In the City of Shy Hunters (5 page)

Ruby and 1 were about the same: six foot two. I had twenty pounds on him. Something about the way Ruby looked right then—his jaw, the skin of his face below his sidebum—so beautiful. When I stood full up, I was face-to-face with Ruby's smile.

Ruby poked his finger in my chest. The will of heaven, Ruby said, Is in your heart.

Then: New York, new place, Ruby said.

His hands pressed down the lapel of my corduroy coat.

Handsome Einstein new self-concept, Ruby said.

New concept new name, Ruby said.

New name? I said.

When you cross over, Ruby said, You need a new name.

Will of Heaven! Ruby said, his arm in the air; his hand cupped, fingers and thumb together like Italians do, five points of a star: his grand easy smile.

From inside the van, True Shot yelled, William of Heaven! Ho!

Ruby pulled the hair tie from around his ponytail and shook his head. His red-blond hair was shiny all the way to his shoulders.

You got our business card? Ruby said. You're sure?

Sure, I said, and pulled the card from my side pocket,
ROMEOMOVERS
.
SPIRIT SCHLEPPERS
.
DOG SHIT PARK
.

Where's the keys to the apartment? Ruby said.

I took my wallet out of my inside jacket pocket, and out of the side pocket of my wallet I pulled three big keys, one little key.

One for the outside door, two for the inside, Ruby said. The little one's for the mailbox. Get a duplicate made. Give a set to somebody you trust. You can trust me, Ruby said, his smile. Keep the other set. Always remember, New Yorkers love only those who love themselves. Always put yourself first. Dress down for the subway. Get an answering machine. And remember, New Yorkers take pride in always knowing where they are. Buy a map. Always know where you are. If you don't, act like you do.

Then: LA is the
me
city, Ruby said, and New York is the
you
city. In LA it's fuck
me
. In New York it's fuck
you.
Adopt the attitude. It's all in the face. Mostly in the eyes.

Like this, Ruby said.

Ruby's eyes were looking right at me, but they were more like looking through me: no smile, his lip curled up, his nostrils in and out.

New York drop-dead fuck-you, Ruby said. The attitude. Now you try it.

I made like I thought Ruby wanted me to look.

Pull your ball cap down, Ruby said. Look at me but don't see me. No no no! Ruby said, and tapped each shoulder. No chip on your shoulder—somebody will try and knock it off. It's passive, Ruby said. It's like you're already dead and you wish everybody else was dead too.

New York drop-dead fuck-you, Ruby said.

It takes practice, Ruby said.

Ruby picked up my duffel bag, slung it over his shoulder.

Want me to spend the night with you? Ruby said. First night of your crossover and all. I could help if there's a problem. Ain't easy fixing a center, Ruby said. Ruby's smile.

No, I said. No, thanks. I'll be fine.

Don't get me wrong, Ruby said. It ain't usual—Ruby pulled the brim of my ball cap back up—that I feel this way about a person, one that I just met.

Then: If it's the gay cancer you're worried about, Ruby said, We can just hold each other.

Inside Door of the Dead van, I bent and turned my head into True Shot's mirrors. His shiny silver rings. The beaded blue horizontal and red vertical on the buckskin bag hanging on the buckskin strand, his red bandanna.

Ruby said, True Shot doesn't have sex socially. It would be just me.

No, I said. Thanks.

Then: I can carry the duffel bag, I said.

Ruby let my duffel bag drop.

I don't mean to freak you out, man, Ruby said, And I'm not irresponsible. Just lonely. And Einstein's the sexiest man ever, next to Martin Luther King, Jr. And when I saw you at the airport, standing alone in the fluorescence, checking for your wallet, I don't know what the fuck happened to me.

It was just so human how you were, Ruby said. Ruby's smile.

I was wounded by a blow of love, Ruby said.

My heartbeat at my ears was a siren.

Then my lips were flying lips against Ruby's. Ruby's lips were soft, his breath was cigarettes and beer and the sweet smell of his soul. We
kissed big, a deep kiss like in the movies, my hands in his hair, down his back, and onto his ass.

But it's not the truth.

Thanks, I said, For the ride. For everything.

ALL DODGES SOUND
the same when you start them up.

Vaya con Dios
, True Shot said.

Happy Trails! Ruby said. Until we meet again!

Keep smiling until then
was the song in my head as I put the key in the door of 205 East Fifth Street. Down the street, Door of the Dead van turned right on Third Avenue. True Shot shifted into second, and just like that the Dodge van was gone. I turned the key and pushed the steel door and I was inside, under the unrelenting fluorescent halo in the hallway.

APARTMENT I
-
A WAS
on my right. It took me awhile in the bright to find the right key. Just as I turned the key in the top lock, the door behind me,
I
-C, opened up as far as the chain allowed. A cat tried to jump out the door, but a foot in a dirty fluffy pink slipper kicked it. The cat yowled and ducked back in. The woman stuck the cat she was holding in her hand out the door first, before she stuck her own self out. This cat was a longhaired yellow and looked at me with the New York drop-dead fuck-you.

What I first saw about the woman was her blue shower hat and the Kleenex under the elastic part of the shower hat. Then her eyebrows: two red swoops exactly the way in my mother's penmanship how she crossed her T's: too fancy. Then it was Scotch I smelled, and cigarettes. Scotch and cigarettes and cat shit and kitty litter.

Mrs. Lupino came together all at once as herself when she spoke. You knew all about her with that voice, deep as a lava flow, soft as mud.

You Ellen's cowboy? Mrs. Lupino said. The one that's moving in?

Ellen? I said. How do you know about Ellen?

She told me about you, Mrs. Lupino said.
Everything
.

The one from potato country? Mrs. Lupino asked.

From Idaho, I said. Yes.

Mrs. Lupino's hand on the yellow cat was liver spots and pink Lee Press-On nails.

Then do it! Mrs. Lupino said.

Do it? I said.

What you do with the cigarettes, she said.

I put down my duffel bag and my suitcase. Rolled a cigarette with one hand like I can, handed the cigarette through the opening in the door. Mrs. Lupino took the cigarette, pink Lee Press-On nails, liver spots, put the cigarette in between her lips, wrinkles all around her lips, no lipstick. I lit Mrs. Lupino's cigarette.

Watch for my babies because I'm opening the door, she said, and closed the door, undid the chain, and opened the door again. Cats everywhere.

Upstairs, another door opened, and at the top of the stairs stood a person and then a little dog, a terrier, who started yapping, then a bigger dog, then an old dog, limping, with spots. There was no light on the second-story landing, and I couldn't see who was standing at the top of the stairs. The person was big and wearing a long robe, that's all I could tell, except I knew this person was black.

Things start where you don't know.

That person was Rose, Rose and his dogs, Mona, Mary, and Jack Flash. Bracelets, lots of bracelets, the clack-clack of them.

Rose upstairs, Ruby just gone around the corner. The closest those two ever got. Except for in me.

It's all right, Rose! Mrs. Lupino called sing-songy up the stairs. This is Ellen's cowboy. You remember Ellen telling us about her cowboy?

The voice from the second landing was a real deep James Earl Jones.

Which one? Rose said. There were so many.

Oh, Rose! Mrs. Lupino laughed. The
cowboy
—you know the one. The one from potato country.

The grilled salmon and the Pinot Gris and the limp dick? Rose said.

Mrs. Lupino inhaled on the cigarette. Wrinkles around her lips, all smiles at me.

Yes, Mrs. Lupino said, That's the one!

The pain starts in my forearms, then goes up my arms, then splashes down through my heart, a cattle prod straight to my cock.

Nice cats, I said.

Cats! What cats? Mrs. Lupino said, eyebrows into Kleenex. There's no cats.

From the deep voice on the second landing: Mrs. Lupino got rid of all her cats.

Every one of them, Mrs. Lupino said. All around her lips, wrinkles, wrinkles.

Every single cat, she said. Not one fucking iota of a single fucking cat left.

There were three cats in the hall. Mrs. Lupino was holding the yellow fuck-you drop-dead cat, and there were cats at Mrs. Lupino's feet, cats running behind her inside her apartment.

No cats, I said.

No cats already! Mrs. Lupino said, and made a click with her tongue. Just like that, the cats in the hallway all ran back into the apartment. Mrs. Lupino closed her door.

My eyes counted up thirteen blue linoleum steps to the second floor.

This
is
, I said loud, The right apartment? I said pointing to
I
-A.

Ellen Zigman's apartment, I said. Right?

My mother's nerves.

Clavelle, the deep voice said. She got married. Her name is now Ellen Clavelle.

Right, I said, Clavelle. This is her apartment? Ellen Clavelle's apartment?

You've got it wrong, the deep voice said. Mrs. Lupino is in Ellen's old apartment,
I
-C. It's hers now. The landlord, Ellen's uncle, gave her Ellen's apartment when Mrs. Lupino got rid of her cats. Your apartment is Mrs. Lupino's old apartment—
I
-A—and it's the door to your right.

We're neighbors, Mrs. Lupino said through her closed door. Then: 'Night, Rose, she called out, sing-songy.

Good night, Mrs. Lupino, the deep voice up the stairs said—bracelets, lots of bracelets, clack-clack—and then Rose at the top of the stairs was gone, and the dogs, and I heard the door close, and then each of the three locks were locked, just as Mrs. Lupino locked her three locks, then the chains.

In all the world, in a narrow blue hallway, there I was standing alone, squinting in the unrelenting fluorescence.

ONE
-
A
.
THE OTHER
key unlocked the bottom lock. The last turn of the key on the bottom you had to push the door. The steel door opened into dark.

Cat shit. Cat piss. Cat spray. Cat hair. Cat food. Cat litter.

To the wall on the right, I reached my hand into the dark. Turned the light on.

A bright box. More fluorescent halos. Unrelenting, the light from above.

Home.

THAT
'
S WHEN IT
happened: the worst possible thing. My wallet was not in my inside jacket pocket. Not in my side pockets, my back pockets, not in the front pockets of my Levi's. Not in the suitcase with the travel stickers on it, not in my backpack, not in the duffel bag. No wallet.

Not in the narrow blue hallway on the floor.

Not on any of the eleven cast-iron steps of the stoop, not on the sidewalk, not in the gutter, not in the street.

Door of the Dead van pulled up. True Shot shifted into second, put on the brakes. Ruby's ponytail, his arm out the window.

Lose something? Ruby hollered.

My wallet! I hollered back. I've lost my wallet!

The red-yellow hair on Ruby's arm. Inside the van True Shot's mirrors, his shiny silver rings. I put my head in close, my body not so close.

My wallet's gone, I said.

That's because I stole it, Ruby said. Ruby's smile.

Ruby handed me my wallet.

In all the world, in New York City on East Fifth Street, standing in the rectangle of earth where I'd plant the cherry tree, I stood looking at my wallet in my hands.

You stole my wallet? I said. Why did you steal my wallet?

Dumb question, Ruby said. For the five hundred and ninety-three dollars, for the traveler's checks, for the cashier's check.

In my wallet: five hundred-dollar bills, the other bills, the traveler's checks, the cashier's check.

It is this way, True Shot said. Ruby stole your wallet because you asked him to.

But that's the last thing, I said, I wanted!

Ruby's eyes were looking right at me, but they were more like looking through me. No smile, his lip curled up, and his nostrils went in and out.

New York drop-dead fuck-you.

Ruby winked.

When you don't want something as much as you didn't want your wallet to get stole that means only one thing, Ruby said.

Your worst fears, True Shot said.

That's what's important about Wolf Swamp and why you've come here, Ruby said. You can't want anything or not want anything that much.

Now that you're in Wolf Swamp, True Shot said, Now that you've come because you were afraid to come—

You're in a whole new ball game, Ruby said. Crossed over. You got to be careful in a whole 'nother way of what you want and what you don't want. What you fear.

Before, you were afraid of your fears happening and you spent all your time making sure they didn't happen, True Shot said. Now that you've crossed over, you're spending all your time making sure they do.

Hell of a fix, Ruby said.

Up Shit Creek, True Shot said.

In a world of hurt, Ruby said.

If you go around checking your wallet every goddamn minute like a goddamn fool, Ruby said, Then you, William of Heaven, are destined for New York Fucking City fucking roadkill.

Then: Did you lock yourself out? Ruby asked.

My hands went quick all over all my pockets, and my keys were in my right side pocket. I held my keys up and showed them to Ruby and True Shot.

I'll bet you left your apartment door open, Ruby said. Never leave your apartment door open!