Blind Side

by William Bayer

  She was walking fast, glancing occasionally at her watch, like a woman with an appointment to keep. It was nearly 12:30. The lunch-hour crowds, office workers and shoppers, thronged the broiling streets. Catching up with her, trailing her by three strides, I could see that sweat now bound her blouse against her back.

  She turned off Euclid, walked a block along a side street, then turned again onto a short sharply angled alley. There was a porno shop there, and, across and a little farther on, a lounge with a blue-and-white neon sign above the door that announced GIRLS'TOPLESS'GIRLS.

  She paused outside the lounge, glanced at her watch, then took a final drag on her cigarette. Then she threw the butt on the sidewalk, crushed it with her heel, and entered.

  I didn't want to follow her in, not until I knew if she was going to stay. I walked to the end of the block, turned, leaned against the building at the corner, and brought my Leica to my eye.

  A deep shadow cast by an office building cut diagonally across the bend in the alley. I liked the composition; it was strong and architectural. I took three shots, bracketing my exposures, then walked back toward the lounge.

  Had she met someone there for lunch? The windows were blocked, I couldn't see inside, but it didn't look like a place that served food. I still had a problem about going in; if I ran into her face-to-face, a later approach could be difficult. I decided to wait inside the porno shop.

  It was, I imagine, like most other sex shops around, not that I've visited all that many. Racks on the walls layed books and magazines, organized by proclivity. re was a small display of intimate items: dildoes, black silk panties, stuff like that. The cashier sat behind a register on a raised platform beside the door. Fat and bored, the butt of a dead cigar clenched between his teeth, he glanced at me, then turned his attention to a fish-eye security mirror mounted at the far end of the room.

  There were half a dozen men in business suits breathing heavily, studying the merchandise. A black man wearing a coin apron stood before a darkened room in back. Behind him I could see a row of video booths. Moans, issuing from the various sound tracks, merged into one miserable low-pitched sexual growl.

  I walked back to the front of the store. I wanted to keep my eyes on the door to the lounge. I flipped through a couple of magazines. As always when I look at porn, I was struck by the poor quality of the photography.

  The pictures said nothing, the models looked embarrassed, and their poses were awkward, as if the photographer had commanded them to freeze. Occasionally I saw a pretty face, or an attempt to frame a scene, but there was always something wrong: the lighting was too harsh, the content too blatant, or there was no passion or feelhe shot. Porn is about skin, and yet, curiously, the ing in t skin in porn invariably looks bad.

  I spent fifteen minutes in the store. Customers came and went, and several browsers moved to the video booths in back. Finally I went to the counter and looked up at the cashier. He slowly lowered his eyes.

  "I'm from out of town," I said.

  "Do you have a local guide?"

  "What kind of guide?"

  "Guide to the action," I said.

  He rubbed his sleeve across his nose.

  "Nothing like that here." He looked at my camera.

  "Like to take pictures? That what you like to do?"

  "Yeah," I said.

  "I like to take pictures. Know where I can take a few?"

  "Intimate poses?" I nodded.

  "they got girls in the joint around the corner. They'll split their beavers for you, but they stay behind the glass."

  "What about that place across the street?" I asked.

  He turned to look.

  "Topless joint? So it's tittie you're after. Yeah, they probably let you shoot in there you tip lem well enough."

  At first, when I entered the lounge, I could barely see; the room was dark except for a small well-lit stage in the center of the U-shaped bar. Two girls were at work, a white girl and a light-skinned black, naked except for scanty G-strings, halfheartedly bumping and grinding in time to an electronic throb. There was the faint aroma of girls' sweat in the air. Drawn in by this and by the light, I took a seat. Fifteen or so men were seated around the U, some watching the dancers with bored blank faces, others gazing at them with fascinated eyes.

  "Drink?"

  I looked down. The bartender was standing just in front of me. It was Ms. G. Amos, and she was stripped to the waist, bare breasts jutting out from her torso, a pair of firm hard cups like the kind you used to see on the fronts of Cadillacs.

  "Beer, please."

  "What kind?"

  "Light."

  "Draft or bottle?"

  "I'm from out of town. Don't know the local brands."

  "Erin Brew is pretty good," she said. I smiled at her.

  "Make it Erin, then." She didn't smile back. When she turned, I noticed the muscular definition of her back.

  Though I wasn't prepared for it, it seemed an ideal situation-I'd yet to meet a bartender who wouldn't talk. But when I gave her a lavish tip for my beer, she pocketed it with a brisk nod and walked away.

  There was a certain surliness about her that belied her topless state. If being topless meant one was reduced to being a sex object, she was doing everything possible to neutralize the erotic effect. The girls on the stage might flaunt their boobies, wiggle them in a customer's face, but as far as she was concerned, if you ogled hers, you'd get nothing but an icy stare.

  I slowly drank down two beers. After a while the place thinned out. At 2:30, when the dancers took a break,

  she appeared again and asked if I wanted something else.

  "Sure," I said.

  "I'd like to talk." She looked at me with disgust.

  "Another beer, then, please."

  She brought me another beer, but this time, when I tipped her, she nodded in a more appreciative way, and, instead of retreating to her sink, stood facing me, waiting for me to speak.

  "As I said-I'm from out of town."

  "Yeah, you did say that."

  "Name's Jim Lynch." She looked at my offered hand, took it and gave it a shake.

  "Grace Amos," she said. "Hi, Grace."

  "Hi, Jim."

  "Buy you a drink?" "Don't mind if you do." She reached under the bar, pulled out a bottle of Erin, opened it and poured it into a mug.

  "Well, here's to Cleveland," I said, clicking her mug with mine.

  "Isn't that a joke?"

  "Don't know," I said. "The town doesn't seem so bad. Not half so bad as you hear."

  "Where you from, Jim?"

  "Boston."

  "Never been there myself. Salesman?" Inodded. "What's your line?" I didn't even have to think about it.

  "I sell cameras," I said.

  She glanced down at my Leica.

  "Noticed that when you came in. Nice little piece of hardware. Said to myself: 'Grace, that's no Kodak. Not that." Have a look?"

  I took it from around my neck, and placed it on the bar. I could tell by the way she picked it up that she wasn't used to having a camera in her hands. But I was impressed by the confidence with which she held it; she wasn't intimidated by it at all. She brought it up to her eye, then pointed it at me.

  "Hey! Smile!" She made a clicking sound with her teeth, then handed it back.

  A couple of seconds passed before it hit me: the way she said "Hey!" was just the way Kim said it, exactly the same. I must have been staring at her because she looked unnerved.

  "Something the matter?" she asked.

  "Nothing. Just wondering-"

  "What?"

  "Whether you'd let me take you out to dinner."

  She looked at me hard, as if she was trying to -read my mind. I met her eyes straight on.

  "Just 'cause I work this joint, that shouldn't give you any ideas."

  "No ideas, Grace. Just a lonely guy in a strange city looking to make a friend. I can buy a bottle tonight, go back to my motel, drink and watch TV. Or I can take a nice lady out to
a restaurant, have a couple drinks and talk. I'm not thinking of anything more than that."

  She studied me awhile longer.

  "Lot of guys come inthey're not all that nice. I look them in the eye, they're staring at my boobs. But you-you strike me different. I thought that since you walked in. Had this feeling you were looking at my face. Nothing wrong with my tits, mind you. But they're not for grabs-not in here they're not. And not later neither . . . unless I put them in your hand." She grinned.

  "Now, if all that's all okay with you, you can take me out. I could use a decent restaurant meal. Where you staying?"

  "Devora Motel," I said.

  "I know the dump. Not far from mine. I'll be leaving here around 5:45. I do some errands, go home, change, walk my dog, that kind of crap. So suppose I pick you up around seven? We'll go to a lounge I know. If it goes good, we'll go on to eat."

  Walking back to the parking lot, I couldn't believe my luck. Not only had I met her, I'd actually gotten myself a date. I congratulated myself on my approach: lonely salesman, low key, persistent and polite.

  She wasn't at all what I'd expected. A topless bartender at a topless bar-that in itself was bizarre. But there was more that interested me: her working-class

  her direct no-nonsense manner, the morose distracted way she smoked and walked her dog, and the searching way she looked me in the eye.

  Grace radiated strength and confidence, which might explain why Kim had turned to her when things got dangerous in New York. Did Grace know where Kim was now? If I was clever enough I might find out.

  Some of my ebullience left me, however, when I drove up to the Devora. There could be a problem if Grace came to the office and asked for "Mr. Lynch." I hadn't given her my real name just in case Kimberly had mentioned me. I'd felt the camera around my neck was bad enough.

  I sat in my car pondering what to do. Finally I made up my mind. I walked to the office, where, despite the fans, the clerk's shirt was wringing wet.

  "If it's about the air conditioning," he said, "expect to have it on by five."

  "I hope so," I said.

  "I nearly suffocated last night."

  "I'm sorry, sir."

  "That's okay, but now I've got a little problem you can help me with."

  He was all ears as I outlined my difficulty. A newly met lady friend would be visiting, and, being married and discreet, I'd given her another name. When she came by and asked for "Mr. Lynch," there was twenty dollars in it if he'd ring me in my room.

  "Twenty dollars?"

  "Make it thirty." I laid the cash on the counter.

  He stared down at my three tens.

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Lynch!"

  Grace arrived right on time. She was wearing an attractive linen blouse, which made it all right, I figured to stare a little at her chest.

  "Seen much of Cleveland?" she asked as she pulled out of the motel. "Not much," I said.

  "Haven't had the time."

  "Think your wallet can stand it if we go a little fancy?"

  "Sure. Where do you want to go?"

  "Shaker Heights." We drove for almost half an hour. She did most of the talking. She described what it was like to live in Cleveland-though she'd been born and raised there, she didn't like the city much. She felt trapped, she said, but didn't have an alternative, at least for now. If she could have her way, she'd live in a warm tropical place. She'd spent a year in Florida once, but then she'd moved back when things had soured for her there.

  She liked being a bartender-it was a job she. knew how to do. Normally she worked the night shift, but this was summer, vacation time, so this particular week she was filling in days. As for being topless, that was the required costume for the job. Personally she didn't care. She had nothing to be ashamed of, and it was actually comfortable, what with all the heat and humidity the last few months.

  The ambience at the bar where she took me was a far cry from the place where she worked. An attractive young woman, in a long evening dress, sat at a white piano playing Cole Porter tunes. The air conditioning worked, the lighting was subdued, and the customers looked affluent and relaxed. A buzz of lively chatter and the tinkle of cocktail glasses and ice played against the music and filled the room with a sophisticated hum.

  "What do you think?" she asked, after she ordered a champagne cocktail.

  "Pretty nice," I said.

  "Yeah. And special for me too. I feel real nostalgic whenever I come in here. Fell in love here once. In this very room."

  "What happened?"

  "The usual."

  "What's that?"

  "Oh, you know-it lasted awhile, then it ended." She pulled out a cigarette. I lit it for her. She inhaled, then pensively stirred her drink. She looked at me.

  "You're a nice guy."

  "Thanks. I try to be."

  "Which is why I'm going to tell you something personal, which you may not be too happy to hear."

  "Go ahead."

  "I like all kinds of people. But romantically speaking it's different. Given a choice between a guy and a galI'll usually take the girl."

  "No problem," I said.

  "I already figured that." You did? Really? That's because you're from the East.

  "I told you, Grace-I wasn't looking for sex."

  "Appreciate that. Always feel better once that's settled." She took another long draw, then stubbed out her cigarette.

  "The person you fell in love with here-was she a girl?" I asked.

  "Yeah, that she certainly was." Grace grinned and shook her head. "Hard being gay in Cleveland?"

  "Little bit. But people don't mess with me."

  "they accept you."

  "Don't know if they 'accept' exactly. But they know I don't take any shit."

  The girl at the piano was playing "I Get a Kick out of You.

  Grace nodded to the music.

  "Love this tune. Makes me feel, I don't know-kind of squishy inside……

  We ate dinner at a little Italian place in the Murry Hill section just above Western Reserve University. It was the kind of inexpensive graduate-student joint you don't find easily in New York these days-small, friendly, with Neapolitan cuisine, dishes like chicken cacciatore and eggplant parmigiana, and that wonderful old clichd, a candle stuck in a Chianti bottle on a red-and-white checked tablecloth.

  I was pleased with the way Grace had opened up; all she needed, it seemed, was a good empathetic listener. So I worked hard playing that role, lavishing her with compassion, telling her about an imaginary lesbian couple I knew in Boston, wonderful creative women, trying for years to adopt a child, but people were intolerant. Wasn't it ridiculous? But that's the way people were. they always hated what they didn't understand, and sometimes they hated because they understood too well.

  She looked up at me as she was spooning up the last of her spumoni.

  "I may not have sex with guys, but I give a hell of a mean massage. Worked as a masseuse for a couple of years. Still do it a little on the side to make extra bucks." She winked.

  "Interested?"

  "Sure, I'm interested," I said, "so long as we don't have to do it at my motel."

  She laughed.

  "Course not. Got a room specially set up for it at the house. No charge either, not for you. You've been real nice. Fair exchange, seems to me, for a good evening on the town."

  We stopped first at my motel, so I could pick up my car. I rather liked the idea of openly following her, without having to worry about being spotted. She fascinated me: a brassy balls-up dame tending an emotional wound. Had Kim played sultry "femme" to Grace's earthy diesel"? I couldn't imagine two women more opposite.

  Even while Grace was unlocking the door of her house I could hear the dog yelping inside. When it saw me, it stood up on its hind legs and barked.

  "Heidi! Stop that! Don't bark at the nice man!" Heidi lowered herself and sniffed suspiciously at my shoe.

  "She's into feet." Grace smiled.

  "Heavy crotch worship too."
r />   Grace quickly attached a leash to Heidi's collar, and headed for the door.

  "Be back in a minute. Make yourself at home. Bathroom's upstairs if you need it." Then she took the dog outside.

  Heading up the stairs, I prayed Heidi had a very full bladder, full enough to allow me a good look around. As it happened, I hit pay dirt as soon as I entered Grace's bedroom. There was a collection of framed photos nicely arranged on the dresser. One of them, a color shot, showed Grace and Kim sitting together cross-legged on a boat, smiling and gleeful, arms buddy style across each other's shoulders.

  I trembled a bit as I picked up the picture. It appeared to have been taken in Southern waters. There were palms on the shoreline and the kind of waterfront condos one finds all up and down the Florida coast.

  But the most striking thing about the shot, the thing that made my heart beat fast, was the curious position of their hands. Not the hands they used to cup each other, but the hands that lay free in their laps. The forefinger of each was pointed directly at the other's ankle, which seemed to be the source of all their glee.

  "Jim?" It was Grace, returned with Heidi, calling to me from downstairs. I set the photograph back down on the bureau.

  "Up here."

  "When you're ready, come down to the cellar," she yelled.

  I picked up the picture again, squinted at a section of it, trying to make it out. Grace seemed to be pointing to the very spot on Kimberly's ankle where she had that curious tattoo. Kim had told me it had been done in Florida by an Oriental woman. Grace had told me she'd spent a year in Florida. The initials were right too: K for Kimberly, G for Grace.

  I found her in the cellar in a kind of workout room. There were free weights, an exercise bicycle and a set of arm pulleys attached to the wall. She stood before a professional massage table, covered with dark brown vinyl. Heidi sat quietly panting by her feet.

  "Strip down and get on," she said, giving the table a slap.

  "Be with you in a sec. Going upstairs to change."

  I must have known instinctively what I was going to do, because even as I undressed I started making friends with the dog.