Lost in the Beehive

by Michele Young-Stone

  “Really?” I was incredulous. But it didn’t matter why Dr. Belmont had released him. We were here.

  “I’m an amazing actor,” Sheff continued. “That’s why I go for the Sal Mineo types. Maybe I’ll have a future in pictures.” Then, he trailed me up the library steps. There were people snacking on the steps.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “If I had a camera, I’d take your picture.” He put his arm around me. “Let’s get a move on, Blondie.”

  As we walked south down Sixth Avenue, the crowd thinned. Sheff offered me a cigarette, and I took it. “So what happened with Sal Mineo?”

  “He split with another guy. Sal looked good, but there was nothing going on upstairs.” Sheff swung my suitcase. “I got to see Allen Ginsberg.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I didn’t get to meet him, but I saw him. I could’ve met him. I even had a copy of Howl in my back pocket, but I couldn’t speak. No words. Can you imagine me speechless? Of course not. Me either. I was so embarrassed. There were twenty people hanging around the lobby of the hotel, talking to him, and I went mute. I wished you were with me. Between the two of us, we could’ve summoned the courage.”

  “Nah. I probably would’ve gone mute too.” He was smiling. He took off his sunglasses to wipe the perspiration from his brow. The collar of his blazer flopped down between his shoulder and jaw. His eyes were bloodshot. “Are you sleeping?”

  “Not for shit. The stupid door from the balcony to my room won’t shut all the way. I pile stuff against it, but it bangs when it’s windy, and the neighbors are noisy. Man, G, I missed you.”

  “I missed you more.”

  “So, what’s been going on?”

  I told him about the pep squad, about how I’d tried to say good-bye to him before I left Belmont, but there’d been no forewarning that I was going home, and they wouldn’t let me say good-bye. I started to tell him about my uncle and my mother, but I didn’t know where to begin.

  “Oh, they never let you say good-bye. You can bet it’s in the contract.”

  I laughed. “That stupid fucking contract.”

  The Chelsea was not what I expected. Everything was shabby, from the front desk to the sunken sitting area with its mismatched cigarette-burned velveteen sofas to the broken elevator. We hiked our way up to the twelfth floor, down the hall to Sheff’s room, the door open. He flung his arms wide. “Check it out.”

  It wasn’t much. A mattress on a metal frame, a rickety bedside table, a pair of French doors leading onto a tiny balcony, where a dead chrysanthemum lolled back and forth. The balcony’s red paint was flaking, revealing patches of shiny, shiny metal. “Posh digs,” I said.

  “Only the best.” Sheff pulled off his boots and dropped to the mattress. I lay beside him. “Check it out.” He pointed at the ceiling. “The water stain looks like a fat man. I call him Harry.”

  “Nice to meet you, Harry.”

  The doors were open. Humidity and the smell of refuse rose, a musk, up from the asphalt. The dead chrysanthemum’s pot clanked the railing. Sheff lit a cigarette and took a swig of vodka, passing the bottle to me. It burned all the way down. I said, “I’m missing a basketball game.”

  “I didn’t know you played.”

  “I don’t. I’m on the pep squad. I pep.”

  “No offense, but are you really all that peppy?”

  I took another swig. “Nope. Not really. Like you, I’m a great actor.”

  He laughed. “I was on the debate team in junior high. I was pretty good, but I didn’t like arguing.”

  “Then, you weren’t pretty good.”

  He rolled onto his side. “You’re right, but I was on the team.” He pulled a canvas bag from the bedside table. “Are you hungry?” He had a sleeve of saltines and potted meat. I thought how my father would’ve liked Sheff. He never went anywhere without saltines. He had the crazy idea that since salt was a preservative, it was good for you. Any doubts that I’d had about coming to New York dissipated. My parents didn’t need me, but Sheff certainly did.

  11

  THAT FIRST WEEK, SHEFF AND I took the D train to Coney Island. Where the subway exited onto the street, there was a clapboard kiosk manned by a tall woman wearing a sequined mermaid tail and halter top. She wore glitter on her cheeks and sat perched on a stool beside a thin, shirtless man in cutoff shorts. He sold postcards of the mermaid.

  “I’ll sign one for you,” she said.

  Sheff said, “I’ve always wanted to meet a real live mermaid.”

  The mermaid applied bright red lipstick and kissed two postcards for us. “Fifty cents,” she said. Well worth it.

  We walked down Surf Avenue, past the amusement rides. Shrill laughter and screams tunneled down the boardwalk. Bikini-clad roller skaters whizzed past while jugglers and stilt walkers paraded by. Placards advertised dancing girls and escape artists. A student of Houdini’s was performing upstairs from a magic shop. We stopped to listen to a man playing saxophone, and dropped another fifty cents in his case. In the afternoon, we popped into a pizza joint just down from Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs to get a slice and a Coke. Finishing my slice, I wrote my postcard: Dear Mother and Father, I am doing well. Safe and sound. I’ll write again soon. I promise. P.S. I met a real live mermaid (pictured here)! I love you. Gloria. I accidentally left a greasy fingerprint on the card. Sheff and I walked to the post office, where I slipped my card in the mail slot.

  “What happened when you got home?” he asked.

  “My parents said they were sorry.”

  “Maybe I should’ve moved in with you.”

  “They just want me to be happy.”

  “God, you’re lucky. Why’d you ever come to Chelsea?”

  “For you. Because we promised.”

  “Thank you.”

  Sheff and I walked down Neptune Avenue, back toward the shore. Around 28th Street, we took off our shoes and dodged the surf. Everything felt wide-open. There were no high-rises and no boxy houses in neat rows. Just water and sky as far as the eye could see. We could swim out and go on forever if we chose. Dusk came, and with it, like a mirage, a purple flag and circus-style tent seemed to rise up from the sand.

  “Was that there?” I asked.

  “I guess so. Come on.” Sheff took my hand. Outside the yellow-and-orange-striped tent, the face of a gypsy with big hoop earrings and a crystal ball was painted on a placard. “This will be cool,” he said. The One and Only Madame Zelda, Fortune-Teller, Gypsy.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  As I stepped under the flap, into the cool darkness, a flurry of bees swarmed above my head. “What in the world?” They hovered, and I swatted, before they exited the tent in a straight line. Madame Zelda sat at a round table, her figure partly shadowed. She had a hook nose and long arthritic fingers adorned with gold-banded red and yellow stones; her hands splayed across the table. “Sit. Sit,” she said.

  We sat on two wooden crates. Madame Zelda said, “The bees came with you, girl.”

  Sheff elbowed me. “This is cool.”

  She pulled a can out from beneath the table, where the purple velvet drapery flowed down, blending with her own skirt. “One dollar for the both of you.” Sheff pulled a buck from his wallet.

  “Where’s your crystal ball?” I asked.

  “I don’t need a ball to see your fortune. Just your hand.” Madame Zelda took hold of Sheff’s left hand and my right hand, closing her eyes. Sheff and I smiled at each other. One of us was going to bust out laughing, I knew it, but then Madame Zelda seemed to convulse. Her body vibrated, her grip on my hand tightened, and I felt something like an electrical current shoot through my arm, into my chest, a sharp pain as her head jerked back. I tried to pull my hand free, but couldn’t. Sheff started laughing. I felt a terrible pain in my neck and in the back of my head as Madame Zelda jerked forward, releasing our hands. Her eyes were white. Empty. “Good trick,” Sheff said.

  Madame Zelda said, “You’re not alone, g
irl.” She closed her eyes, opening them to reveal dull brown irises.

  Sheff said, “Tell my fortune.”

  She said, “You’re touched, girl. The spirit world knows you. It’s met you and held on.”

  I stood. “No one knows me.”

  Madame Zelda said, “When you were a little girl, the bees drank from your sadness. They don’t forget. You’re a part of them.”

  “No, I’m not.” How could she know about the bee sting, the sadness? She was guessing. She couldn’t. Everybody’s sad sometimes.

  “The bees come from the other side.”

  “What side?” Sheff grinned. “Now, do me. This is so worth a buck.”

  I sat.

  Madame Zelda regarded Sheff. “Give me your hand again.” She cradled it between her own and closed her eyes. Nothing happened. After a minute, she let go and patted his hand. “I’m sorry, boy. I don’t see anything.” She stood. Her purple skirt swooshed the sandy floor. “With you, girl, I see some kind of trouble. The bees carry the spirits here from the other side. They’re watching over you.”

  Sheff said, “Do you think I’m going to be rich and famous?”

  “Whatever you want,” she said.

  When we got back to the city, the sickle moon hung low between two skyscrapers. I felt unnerved. I didn’t like Madame Zelda or what she had to say.

  12

  IN EARLY SEPTEMBER, WE RENTED a rowboat at Turtle Pond in Central Park. It was a warm day. Sheff’s eyes matched the sky’s reflection in the pond. The turtles swam and sunned themselves on rocks while dragonflies zipped across our boat. Then, a fish jumped out of the water, and I told Sheff about the fish poem, reciting the first few lines. I said, “I think Mrs. Dupree was right about one thing.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I think I was mad at my mother for a long time, but after Belmont, I feel like I got her back.”

  “I never had mine,” Sheff said.

  As he rowed near the shore, hundreds of honeybees swarmed a patch of bamboo. I pointed. “The day that I found out that my mother had lost the twins, I was stung.”

  “Just like Madame Zelda said.” He smiled. “They’ve come to help you.”

  “Lucky me.”

  Sheff rowed past the bees toward the pussy willows on the other side of the pond. We stretched out, floating among the flowering reeds and lily pads, listening to the frogs. When our rental was nearly up, Sheff said, “Let’s stay another hour.” We rowed over toward the men renting boats to let them know. One of them had an Italian accent. “It is a perfect day for two lovebirds.” We grinned and thanked him.

  That night, we went to a second-run theater and watched The Plague of the Zombies. We sat in the back, laughing at the zombies and noshing popcorn. Sheff said, “I could play a zombie.”

  “I thought that’s what you’ve been doing.” He never slept through the night.

  “Ha-ha.”

  We got back to our room at two a.m. Sheff fell asleep first. Lying close to him, I whispered in his ear, “I’m going to marry you, Sheffield Schoeffler.” I said it how Mary said it to George in his bad ear in It’s a Wonderful Life.

  The days passed quickly. Sheff was like a child’s spinning top, compelled by cute boys and smoky jazz clubs. He never stopped twirling, preferring life this way, never slowing down, never stopping to think, to consider consequences. I’d been in New York two weeks when I realized that he was turning tricks. Middle-aged men, men my father’s age, put five-and ten-dollar bills down on our table at the club, the Big Panda, and Sheff said, “I’ll be right back,” before disappearing into the bathroom.

  When I confronted him, he said, “It’s no big deal. It’s easy money.”

  I countered, “But it is a big deal.”

  “Not to me.”

  Nearly every night, we went to the Big Panda for the jazz music, for Sheff to turn tricks. “Why don’t we get real jobs?” I asked.

  “Because this is easy,” he said. “These old guys, half of them come before they even have their pants down, G.”

  “I’ll get a job.”

  “If that’s what you want, then go ahead. I don’t want a real job.”

  In mid-September, I started working at Bart’s Vinyl three days a week, alphabetizing the stacks of records customers perused and put back in the wrong place. Additionally, I had the horrendous task of cleaning the unisex bathroom, which, like the Big Panda men’s room, was used as more than just a toilet. The owner, Bart, paid me under the table: one dollar an hour, fifty cents less than the minimum wage, about thirty dollars a week, a pittance, and Sheff kept turning tricks despite my insistence that I could get a second job, make enough to pay our rent.

  Every week, I sent a postcard home, telling my parents not to worry. I’m safe, getting plenty to eat. I even considered going home for Christmas; I missed my parents, but I didn’t want to leave Sheff. He sometimes disappeared after turning a trick, and I’d find him back at our hotel, high on a mix of alcohol and pills. He liked depressants, things that stopped him from spinning and put him to sleep. It was the in-between he couldn’t take.

  In mid-December, we went to Central Park to hook up with these college kids I’d met at Bart’s Vinyl. I thought the girl, Genevieve, was pretty, and the boy, Paul, said that he thought Sheff was cute. Beforehand, Sheff and I went to Dick’s Donuts for cherry Danish and filled our coffees with bourbon. We sat on orange stools and spun ourselves dizzy. It was a good night. Genevieve was freckly and bubbly, and she had good taste in music. Her friend Paul was tall and thin. They were best friends like me and Sheff. They were both art history majors at Columbia—of all places.

  I wore tights and a long wool dress I’d gotten at the thrift store. Sheff wore his wool peacoat. When I saw Genevieve, I shouted, “We brought bourbon.” Paul shouted back, “We have ginger ale.” Sheff and I ran to catch up with them. Genevieve carried a blanket rolled up under her arm. We picnicked beside a willow, and I poured bourbon and ginger into Dixie cups. After a few rounds, Paul asked Sheff if he wanted to take a walk. I was anxious about being alone with Genevieve. I hadn’t kissed a girl since Isabel. Even though I knew Dr. Belmont and Mrs. Dupree were wrong about everything, I’d thought a lot about who I was, about what it meant to like girls, if God was okay with it. I reasoned that if God did so love the world that he offered up his only son, maybe he would love me enough to let me be myself.

  Genevieve’s freckles were practically black in the darkness. She said, “There’s a new exhibit at the MoMA.”

  “What is it?”

  “Mutoscopes. It should be pretty neat.”

  I stared at her mouth, wondering if I should try to kiss her, wondering if she wanted to kiss me. She said, “Mutoscopes were these machines where one person could watch a sort of early motion picture. A series of cards flipped inside the machine. They have the machines and cards on display. Paul’s already been. He said it’s worth seeing.”

  “Neat.”

  She leaned in and kissed me, then stopped. “Maybe we could go sometime. To see the Mutoscopes.”

  “Yes.”

  She kissed me again, one hand on my thigh, sliding up under my sweater dress. Heat spread out from between my thighs. I kept thinking, I’m not doing anything wrong, and then I wasn’t thinking. I was untethered, slipping my hand inside her jacket, under the hem of her shirt. She felt good. I felt good. Then, I heard Sheff call out, “We’re back.” Genevieve pulled her jacket closed. I hiked up my tights.

  Sheff knelt beside me, whispering, “I don’t like him.”

  “How come?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  I gulped down another bourbon and ginger. Genevieve said, “Gloria is going to see the Mutoscope exhibit with me.”

  Paul said, “I’ll see it again.”

  “You weren’t invited.”

  Sheff said, “My stomach’s off. I’m going to call it a night.”

  “It’s early,” Paul said.

  Genevieve said,
“Paul can walk you to the train.”

  “I got it.”

  “I should go too.”

  “Nonsense,” Genevieve said, sitting up straighter. “Don’t do that, Gloria. Stay.” She reached out, putting her hand on my thigh. I wanted to stay, but I didn’t want to ditch Sheff, not with how much he’d been drinking lately. Sheff grabbed our bottle.

  “We have to make plans for the MoMA exhibit,” she said.

  “Definitely. Just come see me at work.”

  “When are you working?” She got up when I got up. She was eager, attentive. I liked it.

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  As Sheff and I walked toward Columbus Circle, I heard Genevieve and Paul whispering, and I wondered what they were saying. I told Sheff, “I think she likes me.”

  “You think? She totally digs you.”

  “I thought Paul would be your type.”

  “I guess I don’t have a type.” He hadn’t been with anyone but johns since I’d been in New York. “I’m just picky,” he added. “Maybe his eyes are too close together.”

  Back at the hotel, Sheff washed down a Valium with a swig of bourbon. We lay side by side staring at Harry, the jowly water stain. I held The Catcher in the Rye on my chest. I’d been reading aloud to Sheff. I said, “Did I tell you that my mother used to be in love with my dad’s brother?”

  Sheff rolled onto his side. “No! Why do you keep these things from me?” He lit a cigarette.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Complications make for the best stories.”

  “True.”

  After I told him all that I knew about my mother and her college boy, he said, “What would you have chosen? The steady Eddie who wasn’t Eddie or the wild one, your uncle Eddie?”

  “First off, gross! I wouldn’t choose my father or my uncle.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He passed me the cigarette. I took a drag, exhaling toward Harry. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if she really had a choice.”