In the City of Shy Hunters (38 page)

Looks like pain, sounds like pain.

The little scream that gives it all away.

Help.

CHARLIE WAS LYING
in the muddy grass. Mud on his knees, his butt, his face. His long wavy hair all undone, in the mud. Bobbie was lying curled up into herself, perfectly inside the cornflower-blue rectangle.

I was on my knees.

To God.

The tune Charlie was humming was “America the Beautiful,” the
above the fruited plain
part.

I let myself fall, just let go, splat onto the muddy grass.

No Known Universe. No map. Nowhere. No way out but in.

Bobbie, Charlie, and me lying crooked like after a tornado, arms and legs every which way.

We are all still lying there, in the meadow, on the muddy grass, after the tornado: Bobbie, Charlie, and I.

Roadkill.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

S
parrows in the trees in Sheridan Square Park, and the streetlamp light made the lime green of the trees look neon.

That's where I saw Rose.

But it's not the truth.

It was Argwings Khodek I saw. On the poster in the theater window for upcoming attractions.

The face that stared back at me from the poster had extreme eyebrows painted on his forehead, and gobs of eye makeup and lipstick, a dark red drape over his head, and a long black wig.

On my way back home, just down from Saint Luke's Hospital, a young man sat in a doorway. He was wearing penny loafers with no socks, khaki pants, and a blue T-shirt. Short-cropped hair, Armani glasses, Polo. The young man was holding his knees and rocking back and forth, wailing and sobbing.

He was not Charlie 2Moons, but Charlie had wept like that, and even myself I had wept like that too.

I went to go over to sit next to the young man, hold his hands, hold him steady, be the somebody else there for him, but like everybody else in the street I walked on by.

He was already dead and I was dead too.

When I got back to the piles of garbage and the squares of smiling people holding beers looking up at me, I realized I was home.

Sitting on the stoop of 205 East Fifth Street were Rose and Mary and Mona and Jack Flash.

Rose's T-shirt said
FUCK BERNHARD GOETZ
.

There were two Budweisers in the ‘53 DeSoto, cold ones. I put the beers each in a brown paper bag and just before I went back out on the stoop, I opened the window, moved my boom box around so the speakers were pointed out the window, and turned the volume up.

Power 95 was playing Michael Jackson's “Beat It.” When I got out on the stoop, “Billie Jean” came on.

On the stoop next to Rose, old Mary was panting panting, and Mona was an overweight Italian girl panting, and Jack Flash panted with his head between Rose's butt and the cast-iron step.

I sat down, handed a beer to Rose. Rose tipped his beer up and I tipped my beer up, long drinks. Rose's black thighs were as big around as my waist, the skin shiny, slick with sweat. He was wearing his leather-tooled studio flats. The only other thing on his body was a pair of black Speedos—smuggled grapes under those Speedos.

You been looking for your buddy? Rose said.

Not-looking, I said.

The way Rose looked at me, I knew I had to explain myself, so I told Rose about the killdeer bird and the trick she plays on you, and how when I looked for Charlie 2Moons I didn't look for him.

I rolled cigarettes, one for me, one for Rose. Lit Rose's, lit mine.

Right next to me Rose's arm, his skin, the green Bakelite bracelet, the copper bracelet, the silver Sikh bracelet, the gold bracelet with the lapis, the jade bracelet, clack-clack.

Rose's lips were full and round and black at the line where lip meets face, then inside, that color, not pink, not fuchsia. Rose, sunset rose, the inside color of Rose's lips. Where else on his body was that color?

Then: Say, I said, I saw you on a poster tonight.

Antigone
, Rose said.

On the accordion, I said.

And the piano, Rose said. Perhaps the violin.

Antigone, I said, Just who was she? I get so confused. I said, The Greeks and the Romans with the same gods calling them different names.

Rose tipped the Budweiser up. The light from the porch of 205 East Fifth on the wet brown bottle.

It's all drag, Rose said.

On Rose's forehead, there were two horizontal lines, parallel, then from the bottom line, two vertical lines, parallel, down to in between his eyes. The bump in between, like a clitoris.

I came, I saw, I conquered, Rose said. What the Romans conquered they made their own. Same old story.

The more Rose talked, the higher he lifted his chin. Sometimes all he could see was sky.

Rose, beautiful according to Africa. Deep, violent beauty, jungles of heat, sun-baked Sahara, a black snake winding along the rim of a sand dune.

How's the play end? I said.

Everybody dies, Rose said.

THAT
'
S THE WAY
the evening started. It was always that way with Rose. Sit your butt down on the stoop, crack a beer open, break the ice by saying something nice like
I saw your face on a poster
, and before you know it Jack Flash is under the stoop, there's a quick fuss, then Jack Flash comes walking up the steps with a dead rat half his size in his mouth, and you look over at Rose, at the gap between Rose's two front teeth, at Rose's lips, and Rose is talking talking, and you're up to your eyeballs in Theology, Shakespeare, and Greek Mythology.

Wasn't long and the beers were gone and there wasn't any more beer in the ‘53 DeSoto, so I went to the deli and bought another six-pack. When I got back, on the stoop next to Rose was a bottle of mescal, cutup fresh limes on a white linen napkin, and a shaker of salt.

Power 95 on my boom box: Madonna, “Like a Virgin.”

Rose unscrewed the cap on the mescal, tipped the bottle up, drank, handed the bottle to me.

Forgot I had this, Rose said.

The mescal was the color of piss after B vitamins. A dead worm floated on the bottom.

A big smile on Rose, nostrils flaring. The black pieces of coal that were his eyes direct into my eyes. The gap between his two front teeth. The black snake.

Whoever gets the worm, Rose said, bracelets clack-clack, Gets his wish.

In my forearms first, the fear, then up to my shoulders, splash down through heart, cattle prod to my cock.

Rose. His breath, the sunset color of the inside of his lips, his open mouth, his Sahara Desert open palms, Rose's heartbeat, Rose's black skin. Africa.

And me, just me, my broken language, my broken dick, my broken heart.

The worm in the mescal floated at the bottom of the bottle.

All that mescal between me and the worm.

Then: All daring and courage, I said, All iron endurance of misfortune, I said, Make for a finer, nobler type of manhood.

I took a swig and handed the bottle back to Rose.

You're on, I said.

So Rose and I passed the bottle back and forth, back and forth between us, on the stoop, surrounded by garbage, photographs of people smiling and drinking beer staring up at us, mercury-vapor light, flies, garbage stink, three dogs and a dead rat, traffic, cars and vans and trucks and taxis hitting the pothole, Power 95 “What's Love Got to Do with It” on the boom box.

Rose tipped the bottle up, Rose's chin up up, poured the mescal down his throat, his Adam's apple up and down, up and down.

I'm going to plant a cherry tree right there, Rose said, and pointed to the rectangle of earth where I'd plant the cherry tree.

I tipped the bottle up, took a long drink, sloshed the mescal inside my mouth. Through my heart. Splash down into the stomach.

There should be a cherry tree in front of Two-oh-five East Fifth Street, don't you think? Rose said.

The bottle was between my legs on the cast-iron step.

Surprised they even grow, I said, in this place.

Trees will always grow, Rose said. Trees are kind and enduring.

But look at all this fucking garbage, I said. What a mess this place is.

Rose took the bottle, tipped the bottle up, took a long drink. When he gave the bottle to me, Rose's eyes were black holes in a white firmament.

Out of balance, Rose said. The sun and the moon, light and darkness, male and female. Out of balance.

The Greeks called it the Golden Mean, Rose said, And an excess on either end of the scale causes imbalance. Imbalance disrupts order, Rose said. Destroys context, creates chaos.

Rose set the bottle down on the cast-iron step. I started rolling cigarettes, one for him, one for me; lit his, mine. The way Rose inhaled, the way Rose stared straight ahead at something inside him, the way
Rose exhaled the smoke through his flaring nostrils, I knew I was in for a Rose soliloquy, so I quick took a drink, a long one. No worm.

In the beginning, Rose said, bracelets clack-clack, The world was female, one huge maelstrom of being. The problem was there was no place for the male. But this one day something happened, and an Alpha male stepped outside the maelstrom and said, Wait a fucking minute! This is too confusing. I'm going to
think
about the huge revolving maelstrom instead of constantly rolling around in it. And then the Alpha male sat down like Rodin's sculpture,
Man Thinking
.

Rose on the stoop, on the third step, sitting like Rodin's
Man Thinking.
The porch light across Rose's shoulder made
Man Thinking
a blacker blue.

The male principle, Rose said, Provided a scaffolding, provided order. And pretty soon, everybody was
Man Thinking
—men and women both—and now we're all sitting and thinking about it rather than being it.

Look around us, Will, Rose said, At the imbalance, at the garbage, the monkey chatter, the mind chaos. We are living in a time where meaning has been obliterated by an excess of the male. We take it as given that the world outside us must be approached through thought. We are so busy filling the void, we are filling the world with garbage. We take it as given that the White Paranoid Patriarch—who is the master of domination, achievement,
veni, vidi
,
vici
—is our voice, our spokesman. We take it as given that Christianity and the belief in Jesus H. Christ as our savior is the only religious truth because some white guy says so. We take it as given that some Polish sausage is the Vicar of Christ on earth. We take it as given that it is not fiscally possible for the ordinary American citizen to have access to health care. We take it as given that more Latinos and African Americans should be in prison than go to university. We take it as given that women do not make as much money as men. We take it as given that Native Americans are a conquered people and should live on those patches of infertile land we let them have. We take it as given that sex is male penetrating female.

We are living in a world of false assumptions, Rose said, bracelets clack-clack. Ergo: that which appears to be is not.

Rose reached up to my ear, pulled a quarter out of it, laid the quarter in my open palm.

Now don't get me wrong, Rose said. Without the male
principle we would still be spinning in the eternal maelstrom. We need the male principle to exist. It's the
balance
of the male and the female that's important.

I know plenty of men, Rose said, Who have more female energy than most women. And vice versa.

Rose's chin was way up, Rose staring, so I looked up too and there it was across the street, the moon just above Mother's Sound Stages.

Our society, Rose said, Is based on hatred of everything the Greeks called female. Our society hates everything we can't rationally explain, everything dark.

Everything black, Rose said, bracelets clack-clack.

The dust-storm light from the streetlamp was just under the moon. The two lights together were
WALK
and
DON
'
T WALK
. On East Fifth Street, to the left, to the right, no people walking. No Charlie 2Moons.

I picked up the bottle, missed my mouth, mescal all down the front of my Guinea T-shirt.

It's a mess, I said.

Life is a mess, Rose said. You can fix the mess human beings make, Rose said, But you can't fix the mess being human is.

L'énigme!
Rose said. The Golden Mean is sought but never found.

I tipped the bottle up, looked quick to see how far was the worm, couldn't even see the worm, so I just drank and drank and drank.

No worm.

I handed the bottle back to Rose.

Then: You're Catholic, Rose said.

Not anymore, I said.

In recovery, Rose said.

Yeah, I said.

With Catholicism, Rose said, One doesn't recover.

Rose tipped the bottle up, sloshed mescal, swallowed, Adam's apple up and down, up and down.

One has to reupholster, Rose said.

When Rose took a drink this time I saw the worm float up.

It's absurd—life, Rose said. But by acknowledging the absurdity there is a consciousness, a self-reflection that, with refinement, can bring a certain enjoyment. Don't you agree?

I was smiling, stopped smiling. The bottle was on the step between my feet. I took a swig, set the bottle on the stoop between us, and rolled a cigarette—one for Rose, one for me. Lit his, lit mine.

The Top Forty was over and I'd been listening to Rose so hard I missed what number one was, and the music was sounding like CBGB's, so I
got up and went in and changed the radio station from Power 95 to Harlem WBLS at the end of the dial.