Slaves of New York (36 page)

"I still can't place what was so ominous about them . . . except they looked at me and at each other in a way that lacked feeling . . . well, it was purely sexual. Like they had come out looking for one thing. Well, even in a straight singles' bar most of the guys look pretty scared and are happier just getting to talk—usually about the plots of different movies that they've seen—aren't really interested in ripping your clothes off. I mean, even the ones on the make are usually just showing off for their friends and have a braggardly attitude to them that is pretty much a joke, an act.

"But anyway, I'm getting off the track. The evening was drawing to a close and Betty was tenderly wrapping little Amy up in a fake fur jacket, and Jacy was complaining about the reception on the TV set, and Karen was dancing by herself and crying . . . because Jacy was not speaking to her, Karen did not want to see Jacy ever again, but in this town there was nowhere else for the girls to go. I sat at the bar for a last drink, and I was thinking of getting home, my little dog was trying to sleep. . . .

"And a woman came in who interested me, oddly enough. At first I thought, Well, if I have to pick up a woman—for all the time, I have forgotten to say, there was a nasty voice in my head telling me to do this and that, things I really didn't want to do—if I had to pick up a woman that evening, I would make it a pretty one. And there were a couple in the place, one of them had glossy black hair and was wearing a long sweater-tunic, and another was like a little girl I had gone to grammar school with, very pale and freckled . . . but they were so second-rate I discarded them. A girl with long blond hair, but what a fat ass! What would I do in bed with so much rear end?

"As I say, a woman did come in ... it was getting to be after eleven . . . she was a lot older than the others and a real old-school dyke. This one not only had short hair, all gray, but was a real bull: dressed up in a man's suit, man's shoes, gray

Shetland sweater . . . really did look like a man at first glance . . . had a very teeny braid in the back, like a question mark, an afterthought. It was all part of the same thing—you know I've had a thing lately about men with little ponytails or braids in their hair: not like antiquated hippies but as part of a style, more Italian let's say, or European. Well, am I boring you?"

"No, no," said Jonny Jalouse. "Finally you are getting to the good part, go on. I find this very funny."

He was getting all stirred up, wiggling in his seat ... I felt quite sick. "Yeah, Sis, tell me the rest of it later," I said.

"No, I want to hear this," Jonny said.

"Well," Amaretta said, "Jonny, give me the coke." They kept the cocaine in a little bottle of nasal decongestant so they could sniff it in public. In between times they were rubbing their noses in a tube of eucalyptus menthol, something for colds that cleared their sinuses.

"If you don't want to hear this you should leave," said one of the Germans. It was quite vicious and without warning; well, I have noticed that cocaine sometimes does this to people, makes them criminally vicious and there is no hard feeling behind it.

"I have to go soon anyway to work on my painting," I said, ignoring him. Meanwhile I sipped my drink.

"This big bull dyke, six feet tall. The young ones didn't seem to have to play butch or femme; but this one was into playing what I guess she assumed was the man's role. ... I was sitting at the bar, and one of the girls was kneeling on the floor petting my dog and another woman said to her, 'As long as you're down there, Marie, why don't you . . .' But the rest of the sentence was lost as all the women giggled. I felt as if this was in some way addressed to me . . . like I was supposed to be shocked or something. A sexual joke, but of a crudeness as to bely the fact that they were women, that they might have had any idea of the sense or sensitivity of real women. . . .

"Meanwhile, the voice was even louder in my head—Amaretta, you're a coward, why, you'll never do it, come on, go ahead, make your move
unless you're too afraid!

"So I said to the old gray-haired dyke—who at least had some intelligence in her face, with a heavy jaw, a square terrier face, rooted in grief; I had the feeling if given half the chance she would have attached herself to my leg and hung on tenaciously—I said, 'Excuse me, do you have a light?' A pitiful line, I know, but the only line that would do in such a situation, the only thing this old-school lesbian would have understood.

"We didn't really talk. 'Buy you a drink, hon?" she said. I nodded. The other women faded away ... it was so tacky, I can't begin to tell you, at least if I were going to do this I might have chosen a place in Manhattan, some place jazzy and fun where the women were artists and dancers . . . my kind of people.

"The other women were mostly dancing ... a slow song came on, my dyke and me were sitting at the bar. 'You wanna dance?' the woman said. So I nodded again . . . there I was on the dance floor. If she had breasts it was no worse than the pair to be found on many a guy . . . she was nuzzling my neck, I kept my eyes quite shut, I was very drunk and let her push me around, I didn't want to make a fool of myself by falling down . . . anyway, it's all very stupid."

"Don't say that!" Jonny snapped. "I want to hear what happened. You're a tease, Amaretta."

"Well, all of a sudden I was yanked away . . . her girlfriend came out and pulled us apart, slapped me in the face. . . . 'Tough shit, Angela!' the woman I was dancing with said. 'I'm fed up with you!' Her girlfriend wasn't very nice-looking. An older woman, no makeup, with a wretchedly thin nose, trying to beat at my face. Very sad. How trivial human beings are, worse than the dogs we used to have at home, always snapping at each other over a bone. . . . Dykey—I shouldn't call her that, she told me her name was Denny— took me to a washroom, she got a bunch of paper towels and wet them and put them on my face ... I was crying, too drunk to know what I was doing. The other woman had scratched me. 'You from around here?' the woman said. I told her my

car had broken down, I was staying in town at the local hotel until my car was fixed.

"She took me back to her apartment. It turned out she was a certified public accountant. How incredibly dull! And her friend was an assistant professor of philosophy at the state university . . . this was the only place in town they felt comfortable at. I asked her for another drink, she didn't want to give me one. But I leaned forward and touched the back of her neck. It was as if all the air went out of her. This tough old dyke became very helpless, like a cat hypnotized by a snake. She didn't want me to touch her . . . how gently I ran my fingers along the nape of her neck. And then I took my cigarette and puffed on it and put it back in the ashtray. . . . She didn't want to be undressed by me, one part of her was fighting it, but she forced herself to relax . . . her body was like a piece of china, very old and cracked. White, flabby skin with blue veins along her groin. . . . She became almost doll-like in her resignation. She knew for once she wasn't going to be allowed to be the aggressive one. ... I removed her brassiere. It had left a pink line under her breasts. 'Why do you wear your brassiere so tightly,' I said. 'Look how it is damaging your flesh.' Her breasts were very small against her thick rib cage. I held each one in my hand, weighing them. The nipples were brown, tinged with pink. I took one in my mouth and bit the nipple tip. ... It was funny, doing this to a woman. And then I took my cigarette out of the ashtray and stuck it into her side, very quickly, before she had a chance to jump up.

"I don't know what came over me. I got out of there fast, though. Luckily I was completely dressed, and I knew how to run through the woods to get back to my house."

The Germans and Jonny Jalouse all started to laugh. I felt sick and got up and went to the toilet to take a piss. When I came back my sister and Jonny J. were laughing about a movie they had seen about snakes: a trained king cobra is set free to murder people that the deranged hero doesn't like.

"Oui, oui,
and the poison sets in, that is the best moment,"

Jonny said. "When she turns green and is in convulsions and the rest of the people are standing there saying, 'Oh, la la, what to do?'

"The king cobra is among the most poisonous of snakes," I said. "But the reason it is so interesting is that it can be trained. How did you guys get to see that film? It hasn't even opened yet."

"Anyway, Marley, you missed the end of the story," Jonny said. "Amaretta, tell him what happened."

"Oh, the next day I was downtown getting some groceries, and I saw the old dyke in the store. She came over to me, really friendly, and I was so nervous when she asked me for my phone number I gave her my real number in the city, and she's been calling me up ever since. She says she forgives me and wants to see me again, she wants to take me to Florida— Florida, for God's sake! She'll rent an apartment for me . . . after what I did to her!" My sister started to giggle.

I wanted to smack her. Here I had always thought she had feelings and now she seemed worse than all the other sleazes and crummy people New York was elemented with.

"And I forgot to tell you!" my sister said with a shriek. "She wore Jockey undershorts!"

"No!" said Jonny.

"Yes!" my sister said. "I just remembered! The old dyke actually wore men's Jockey shorts! Oh, God, how awful! I said to her, 'For never did I behold one mortal like to thee, neither man nor woman: I am awed as I look upon thee. In Delos, once, hard by the altar of Apollo, I saw a young palm tree shooting up with even such a grace.' I was laughing my head off. You know, that's from
The Odyssey,
where Odysseus speaks to Narcissus. You know, Marley had practically the whole thing memorized when he was a kid. We used to recite different parts out loud to each other. It was like a joke to me, undressing this big quivering horse, while she moaned with pleasure. I was like a goddess mucking about with a mortal. I knew what it was like to have power, but it left a nasty taste in my mouth, coming too easily."

One of the Germans, bored, took Amaretta by the arm and they all got up to go. My sister seemed half out of her mind and didn't even say goodbye to me. I should never have let her go. But she had always looked after herself, and she would have belted me in the face if I had even tried to tell her what to do.

So there I was, alone in the Gulag. And after I had another vodka I went home to paint. But the next day, about eight in the morning, I got a call from the cops of the Fifth Precinct. They hadn't been able to track me down until then. My sister had jumped out the seventh-floor window of Jonny J.'s building. When I spoke to Jonny he said he had tried to stop her; but they were heavily coked up, and he thought she was just playing around. When he refused to give her any more coke she climbed out onto a windowsill and he screamed at her to get inside; she was standing on the window ledge and then she slipped.

Well, there aren't many more thoughts in my head. Only a few, like something quite defunct and forgotten in the closet: an old cheese sandwich, perhaps, or a half-empty bottle of root beer. Or worse still, old socks green with lichen and mold. It might have hurt me less if they hadn't published those pictures in the paper, the kind of picture that should be outlawed: my sister like a broken cup, flecked with dust and pencil shavings on the pavement.

A voice came into my head and told me I should give a party. I had always wanted to give a party while I was living with Stash; now that I was alone there was nothing preventing me except that I didn't want to do it. I was afraid.

I thought about it for a while—giving a party—and then I thanked my lucky stars: I didn't have a table or chairs. So that ruled that little whim out. No one could have a party without a place to sit. But the voice kept nagging, "You must give a party, Eleanor. It will be good for you," and finally I broke down. I found myself in a store, purchasing two chairs and a table and arranging to have them delivered.

I could see what my actions were leading to. I understood that I was at a period in my life when everything was falling apart. If I could pull off a successful party then it meant that eventually I'd be able to pull my whole life together.

I knew my room would only comfortably hold four or five people; since I hated to use the telephone, I sent out twenty invitations. The invitations read "Please Come to My Tiny Hovel for Cocktails."

I invited around fifteen men and five women. What I planned to do was introduce all the men I wasn't interested in to my three single girlfriends (the other two women were married and coming with their husbands).

Unfortunately I was certain I had probably called each girl-

friend, following my various dates with the men, and given them the dish on each man's peculiar habits. My only hope was that they wouldn't remember.

The day of the party everything went wrong at once. My table arrived in a box, about fifty pieces of it; it came with instructions in inscrutable English (apparently translated from the Chinese). If I had known it wasn't going to be sent to me whole, I never would have bought it. I tried to screw the various aspects together, but after two hours I had to give up. In appearance the table resembled a table, but the top was merely balanced on the legs, and the whole thing wiggled uncontrollably.

Then I tried to cook some kind of dip (I had a recipe from
Women's Day
for something using cheese and jalapeno peppers) but I couldn't get the stove to work. It was an electric stove, and my electrical field had been shot to hell for a while now. After I broke up with Stash, I went to visit my mother and every time I tried to make a piece of toast the toaster caught on fire. Either that, or it shot flaming pieces of toast halfway across the room.