The Lucky Star

by William T. Vollmann

  When she got to the Y Bar, it was twenty minutes before last call. The bluehaired paratrooper Colleen was drinking by herself.

  Oh, hi, Judy whispered.

  C’mere, said Colleen. Give me a kiss.

  Oh, I feel so blue, like I’m maybe not even a woman. But then men . . . At the Pink Apple it was all about attracting men, even though I saw plenty of chicks with money, so I don’t . . .

  You don’t what?

  I mean, tell me: what’s the best thing about loving another woman?

  The emotional deepness, replied her friend. You know we get socialized to be so self-conscious, so when we’re with somebody else we’re so self-conscious as well. But there’s this other language, this understanding.

  I don’t get it. I’m not even female, so how would I?

  Sure you do. Think about how men are. They are not allowed to show their pain; they don’t let themselves feel. The men that I see in my life, they are sometimes afraid to hug another man, except in soccer games which I love watching because my brother can hug another guy; otherwise they’re like sticks. And you know what? We women know when we’re being shitty. Men, well, generally, they all think they’re the best ever. Judy, do you think you’re the best?

  Not hardly.

  Same here. Now what are we, you and I? One, two, three—

  Disgusting! cried Judy gleefully.

  That’s why you need a woman. Guess what? I’m a friend of Neva’s, and she just texted me she’s waiting for you—

  Oh! How do you know her?

  Honey, she’s lying there wearing nothing but a big fat strap-on!

  Judy practically clapped her hands. Off she ran, straight to Neva’s. Catalina’s door was closed, but Neva’s was open: Time for a hug and a kiss and—

  I want to watch you, the transwoman said. You know, with others, while I sit in the corner and touch myself, and I wouldn’t be allowed to come near you—

  Judy, haven’t you had enough degradation tonight?

  Please, oh, pretty please! So I can learn . . . ! I’ll do anything! I want to watch you with a man—

  Why?

  I’m not sure. Maybe I’m not a lesbian. I mean, I do have a boyfriend and I . . . Neva, should I give up on women?

  Are you done with me?

  No! But please, please let me watch you with somebody, with . . .

  Okay, said the lesbian.

  So she called me up, and I rushed straight over, overjoyed at my extra turn. I felt embarrassed at first, that Judy was watching. But she begged me. Besides, the instant Neva spat in my mouth, I got over my shame. In utter silence, fascinated, ashamed, miserably jealous and very, very excited, Judy kept us company. When I told Neva: I’m willing for my love to be eaten up by you until there’s none left for anybody else, and I want that; I’m begging you!, Judy started masturbating, of course. Then she and Neva went to sleep in the bedroom while I sacked out on the couch.

  13

  Xenia arrived in the morning. She said: Neva, I swear I did my best, but she—

  What was up with her?

  You mean, where did her self-sabotage come from? My sense is that these are things happened early on. So, once upon a time Judy was a little boy, and, well, he’s starting to cross-dress, and he’s very submissive sexually and maybe he’s already a street kid, and I’ll bet you his father once tied him to a radiator and abused him . . .

  We all come from dirt, said the lesbian. Honey, will you please keep helping her?

  She’s got issues. I mean, until she helps herself . . .

  Please, Xenia, said the lesbian. Do it for me.

  14

  I told you, said Xenia.

  Maybe I should just give up . . .

  What’s your mantra?

  Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

  That’s dumb. Try this one: I’m a big fat cow.

  That’s mean.

  Well, that’s what that asshole called you when you froze up. Why couldn’t you go on with your act?

  I’m sorry.

  Sorry doesn’t cut it. You need to own it, so say it.

  I’m a big fat cow. I’m a big fat cow. I’m a big fat cow who—takes it up the ass!

  Good girl. What a good little big fat masochist. Now, why did you freeze that night? What was in your ugly head?

  I was afraid they’d laugh at me. And they did—

  They did not. They were sorry for you, which is worse. Another reason why sorry doesn’t cut it. Judy, I stuck out my neck for you, and you put me in a bad position.

  So what should I do?

  You said it: Give up.

  I don’t want to.

  Then don’t. Go get some meth to help you with your confidence. Then I’ll watch you practice.

  I’m afraid.

  Haven’t you put me out enough? And think how Neva feels—

  Okay, I’ll do it for you.

  15

  Well, what do you want me to do about it? Starfire demanded. I told you, she groped me and got me so stoned I was violently ill, and then she just left me there to . . .

  Please do it for me, said the lesbian.

  Xenia’s trying to help her by making her think she can do it. I’d try to help her by telling her how shitty the job is. Is that what you want?

  But she’s afraid—

  Maybe she’ll work harder then. Where is she?

  You can talk to her right here.

  What, and then as soon as I leave you’ll fuck her?

  That’s right, said the lesbian.

  No.

  Okay.

  When I say no, I mean no.

  So as soon as Judy rang the buzzer, there was Neva making coffee while Judy sat wide-eyed on the sofa beside Starfire, who said: You know, it really sucks, getting disgusting guys laughing at you. You saw how it was the other night. It’s kind of rough. Getting those guys to buy those super pricey drinks, it’s a misery. You have to compartmentalize, just pack it up. Don’t you at least partly identify as a guy?

  That’s so mean, said Judy.

  No it isn’t. Men have the ability to compartmentalize. They can go on two different dates in the same day. We women usually can’t do it, but I had one stripper friend who had stars taped up in her van, a real hippie child; she had her black book: I call all these guys. She decided to be an escort to do a study. She ended up being killed. Well, maybe that’s not the most encouraging example, but the fact is, if you wanna perform you can’t keep it real. Judy Garland was not real; she was something that her mother and the industry cobbled together, to make money. So shut yourself down and—

  Now that’s interesting, said the transwoman, because Xenia told me something like that. She said I have to stop caring. But you care, don’t you, Neva? You’re not just faking it when you say you love us?

  Honey, I care. Starfire, do you want cream or sugar? We’ve never had coffee together . . .

  Black is fine, said Starfire. Judy, do you see these tattoos? That first one was in 1993, which was the year I got married. Then I got so sick of doing the same show every night. Finally I said I’m getting the hell out of there, so I ended up working another contract. She said okay, honey, you can go, and if you want to come back in six months you can. So I went out to get tattoos right away, so I would never again be in show business. They want to see unblemished and beautiful women. Last year I was gonna get them removed, and my daughter said, Mom, they’re a part of your life. The reason I was so intent on getting out was because my first contract, my friend Camellia, had given fourteen years of her life to Jaybird’s, and they treated her like yesterday’s trash. I think that they felt they would get rid of the weak ones, the ones that would . . . She tried to go with the flow. But even though she’s on a billboard, when she tried to go back they wouldn’t hire her. There you go, Judy. That
’s why I wash windows and moonlight at the Pink Apple for peanuts.

  Judy said: I don’t care if they treat me like trash. I wanna be looked at and . . . I mean, Neva, wherever you go they start drooling. I’d give anything to have that. What does it feel like?

  It’s what I’m here for, said the lesbian.

  And it’s what Judy Garland was here for! She had her ups and downs, but she . . . Well, she’s immortal.

  Starfire said: Well, you and I are not.

  But you—

  My mother grew up very poor and always wanted to dance. She put me in dance class because I was so shy I would hide under the bed. She put me in dance to get me out of my shell. I just happened to be good at it. They were grooming me to be a ballerina and I got into that dance class in New York, and they all looked like me and could dance better, but the difference was they wanted it and I didn’t. But I was in goddamn Mobile, Alabama. Followed in my sister’s footsteps, being a secretary, and it was horrible, so I got my Actor’s Equity card. And all the time I’m thinking, I can’t even get a job at a Disney audition. Actually I worked for a number of years as an exotic dancer. Men would say to me, you need to get out of here. You’re not like these other girls. You’re a nice girl. So I went to Jaybird’s, and I got hired as a Palmleaf Girl. Oh, my God, what a cattle call! I had a friend who auditioned five times or six times. If Angie didn’t like your nose, or your eyes . . . So it was an honor to be chosen. The headpiece was only a headpiece but it seemed like a lot of weight to me. I was swaying. Angie had favorites. They would get all the paying gigs, modeling and so on. I went into the audience and I bitched. The next week I got a gig with New York Glammies. I got a good seventy-five bucks. Donald Trump came once. He didn’t even look at the stage. He was too busy looking around, either to check out his protection from the boys in the suits with the earpieces, or to make sure people would see him. So there’s your fame for you, Judy. I remember Victor Vidalis, you know, the TV actor, following me all around and I almost knocked him over. I had this hat for the Army-Navy portion of the show, with these two pieces of foam, and I remember thinking, what the fuck, dude? I’m walking around with no clothes on. When I quit, my mother was angry because now she couldn’t tell her friends her daughter was a showgirl. After I quit I tried out for one other show at the Berghof and I didn’t get hired for that and I decided I would just be a waitress. I always felt that the dancing thing was just limited. I’m not educated, not beyond high school.

  Well, I’m not educated, either, said Judy. And I’d do anything to . . .

  Anything? said Starfire. First of all, you’re lazy. Second, you have no discipline. If you can’t lose your flab, what does that say about you? Third, you don’t have any pride. You’re like the ones who just hang on until they get fired. When they don’t get the hint, don’t be looking in the magic mirror; look in the real one. I think people of your kind, well, Judy, I think they’re not very realistic about what they look like. They had to tell Susie, you need to retire. In fact she was a beautiful woman, great woman, but she was fifty-three. It was common to have yourself a boob job. Angie would not let you go out there with one, unless you had a really good one. Susie had about six sets of implants, and after that the doctor said, there’s not really anything else I can do for you.

  At this Judy went into the bathroom to make herself vomit, so that she would be more beautiful for Neva. Starfire looked wound up. The lesbian held her hand. Starfire said slowly: But I think that a lot of us, we knew that Angie loved us, regardless of entertainment director changes. I’m sure I could have worked into my mid-forties. I knew that was an open door for me. But I would rather clean houses and shine shoes. Well, I do miss the old days, because dancing’s so . . . You get off work at one in the morning and you go to the Four Daisies and you get yourself a big fat slice of Sicilian pizza and never gain a pound.

  16

  Judy went walking, in order to clear her head. She went all the way to Bryant Street.

  On the wide battleship-grey topmost concrete step of the portico whose raison d’être was six locked steel doors all in a row, she sat down, smoked a strictly medicinal joint, tried to decipher the graffiti on the parked trailer truck, watched grey nothingness go by on that grey Saturday morning, until finally something actually happened: a young man in shorts, with a messenger bag over his shoulder, came up the sidewalk, ogling his cell phone until he tripped.

  She asked herself what, if anything, Neva and Starfire would both advise her to do. The answer appeared to be: Stop feeling sorry for myself.

  But I like to be humiliated.

  That’s different, because I’ve sworn to embrace my disgustingness.

  All right, Judy, she agreed.

  She went home to wash her clothes, thoughtfully inhaling the pseudo-fresh smell, ultimately nauseating, of the soap and bleach and fabric softener at the laundromat. Starfire was a blessing and an abettor, while Neva was the one in whom our hearts rested.

  She spied the old Asian in the baseball cap who also came here every Saturday; he had lined his cart with a heavy duty garbage bag; while her laundry went around she saw him tenderly fix another man’s spectacles, rejoining the temple to the lens frame with a screwdriver no longer than his thumbnail; and she thought: What have I done for anybody?

  Well, I make J. D. happy.

  Only because he—

  And Neva loves me!

  Because she’d love anyone.

  17

  But the retired policeman bought me a double rum and sodapop at the Cinnabar, where two women were just then coming out from the restroom arm in arm. He was sore at Neva for encouraging Judy beyond her capabilities. He said: Soliciting, engaging, loitering is a misdemeanor. Now, all of you are claiming that Karen won’t take a dime for turning a trick. But how many men and women has she flatbacked? It’s got to be hundreds at least. Now, engaging in prostitution is only a felony if they’re HIV positive and they know they’re HIV positive. Well, what’s the likelihood that Karen doesn’t have something? Come on, man. That should be an attempted homicide charge.

  She never gave me anything, I said.

  Have you gotten tested?

  I confessed that I never had and never would, at which he said: I mean, you are knowingly . . . That’s like my taking out my revolver and shooting in your direction.

  18

  Listen, said Shantelle, who was slouching sexily against the wall like Natalie Wood in West Side Story. Neva’s settin’ us up against each other.

  No, because Neva loves us.

  Bitch, how could Neva ever love you? Think about it. Anybody claims to love you, she gotta be lyin’ to you. Now do you feel it?

  Blinking rapidly, the transwoman insisted: Neva loves me. And she loves you.

  Xenia now said in such a slow slurred voice (staring into the mirror) that she could have been speaking to herself, in which case her interjection would have been a coincidence: I would want for the criticizing to stop, because there’s so much hatred for women among themselves; you’re not supposed to be like this kind or that kind of woman. That hatred, we feel it, so we vomit it out. We have to stop spreading it. I’ve caught myself doing it. What’s the right way to be? I’m more comfortable around people who . . . who are more, I mean, more attentive to . . .

  Richard, would you take her home? said Francine.

  Which one of them? I said.

  Xenia wandered away.

  Forget it, said Francine.

  Samantha, filled with fresh knowledge thanks to a new European friend, was asking Selene: Have you ever been to Denmark or Germany or wherever, where they pay more taxes, but . . . ?

  Beginning to emote with all the conviction of some avaricious enlarger of the Roman Empire, Shantelle led Judy outside and continued: Maybe you got the advantage, bein’ stupid. But you gotta prove it.

  Prove what?

 
I don’t know. Maybe I’m high. Fine. But . . . Forget that. Now what about sharin’ Neva fifty-fifty, just you and me? Instead of seein’ her for an hour every two or three days, you could have her all day, and I’d have her all night! All fuckin’ night . . . ! What would you say to that?

  That’s impossible.

  Not if you and I go fifty-fifty. Judy, if you turn me down I’m gonna be your enemy for life. I’ll never stop poundin’ on you. But if you do like I say, I mean exactly now, we’re gonna have Neva together, just you and me, forever—

  What do I have to do?

  We’re gonna learn everything about her. When the time comes, I’ll tell you what to do. Yes or no?

  Unable to say no, of course she said yes. Then Shantelle took her home and fucked her just the way she liked it, until she was weeping and screaming. It was almost as good as being with the lesbian.

  19

  I who had overheard everything asked Francine: Does Shantelle have any kind of point? I’m not saying Neva’s actively pitting us against each other—

  Then what are you saying?

  I’ve never had as much love in my life as I do now.

  Same here.

  Well, are you happier?

  What a question! Sure—

  I am, too, when I’m with her. The rest of the time . . .

  But isn’t that human nature? she said. We always want more.

  By the way, is she human? What does she want?

  Rattling glassware in the sink, Francine said: Let’s drop it.

  20

  Neva was out, so Judy rang Catalina’s buzzer and said: I told you I want to be a lesbian—

  Then be one, said her hostess, standing unwelcomingly in the doorway.

  How do I do it?

  Well, I didn’t become one; I was born one. But what are you anyway? Don’t you still fuck that retired cop?

  It used to be for money, but—

  Lighting a cigarette, Catalina said: So you love him, or you love the abuse?