Ladies' Man

by Richard Price

  The piano player began and La Donna closed her eyes. “Feelings . .” It was all over. The place broke put in hysterics. People were on the floor. She could have sung like Streisand, been the ghost of Judy Garland, it wouldn’t have made a goddamn difference.

  “Bring back Jackie!”

  “Duet! Duet!”

  By the time she walked offstage she was crying- She had skipped two verses,, forgot the Spanish part, and three quarters of what she did sing was drowned out by competing hecklers. But she did remember to lift her chin and close her eyes at the end, and she did plow through it like a real trouper—she might even have been good.

  She wouldn’t talk to me. We sat at the tail end of the bar. She stared at her drink like she was using X-ray vision. I wouldn’t have touched her arm on a dare. Even though it was pushing 2 a.m., the barroom was still packed. All the amateurs were sitting around waiting to hear if they made the five-person Sunday showcase.

  The place was considerably quieter because most of the entertainers had made assholes of themselves and they knew it. Everybody was stewing in their own self-shit image. Jackie di Paris sat a few stools down from us, hunched over, glaring at his drink, tilting his glass back and forth. The guitar girl had resumed her pose, nervously fingering her guitar case as if it were a cello. Chuck Steak was riffing but nobody was listening; the more nobody listened the more urgently he rifted. Mona sat at the bar doing needlepoint and frowning. Nobody was even drinking. The last act of the night was on—the black kid with the Johnny Mathis shtick. Because of the relative quiet we could hear him. He had a pretty good voice. He sang “Nature Boy” to a nice round of applause. Ten seconds later he emerged through the curtains sweating and beaming. The maître d’ appeared with the clipboard.

  “Okay, people, here are the five we want back on Sunday. You ready?” Chuck Steak suddenly grabbed his coat and left “If any of you can’t make it, tell me now because we want to announce the finalists to the audience, okay? Here we go. Roger Rector!”

  “Yo.” A squat kid with bulging cheeks and bushy eyebrows raised one finger and tilted it forward. He did Shakespearean monologues in Donald Duck talk. Got a lot of laughs.

  “Chandu the Bizarre!” That was Rasputin. He nodded to the maître d’, arms folded across his chest, still smiling his evil grin. He did ten minutes of razor magic out there and scared the daylights out of everybody.

  “Annie Akins!”

  Annie Akins collapsed against the wall in disbelief. A six-foot, two-hundred-pound hulk of a broad dressed like Daisy Mae Yokum. Barefoot, wearing a polka-dot blouse and cut-offs, she had sung “Jubilation T. Corn-pone” in a voice you would have paid to stifle. She was so bad that the meaner members of the audience were screaming for an encore. I didn’t understand what was going on here.

  “Jackie di Paris!”

  Jackie just sat there hunched over, examining his drink. When he heard his name, he snickered, shook his head grimly, slapped the drink down on the bar and got up. “Fuck you,” he muttered halfheartedly and left. All of a sudden I understood what was going on and I prayed to God number five wasn’t going to be who I thought it would be.

  “La Donna!”

  Shit on rye. La Donna didn’t look up. She raised a slightly trembling hand to her face and slowly rubbed it across the bone ridge of her eyebrows. She exhaled noisily and briefly glanced at me. I couldn’t tell if she knew what was going down. They wanted a freak show. They wanted back all the people who were either so out to lunch or so atrocious that they had to be seen again to be believed. If Jackie di Paris hadn’t sung “Feelings” first, Donna wouldn’t have gotten her laughs, wouldn’t have been picked. They were screaming for a duet, and they would get it. Heartless bastards. La Donna caught the maître d’s eye and nodded okay. My jaw dropped, and I stared at her incredulously. She returned her gaze to her drink. Was she that stupid?

  “What happened to di Paris?” The maître d’ fretted. The kid who’d sung “Nature Boy” was holding his gut like he just took two slugs. Mona gave an uh-oh whistle, packed up her needlepoint and left. The guitar girl gingerly fingered her cheeks and stared straight ahead like she was Helen Keller.

  “If di Paris don’t show, we’ll go with Ronnie Landau.”

  “Oh, thank God!” the chubby singer blurted, crumpling his “September Song” score to his chest. The black kid stared at Ronnie Landau with bulging eyes, as if not only was he gutshot but he had just gotten a ticket for jaywalking as he staggered to the hospital.

  “C’mon, let’s go. I got work tomorrow.” I headed for the street. La Donna followed, silent The street was dead and heavy with windless cold. The amateurs filed out behind us, walking slowly north and south. I flagged down a Checker. I sat in the far corner hoping she would, on her own, choose to sit right up next to me. Instead she sat in the opposite corner, staring expressionlessly out the window.

  “Seventy-seventh between West End and Broadway.”

  All the way home I watched her alternately chew her fingernails and bunch her hands into fists. Her eyes never came within 180 degrees of me. While we were sipping through Central Park she said, “I’m not doing ‘Feelings’ Sunday,” and that was it She had left her picture and letter from Tony Randall in the club, but I was afraid to remind her.

  All I could think about was her hand on my crank in the deli, her promise that I was in trouble tonight Forget it Sometimes when I was a kid I would be promised a toy that was never bought. And I knew that no matter how badly I wanted that toy, if I badgered or whined, or even hinted, I’d get cracked in the face. And all that I could do was sit there and go over the conversation of the promise in my head, feeling tragic and wretched.

  That was about the level of desperation I would get into about sex with her. I wasn’t insensitive. I knew all about appropriate and inappropriate. I knew what La Donna was going through but what I would get into transcended logic, intelligence, compassion. I would get swallowed up in that childhood intensity, that self-centered ocean-sized feeling of life and death around sex. And it would happen anytime I was scared or felt hungry or needy around people. Any time my brain-would slip into a survival head the order from Central was stick it in. When in fear, fuck.

  Out of all the artichoke layers of bullshit that made up my life, the only thing that never switched up on me was my dick.

  The house was cold. The spic bastard super didn’t think people were awake after eleven at night, so he shut down the heat.

  “Coffee, babe?”

  “No.” She went into the bathroom and closed the door. I made myself instant coffee and brought it to the dining table in the living room. I sat there fingering a vein of tiny splits in fee fake butcherblock surface. Through the wall, I could hear her washing off her make-up. It was so cold I put my coat back on. I still wasn’t sure if she was hip to what had happened. She-came out of the bathroom, disappeared into the bedroom, finally re-emerging into the living room wearing only a tight tank top and’ panties. Her hair was down and her nipples stood out like little pointy noses. She stared at my coffee, oblivious to the cold. I took off my coat.

  “I made a lot of stupid mistakes tonight,” she said to no one in particular. “Never should have done that song. It’s not right for my voice. I was very lucky tonight.”

  Lucky. I felt like a shit. I couldn’t bring myself to give her the lowdown because I couldn’t handle the chain reaction that would follow. I was afraid ill confronted her with the real story we would never fuck again. Her soft fuzzy bush bulged slightly against the white nylon. Over the summer, one hot night we trimmed her pubic hair into a heart shape. It was either that summer night or the night before we fucked on the fire escape! She sat forward on my lap and cupped my balls in her palms in front of her.

  “Right now I think it’s a mistake to wander off too far from Dionne Warwick.” She paced the living room, arms folded across her chest. I stared at her toes.

  In the beginning she would love to take it in the ass. We wouldn’t ev
en need Vaseline. She would even reach behind her and grab the backs of my thighs to force me in deeper. When I went down on her she would sigh so deep and soft I would shoot my wad with her cunt in my mouth.

  La Donna padded into the bedroom. I heard the sheets rustling. “I’ll be in in a few minutes.” I raised my voice. She didn’t even kiss me goodnight, even say goodnight. She used to jerk me off and kiss the tip of my dick as I was coming—loud wet smacks—her face covered with jizz as she turned her head from side to side, eyes closed, running the head across her lips. There would even be come in her eyelashes. I sat staring at my coffee, took pleasure from my cigarette—long slow drags, a real nightcap.

  When I turned back the covers I was horrified to see that before passing put La Donna had taken off her panties. She was dead asleep on her side wearing only that tank top.

  Whereas most people who sleep on their sides would sleep curled in, she curled out—her head and feet curved back toward each other and her hips and belly thrust forward like a cross between a drawn bowframe and a Pontiac hood ornament.

  I slipped in bed as noisily as I could, but she didn’t budge, wake up, nothing. Laying on my side I tried to conform to her spine, pressing my crotch into the crack of her ass, thrusting my belly into the small of her back, arching my head to avoid getting her hair in my mouth. I ground my cock a little into her buns and stared red-eyed at tile digital on her night table: 2:47. My back was killing me. I draped my hand over her ribs and touched her nipples. She clucked in annoyance and, still asleep, flopped over on her belly. I rolled on my back and stared at the ceiling.

  Sighing deeply enough for six generations of damned souls, I bounced a few times and got out of bed. Her breathing was even-steven. I went back into the living room, had half a cigarette, returned to the bedroom and stood over the bed, my guts grinding and aching so badly I felt like whimpering. I started to crawl back under the covers, stopped, walked over to the window and went through the motions of adjusting the Venetian blinds. I rattled the blinds for thirty seconds. She began to snore.

  I lay in bed staring at the ceiling again.

  “Feed me”—more to myself than out loud. I could hear the grinding of the kitchen wall clock. The bed pulsed slightly with breathing.

  “Feed me”—louder, a harsh whisper. A neck vein twitched hotly under my jaw. My eyes itched.

  “Feed me, bitch.” In a normal speaking voice. She slowly raised her face from the pillow and stared at me in the darkness. I thought I would die.

  TUESDAY

  I got up at seven. La Donna was still sleeping and I slipped right back into the hunger. Anytime I got up before her I would lie in bed just in case when she woke up she might feel like it. She would always tell me she wasn’t a morning person. I guess that meant opposed to an evening person, although I wasn’t seeing much difference. I rolled on my side and started rubbing her back. Her skin felt toasty through her tank top. After a few minutes I rolled away from her as if I was playing hard to get. Since last night I’d rolled over so much I felt like a trained dog. I began drifting back to sleep when I heard her waking up. I rolled toward her. Her face was six inches off the pillow, sleep-smeared and dazed. She looked like she was just hatched. I rubbed her back again and threw my leg over her behind. She yawned, smiled, darted a kiss on my shoulder and did some rolling of her own—right out of bed. I watched her ruddy ass as she toddled across the bedroom to the bathroom.

  Seven-twenty-seven. Work. I felt like crying. I had never shaken that elementary school dread of the morning.

  “Up and at ‘em, Kenny, it’s seven-thirty.”

  I didn’t answer. She started singing to herself. “I wish you bluebirds da da da,” and headed for the kitchen.

  Coffee, vanilla yogurt and a cigarette for me, tea, whole wheat toast with honey for her. “Do you know the way to San Jose,” she declared, staring, hypnotized over her raised teacup, and absently blew the steam away from her face.

  “Do I know what?” I tried to sound like don’t bother me, I’m wrapped up in my own thoughts. She was in a good mood, and it pissed me off.

  “Do you know the way to San Ho-Zay,” she sang. “I think I’m gonna do that instead Sunday night. Or maybe this! ‘If you see me walk-ing down the street and I start to cry, each time we meet, Walk on by-y-y.’”

  I sulked harder. It seemed she had convinced herself that Fantasia was the greatest thing to come down the pike since sliced bread. It was like living with Blanche DuBois. But I didn’t give a fuck anymore. I wasn’t get-tin’; then I wasn’t givin’.

  “You were right. Eyes closed chin up worked the best” She hunkered down in her chair rolling her ass-bones against the seat and smiled at me.

  “Oh yeah?” I muttered, looking away.

  She reached across the table and grabbed yesterday’s Post. She whistled as she read. I couldn’t even make her squirm and I wanted her to writhe.

  “You gonna see Bossanova today?”

  “Madame Bassova, Basaova.” She looked up from the paper. “When are you gonna get that straight?” she asked with lightweight petulance.

  “Sorry, sorry, Bassova, Bassova. I should know how to pronounce it by now, I guess. I write her name on enough checks, that’s for sure.”

  Her head snapped up, and I immediately felt like a stone prick, subtlety up the ass, cards on the table, on the floor, in your eye. I tried to cover fast. “Is she doin’ good with you?” I grinned like a mule eating shit. “That’s such a goddamned weird building, the Ansonia. They got more wackos than Creedmore. You know, there must be twenty-five guys that call themselves maestro or professor and I bet ten Anastasia Romanovs.” No good. She looked hurt and furious at the same time and I felt my chest break out in a constellation of heat rash..

  She stared at me deadeye and her mouth got square and ugly. My brains were screaming Sorrysorrysorry-sorry.

  “What is on your mind?” she asked in a hushed voice. I killed her mood, okay, and now that I was getting the chance for a showdown, all I felt besides two years old was apologetic and guilty. I felt sorry and convictionless—a self-centered bastard.

  I sighed. “It’s, I dunno. We, we don’t make love anymore like we used to.” I came down heavy on the word “love.” I never called it making love in my life. She sat silent glaring at me with that cement face, her hands curled around her teacup. My shoulders slipped into a permanent hunch.

  “You know, we used to be”—I sucked air through my teeth—“so tight around that, and, and I know you’re going through whatever you’re goin’ through and you’re close to a breakthrough and all that, but ah, shit, I dunno, I, ah, I need sex from you, I need some physical attention, you know?” I almost gagged on the word “breakthrough,” tried hard not to coat it with sarcasm. In that moment I knew I was her enemy because I was lying to her, betraying her for a piece of tail for myself. She sucked as a singer, she was putting herself through agony for nothing, and that was the dead nuts.

  “You know, La Di.” I picked my words as delicately as I would have tiptoed through a cow pasture, even though I was already hip-deep in shit. “The need to get laid is an honorable need.”

  Silence, then a hoarse whisper from a death mask. “Well, then go out and get laid.” Not even a blink.

  “Baby, I don’t want nobody but you,” and that Was the gospel truth. I relaxed slightly because I had said something honest. “I dunno.” I shrugged and smiled weakly. “Maybe Tin just more sexually oriented than you.”

  “Well, I just guess the hell you are!” she hissed and charged into the bedroom. The door slammed like a stinging slap. I was in a comfortably frightened state of shock. I stared at my coffee; my fingers felt puckered and dry. I felt like my life would go on forever. Suddenly the door flew open and La Donna stood hunched over, face red, knotted fists at her side.

  “I’m very sexually oriented!” she bawled and started crying so hard and bitterly that I thought she was going to vomit.

  So, the day started off like
shit. Once she began crying like that the worst part would be over, but the whole thing was starting to feel like a routine, the same goddamn soap opera every day. We hugged, kissed, I felt better, she felt better, I made promises, she made promises, I fell madly in love again. I didn’t know what she was feeling on that score. For me the fight always had the same origin. She would make me feel undesired and I would want to bust her hump for it; then when I did I felt guilty and horrible, she got trembly and self-righteous, the tears, etc. Sometimes it wasn’t even so much about fucking. I just wanted to feel like she considered me hot stuff. And I would sell our souls down the river for a taste of that feeling. But as I trudged down Broadway, dragging my sample case to the bus stop, I was never so clear on the monotony of it all. And the sad fact was that I realized one of the reasons I didn’t change channels was because everything else felt like a rerun.

  In the beginning it was the best. I hated to think about how good things used to be before this singing bullshit started. I used to go up to her bank, she worked at a Portuguese bank on Fifth Avenue, and surprise her with bag lunches. And in the lunch I’d hide a little present. Once I got crazy and put a pair of jade earrings inside the baked strawberry farmer’s cheese and she almost cracked a tooth. And it was hard for me to -come uptown because my turf was the Village, which during lunchtime traffic was not exactly around the corner.

  And I got her to read. She was never a big reader, but I had the touch. Knew exactly what books to turn her on with. She was into women, so I threw her some Flannery O’Connor, some Shirley Jackson, a little Willa Cather. On weekends we’d go tip to a friend’s cabin in Lake Mohegan, grab groceries, jump in the sack and fuck like fiends. Weekend after weekend, watch a little tube, make a little fire, eat a little steak, read a little literature. With luck, the sun would never shine and we’d be surrounded by this cozy leafy gray for two whole days.

  The last time we did that was October. Five months ago. Now it was too cold. I was too busy, she was too busy, who knows. And she hadn’t cracked a book since then either. Nor had I, come to think of it. And now everything sucked. The bubble had popped once again like it always did. She was off playing Don Quixote of the cabarets while I was running ragy dialogues through my head.