New Yorked

by Rob Hart

  Past the black curtain there are glass bowls filled with more condoms and more lube, and curtained booths, and a lot of red lighting. The people I can see are mostly talking and lounging. Mostly. A few heads turn toward me as I enter. They see I’m not there for fun and go back to what they’re doing.

  Perched on a stool in the middle of the room is a young guy, pretty enough to be a model and dressed only in a bathrobe. He’s not watching anything too intently so I figure him for an employee and not a voyeur. I slide up next to him and say, “I’m looking for Ginny.”

  His eyes dart to a door in the back, partly hidden by a red curtain. He says, “Never heard of her.”

  “I bet you haven’t.”

  I don’t bother to knock. Maybe I should have.

  Ginny is in the middle of a room with a concrete floor, stone walls, and candle holders bolted into the walls. It looks like a dungeon. She’s wearing a leather dress that covers her entire top and her arms, cut off right above her knees. Long leather boots and a big black Elvira wig.

  When I close the door she looks over her shoulder and leans forward, fumbling with something at her crotch. Stretched out on a plastic tarp is a handsome man in a gray suit. The front of the suit looks like someone just spilled a bottle of water on him, but the smell tells a different story.

  Ginny says, “Christ, Ash.”

  The guy on the floor picks his head up and says, “Actually, I’m good with this.”

  I ask Ginny, “Do you want me to leave?”

  “We’re all grownups here. But next time, knock.”

  Ginny turns, her situation rectified, and smiles. “So you got my text? Oh, and…” She points at my head. “Off please.”

  I take off the hat and hold it in my hands. The man lying on the floor hasn’t moved and it’s making me uncomfortable. Ginny notices this because she waves at him and he climbs to his feet. “Ash, this is my lawyer.”

  The man gets up and brushes at his drenched suit. He looks vaguely familiar. He smiles and extends his hand toward me and I look at it. It’s wet. I tell him, “No.”

  He nods, first like he’s hurt, then with the realization of what’s on his hands. He stares at the floor like a dog waiting for a command.

  “So,” I say. “This is the most awkward I have ever felt in my entire life. And I went to a Catholic grammar school. How about we get down to it?”

  Ginny snaps her fingers. The lawyer goes to the corner to pick up a briefcase propped up against the wall. Before he can grab it I tell him, “Just leave it.”

  The lawyer returns to Ginny’s side. She pats him on the shoulder and says, “Please wait outside.”

  He nods and leaves through another door in the back. When the door closes behind him I say, “Ginny. Seriously. What the fuck?”

  She shrugs. “Darling, I’m sorry. If I knew you’d be so quick, I would have waited. And if you would have knocked, we could have relocated our meeting to another room. He’s one of the best lawyers in the city and we have an… arrangement.”

  “Getting peed on.”

  “The technical term is urophilia.”

  “Why did you call me?”

  She nods over to the briefcase. “You know that favor you owe me? Deliver that.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it, darling. There’s a card on the top with the address it needs to go to. Drop it off with a man named Rex. Keep it quick and quiet. I want you seen and not heard. No names.”

  “Seems like a simple task.”

  “Nothing is ever simple. Especially when it comes to the Latinos. They’re excitable.”

  “That’s a little racist, isn’t it?”

  Ginny exhales. “I have spent my entire life being stepped on because of who I am. Even in the liberal bastion of New York City, I often find myself judged and ridiculed. I have a lot of pent up anger to express.” She pauses, smiles, and adds, “You know a little something about how that feels, don’t you?”

  “Whatever.” I cross the room and pick up the briefcase. “Listen, I know I’m paying off a debt on this, but any chance you could kick me five hundred bucks? I need it for something. I’ll get it back to you as soon as I have it.”

  “I don’t have any cash on me. Come back when you’re done.”

  I check the address, which is in Hell’s Kitchen. Or Clinton, as the yuppie gents have taken to calling it. I ask Ginny, “Why me? Anyone else could do this for you.”

  “Because Ash, Samson is otherwise occupied, and you are the only person I know who doesn’t care enough to open the case. I should add, please don’t open the case.” She pauses. “And one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I hear it’s supposed to rain tonight. It’s good that you have your umbrella.”

  “The skies have cleared up, Gin.”

  “Oh, I know. But better to have it and not need it.”

  There’s a folding table set up at the entrance of the subway station where a gaggle of cops stop me. A young officer, tall and ginger and gangly, asks, “Sir, could you please open your briefcase?”

  “How’s your wife doing?”

  He stands at attention. “What?”

  “I’m sorry, I thought we were playing that game where we violate each other’s personal boundaries.”

  “Sir, the case.”

  “Forget it.”

  He crosses his arms and his cop friends stand behind him, like they’re intimidating someone in a schoolyard. “Then you can’t ride the subway.”

  “Fine. Fuck you. There are plenty of other ways to get around Nazi Germany.”

  I leave before the cops get the bright idea to search me.

  That’s new. Never been stopped before. I guess the cops need to pull a white kid out every now and again so they can argue against racial profiling.

  I remember when Snow White had to tack a surcharge onto her product because the runners couldn’t take the subway anymore. The times, they are changing.

  The cab gets stuck in traffic at 43nd and Sixth. Should have cut crosstown further south, when we still had a chance. I can’t afford to sit with a running meter so I tell the guy to let me out and hand him the last of my spending money. I am now broke. I hope Ginny is good on the loan.

  I hit the sidewalk, head west, and as I get closer to Times Square I can feel the neon buzzing on my skin like a swarm of insects.

  When I step onto Seventh Avenue, the street is bright enough that when I look at the ground I could swear it was daytime. The glare of mammoth LCD billboards and the building-sized advertisements suck the color from the sky and turn it into a vacuum devoid of color.

  Crossing the street is a simple task because traffic is stopped, but the further I get to the center the thicker it gets, until the air is like water. The crowd swallows me. There’s a fog of people wearing fanny packs and speaking different languages. They move without reason or thought, bouncing in different directions. Every step I take is impeded. I duck and weave through the crowd, a frenetic ballet of stupidity. People cross my path in my blind spot and nearly end up on the floor and I don’t feel bad for them. I nearly trip over a man who has stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to tie his shoe.

  Those people in movies who are overtaken and devoured by crowds of zombies? This is what they see before they die.

  It’s loud. So loud. The blaring horns and the screaming people and the chain restaurants pumping Top 40 hits. The cacophony of this place makes my vision blur. I take a knee next to a large potted plant on the median, jam my earbuds in, and crank The Dictators, just so I can block some of it out.

  Back in the day this was a great place for crack or a handjob. It’s still dealing in opiates and sex, except now it’s aimed at the pleasure points of middle-America.

  Traffic is moving a little better on the western spur of Seventh but I don’t want to wait at the corner, so I push through the crowd and dodge taxis and buses until I’m on the other side. I push through the crowd on the sidewalk to the
less-traversed side streets. When I break through, I suck in a big gulp of the cool night air.

  Outside Times Square, 43rd is a bit more quiet. I wander past young kids from the suburbs breaking their city cherry, past scared tourists lined up outside the theaters, peeking over their shoulder and holding their kids tight. Past scalpers offering me jacked-up tickets to Disney movies that have been turned into Broadway shows.

  Occasionally I pass another native, lost and terrified. We share nods of recognition.

  The building I’m supposed to go to is near the water. The contrast between Hell’s Kitchen and the square is staggering. It’s so quiet I can hear a television blaring from a third floor apartment across the street.

  I find the building easy enough, a drab little brick number that would disappear into the scenery if I weren’t looking for it. There are a couple of unmarked buttons on a buzzer by the gunmetal door, but no clear sense on what I’m supposed to do next, until I notice the security camera bolted into the corner of the doorway. I hold the bag up and say, “Delivery.”

  The door buzzes. Inside the hallway it smells like bleach and some other chemical I can’t place. An overweight Latino guy pops out of the doorway. He’s wearing designer jeans, sneakers, and a long white t-shirt. So long it looks comical, but nothing about his face says this is funny. I brush the umbrella hanging from my belt. He waves at me to follow.

  Maybe I read too much into what Ginny said. Maybe the forecast is for rain. I should have checked. But the security cameras inside the hallway are pushing my heart down my chest. By the time we get to the second floor it’s sitting in my lower intestine.

  He leads me through another door and into a hallway, throws me against the wall, and pats me down. His hands check my pockets and reach around toward my junk. No way is the umbrella going to pass the test. Once he feels the weight it’s going to be a problem. I play the only card I can think to pull out.

  “Buddy, buy me a dinner first, and I’ll let you do a full cavity search,” I tell him.

  “Faggot,” he says.

  “That’s sweet. Do I see Rex now?”

  “T-Rex.”

  “What?”

  “As in, Tyrannosaurs. As in, my man will swallow you, bitch.”

  “How is it I’m the gay in this scenario?”

  He opens the door to an apartment, the look of disgust on his face so strong I want to make another pass at him, just to fuck with him. I don’t, in spite of my ability to make terrible decisions all the time.

  The next room is small. There’s a mahogany desk surrounded by blank walls. There’s another door in the back.

  And there’s no camera in this room.

  Behind the desk is a sharp-looking guy in a suit. The kind of guy who spends a lot of time worrying about his eyebrows. There are three teardrops tattooed below his left eye, which means he’s killed three people, or he wants me to believe he has.

  “What have you got for me,” he says, not asking, looking at the bag and not at me. His voice is condescending even though I don’t think he means it to be.

  People like this scare the shit out of me: The ones who think Scarface’s death was about honor and not atonement.

  The fat homophobe stayed in the room. He’s behind me. Standing between me and the desk are two more guys, both of them in matching blue denim outfits, flanking me like decorative suits of armor. Neither of them appear to be breathing.

  My new friend takes the briefcase from my hand and brings it to the boss. I throw my hands up and say, “Guys, thanks for having me, but I have to run. No, I wouldn’t like anything to drink. See you later. Tell everyone I said hey.”

  T-Rex says, “We count first.”

  This doesn’t feel right. I never stay long enough at these things to see the package get opened.

  As T-Rex lifts the top of the case the two guys in the denim tense up, like they’re getting ready for something. I play the angles in my head, because if this goes south, I have to be quick. The homophobe didn’t look like he was carrying a weapon, but the two guys in the Canadian tuxes could be strapped. They would have to go first.

  The problem is if T-Rex is packing too. I may not have enough time to get to him.

  Then again, I could be overreacting. Ginny is a lot of things, but she’s still a friend. She wouldn’t put me four heartbeats from a coffin.

  “What the fuck is this, mama huevo?”

  Maybe not.

  T-Rex turns the briefcase upside down over the table. Piles of multi-colored Monopoly money fall out, bundled with rubber bands.

  Before the play money hits the top of the desk the umbrella is out. I swing it toward the guy closest to me and it extends with just enough time to crush his jaw. I let the momentum carry my elbow into the second guy’s throat. Before the two of them hit the ground the homophobe is on me. My stomach drops as he lifts me into the air and slams me into the wall. It’s cheap sheetrock and my body leaves the imprint of a snow angel flecked with blood. I land hard on my shoulder.

  The umbrella slides across the floor. By the time I get to my feet the homophobe has got it in his hand and he’s figured out why I carry it. T-Rex is sitting at the table, his arms folded behind his head, watching the fight.

  The homophobe swings it like a baseball bat. I jump back but the umbrella clips me on the arm. Not hard enough to break it, just enough I won’t be able to lift it over my head tomorrow.

  He’s strong and quicker than he looks, but he’s sloppy. As he finishes the swing he leaves himself wide open so I slam my fist into his kidney. He arches his back and opens his chest up to me. I fold my hands together, reach high overhead, and slam them down on his breastplate. He hits the floor and doesn’t move.

  T-Rex is up from his seat and I’m on him before he has the chance to pull the gun. It’s a little six-shooter, strong enough to do damage in a tight space. I swing the umbrella and smack him on the side of the head. His body folds and he fires off a shot that takes a chunk out of my thigh.

  Adrenaline is gunning through my veins, hard enough the bullet wound doesn’t hurt, it just feels hot and tight, like a hand gripping my leg. The gun skids across the floor, and I use my good arm to punch T-Rex, and the lights behind his eyes go out.

  My blood is buzzing. My leg is bleeding. On the desk is a piece of paper. In thick, curled calligraphy, it says: Courtesy of The Hipster King.

  T-Rex groans at my feet. I kick him in the ribs a couple of times, less for trying to kill me and more for his stupid fucking name. I check his pockets and come up with his wallet. There’s a thick wad of high-denomination bills inside. I stick the wallet in my jacket, grab my umbrella, and tear out the door.

  I can’t tell how badly I’m bleeding because my jeans are black. The skin surrounding the gunshot wound is hot and swollen. Every time I put pressure on my left leg something explodes in my thigh. I search the street for a cab, but I’m too far on the outskirts of Times Square to find one.

  I pass a street vendor selling plastic replicas of the Statue of Liberty and I Heart NY t-shirts and piles of multicolored scarves. I grab a black one, hand him a bill from the wad I took off T-Rex, not even looking at it, and limp to a dark doorway. I wrap it around my leg and tie it tight and oh, fuck man, there’s the pain.

  That much solved, I limp east, not wanting to look over my shoulder, listening for the patter of footsteps or the hard click of metal. Anything to indicate I’m about to take another bullet, this one placed with a little more care.

  As I get closer to the beating neon heart of the city, the midnight sky is washed out by white haze that amplifies the darkness behind me.

  Head toward the light. Ha-fucking-ha.

  An open yellow cab turns the corner and coasts toward me. I flag it down and jerk the handle of the back door, but it’s locked. The driver lowers his window to ask where I want to go, so he can blow me off if it’s not where he wants to go.

  I lean down to the window and put on my ‘not-to-be-fucked-with’ face. He recogn
izes it and hits the button to unlock the door. I climb in, spread myself onto the leather bench seat, careful to keep my leg from touching anything. Not because of the pain, but because I don’t know what’s been on these seats tonight.

  The cabbie doesn’t ask me where I want to go, just stares at me in the rearview mirror while cars line up behind him, drivers smashing their horns. His eyes hover in the reflection, sepia and bloodshot.

  I can’t go home. I don’t have one anymore. Bombay won’t take me like this. Not without some big fucking lecture and a fight. Ginny could funnel me to an off-the-books doctor, but she also might have sent me into that room to get killed. There’s only one place I can think to go.

  “Brooklyn,” I tell the cabbie. “Greenpoint. Get to Driggs and I’ll know where.”

  He drives. I can’t see his face but there’s not a smile on it. This late, he won’t get a return fare into Manhattan. A lot of driving for a little money. I want to tell him I’m bleeding and maybe he should cut me some slack, but then he’ll kick me out. No one wins.

  The interior of the cab smells like an air freshener with a scent that doesn’t exist in nature, like ‘cool breeze’ or ‘mountain fresh.’ The floor looks recently vacuumed, and the tears in the leather seat are patched with electrical tape. Spanish music whispers from the radio up front. Best case scenario, as far as cabs go.

  The video screen on the partition lights up. Overlay of the weather—intermittent rain for the next three days—and a pretty brunette sitting at a desk, talking about how the city has experienced massive drops in every major crime category. Her voice is calm and reassuring.

  The screen swipes to a segment about a television show that’s filming on the Upper West Side, full of preppy kids who look like they were designed by a focus group. I stab at the touchscreen until the video stops. The screensaver illuminates the red swirls of my bloody fingerprint. I wipe it off with the sleeve of my jacket.