastening into the bathroom, I started to urinate but kept hearing the sounds of fumbling in the adjacent stall. I concentrated on a hand-lettered sign that Miguel must have written. It read, “Save water, New York is going through a drought.” Underneath it was all the predictable graffiti, “Fight Aids not Gays. Save Soviet Jews… Win Prizes. Ernie loves Tony loves Casper loves Ira loves Bozo…” The sounds in the stall got louder and louder. So I retreated into the theater, took a seat, and discreetly checked around me. Most of the guys were hunting around for someone. Three aisles in front of me, I caught the outline of a couple occupying the same seat in a contorted position. I watched the film awhile. Apparently a jogger named Mario had bumped into a handball player named Sheldon. It turned out that they had been noticing and admiring each other for some time. Their characters were left undeveloped, but they were both eager to advance on to the subsequent scenes. Neither of them had any other appointments, obligations, or occupation. Sheldon, it seemed, played handball and slept, and Mario jogged and slept. As the unlikely plot progressed, Mano invited Sheldon up to his house, which was conveniently near. There, they each made comments like, “Sa-a-ay, I’ll bet you’re pretty big with the ladies,” and, “You look good enough to eat,” and so on. Finally they stretched out on a sofa and started making out. Sheldon’s hand started moving down to Mario’s flimsy shorts.

  Simultaneously I felt a liquid hand slide into my lap and I hopped up. It was Miguel, laughing.

  “He’s gone.” I rose and followed him back into his office.

  “Why does he come? Why couldn’t I meet him?”

  “Well, I wanted to tell him I hired you before you met him because sometimes he acts like an animal. He usually comes by about twice a week just to make sure everything’s okay. He makes the rounds.”

  “What rounds?”

  “The rounds of the chain. Ottos family owns it and he does most of the administrative work for them.”

  “He looks like an asshole.”

  “He looks dumb; in fact everything about him is dumb. Only he ain’t dumb.”

  “How do you know?”

  “His actions are very calculat
ed, almost predestined.”

  Soon it was closing time. Miguel collected all the money together, wrapped a filled-out bank deposit slip around it together with a rubber band, shoved the bundle into the green deposit bag, zipped it up, and locked it. Together, we walked to the nearby bank, and he put the money into a night drop. Then we went back to the theater. Rosa, the listless box office lady, went home, and we went into the office. After Miguel filled out a variety of forms, which created the illusion that an authority was checking us, the projectionist buzzed down to warn that the film had come to an end. Miguel turned up all the lights in the theater and turned out all the outdoor lights. Together we inspected both the theater and the dungeon downstairs to clear out all malingerers. The place was empty. While checking the toilet, I asked Miguel if plunging the toilet was among our many duties.

  “The last time the toilet got plugged up was sometime last October—anyway, I had to unplug it.”

  “I used to do that all the time at the Saint Mark’s. Awful business, unplugging a toilet.”

  “Oh,” he responded. A memory was apparently set in motion. “Last October when I started plunging, first blood started coming up, and then black feathers.”

  “Christ.”

  “Finally a small bird came up.”

  “I once unplugged a piece of red meat at the Saint Mark’s, I think it was Kielbasy.”

  “Well, I didn’t finish my story. The toilet still wouldn’t flush so I kept plunging and plunging and finally a filthy black pelt came out.”

  “A what?”

  “The pelt of a small animal. It looked like a gerbil. And I flushed again, but the toilet still flooded.”

  “Still? I’d be on the phone to Roto-Rooter by then.”

  “Well, I wish I did that,” Miguel replied, “’cause I finally sucked out what looked like a fingerless hand.”

  “Christ!”

  “It was just about this size”—he distanced two fingers a couple of inches apart—“like a child’s hand. But it wasn’t as awful as it sounds.”

  “You found a baby’s hand and you weren’t worried?”

  “Well, I had a pretty good idea whose hand it was.”

  “Whose?”

  “This nut that used to come by a lot. He got pissed once because I found him trying to stuff a … well he got mad at me, and later I heard that he worked with cadavers.”

  “You should’ve called the police.”

  “Let me warn you right now. Never, but never, call the police. They’ve been trying to close us down since the beginning. I just tossed the hand off the back of the roof. No one’ll ever find it.”

  “But what do I do if something happens to me?”

  “I’ll tell you exactly what Ox told me when I first started working here. If you can take them, beat them; if you can’t, run. There’s a bayonet and a baseball bat in the office. If you kill anyone, drag them into the office and Ox will get rid of the body for you.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “I think he was kidding, but listen, nothing serious ever happens. We’re open every day of the year here for twelve hours a day and since we’re in a low-income non-residential district, we’re subject to a lot of crazies. You can’t let them get to you.”

  The evening was over, everybody had left, and the lights were out. But Miguel said he still had some tedious business requiring his attention.

  “I’m wide awake. I might as well take it all in.” So he told me how much money the theater had made that day.

  “Now the way we check this is …” And he showed me a little glass-enclosed dial above the desk, cemented into the wall. “Each time the turnstile spins, this number increases by one. We subtract the amount that the dial displayed at the beginning of the day from this figure, and the amount we’re left with is how many patrons came in today. We multiply that by four, which is the price of admission, and that’s how much money we should have. Understand?”

  “In theory,” I replied, and began to ask a question, but interrupted myself with a yawn.

  He smiled and said that we could do it again the next day when my energy level was maximum. He walked me to the door. Thi, the porter, had already started cleaning the theater. Miguel wished me good night. I started walking to the subway, but I decided that I didn’t want to be stranded in Brooklyn wide awake.

  FIVE

  As I passed Eleventh Street on Third I saw the big bright sign of the Ritz. Jersey kids were still stumbling in, so I walked over to the door. There was usually a five-dollar admission but an accord had been arranged between Pepe and the manager of the Ritz: their respective employees were allowed free into each others places. I approached hesitantly. The doorman, who was chatting with a group of Jerseyites, apparently remembered me from my many previous entrances. Unaware of my dismissal from the Saint Mark’s, he just waved me in.

  Once inside, I had just enough to buy a beer. I was wide awake, so I decided to try dancing off some energy. I approached a skinny girl leaning against the bar and we danced for a while. She kept trying to dance slower and closer, and I kept pushing her away and the tempo up. Finally when it took more energy to repel her than to dance, I thanked her and left the floor. I saw an attractive, healthy girl put down an almost full bottle of beer and leave. 1 would kiss her if she let me, and with that criteria I wiped off some lipstick at the nozzle and poured it into my mouth without touching the rim.

  I finally felt tired enough to fall asleep on Helmsley’s sofa, which seemed to be getting harder and harder every time I was on it. Heading toward the door of the club, I was suddenly stopped by two soft hands shoved before my eyes.

  “Guess who?” murmured a disguised voice.

  “Sarah?” was the only name that came to mind. Pulling off the blinds and turning around, I found myself face to face with Eunice.

  “How are you doing?” she asked as if no preexisting clash had ever occurred.

  “Are you here with him?” I asked, looking around.

  “No,” she replied.

  “Why did you lie to me,” I leapt right into the fray, “saying that you were going to visit your parents?”

  “Well, I was going to. But do we really have to go through this?”

  “But you lied to me! That’s what I most resented.” No anger still existed but for some reason I felt compelled to continue the fight, to hold to some righteous platform.

  “You swine!” She gave me a token swat. “You have a girlfriend, and you have the audacity to yell at me for having a fling.”

  “Ah ha! But I told you about it!”

  “Is that how it works? If confession makes everything all right, then why don’t you tell her about us?”

  “She already found out,” I confessed with a hung head. “I told you. She left me.”

  There was a stretch of silence, so I gave a slight farewell smile and resumed walking.

  “Wait a second.” Eunice caught up. “She left you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you want to dance?” she finally asked pliantly.

  “No thanks, I’m tired.” And resumed walking.

  “Wait a fucking second,” she said this time, angrily. “Can’t we try to be friends, I mean does one fight end the friendship?!”

  “Yes!” I yelled. “You teased!”

  “Tease? I told you right up front exactly what I was up to when you asked me,” she answered.

  “You left me hoping, you left the possibility dangling.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Fuck you!” I shouted unconcerned that we were the center of attention in the place. She, on the other hand, had become visibly embarrassed. I continued, “I made minimum wage and spent every cent on you! I spent all my available time with you!”

  “Look, I was interested in you as a boyfriend, I admit it.”

  “Ha ha!” I exclaimed idiotically.

  “But I’m not going to be the other woman. Now that you’re unattached, there’s a new context.”

&nb
sp; “Well fuck you!” I yelled. “Go fuck that old fart I saw you with.”

  “Well fuck you too!” she yelled back and vanished back into the masses. If not getting involved with her was something that I would ever come to regret I couldn’t feel it then. All I wanted was sleep. On the ride home I couldn’t help but think how just one month earlier I would’ve died to have what I had just rejected.

  Sleep was prematurely cut open for me by a sharp angle of sunlight that pierced my closed lids like a can opener. I turned over, but outside the battle of car horns finished off the beleaguered sleep. I lay there awhile with my eyes still closed and thought about old times, and then it started happening. I could feel the rapid palpitations and the sweat. The snail had visited last night; a thick film of oil seemed to be evenly licked over my body. I tossed the blanket to the floor, and with a towel I wiped my face dry. Helmsley’s door was open and his room was bare. Stepping under the shower, I felt the cold water slowly turn hot and then cold again as I tried to scour away my epidermis.

  I dressed and wolfed down the ninety-cent breakfast special at the corner diner. It was a wonderful morning. Everything seemed real and luminous. I breathed deeply. A cold wind that days earlier had swept across arctic ice pans settled above Brooklyn and chilled everyone away, indoors. The sun was bright, but ineffectual. The few folks out looked more rugged than the usual anemic breed of New Yorkers. I had nothing to do, so I walked. After breakfast, I walked down Clinton Street, through Brooklyn Heights and across Cadman Plaza to the Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge was reconstructed in the mid-eighties so that it became one graceful incline, more accessible to cyclists. But in crossing it by foot, I constantly feared I was going to be hit by a speeding bike, and preferred the way it was before, divided into roughly five parts by short series of stairs. By the time I finally reached the Manhattan side, I had both a chill and an appetite.

  Walking south on Broadway, I realized that I had enough change for a coffee in a Blimpie’s. When I opened the door, I was shoved to the floor. When I looked up, someone was holding a fat handgun and wildly waving it around.