In the City of Shy Hunters (67 page)

The light from below me came up to my windows, in through my windows. At night, lying on my futon, the fluorescence glowed all around me.

At midnight the lights went off and the music stopped. Weekends one o'clock.

It ruined the stoop. You can't sit on a stoop with light like that and pop hits over and over.

So the summer of '88 I didn't do much stoop sitting. Because of the light and because Rose started chemotherapy. Karposi's sarcoma.

I don't know which was worse, the purple berry bumps on Rose's legs or the brain fry he came home with after a chemo session.

One night as I turned the corner from the Bowery onto East Fifth, there was Rose. There in the mercury-vapor dust-storm light, Rose was sweeping. Three o'clock in the morning.

Rose was all in black with a black stocking cap. The closer I got to him the more he didn't look like my Rose, but Rose as some character of the night: the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Old Lamplighter, a chimney sweep, Frankenstein.

My open palm on beaded blue horizontal, beaded red vertical. My open palm on Charlie.

Evening, Rose, I said.

Rose didn't look up, kept on sweeping.

The whole problem, Rose said, With this garbage, Rose said, Is there are people out there who are hungry and have no home and no place to take a shit. And to these people, a garbage can means food and clothing and salable items.

Lined up on the sidewalk were five silver garbage cans, plastic garbage liners a ruffle of black under the silver lids. On each silver lid was a piece of duct tape; written on the duct tape, black Magic Marker words.

On the first garbage can were the black words
EDIBLE FOOD
.

On the second garbage can, the black word
CLOTHING
.

The third garbage can,
HOUSEHOLD ITEMS
.

On the next, the black words
REFUND
:
BOTTLES AND CANS
.

On the last garbage can:
NOTHING OF VALUE, KEEP THE FUCK OUT
.
TRUST ME ON THIS ONE
.

Rose's prizefighter nose, his clitoris-bump forehead, his eightball cheeks, his keep-your-chin-up chin were covered with purple bumps. In the mercury-vapor light, the bumps looked like Ruby's cockroaches.

Trickle down
, Ronald Reagan likes to call it, Rose said. You know what trickle down is, don't you? Rose said. That's what goes down your leg if you don't shake it.

What trickle down means, Rose said, Is feeding the horse, so when the horse takes a shit the rats get something to eat too.

Rose's black T-shirt said
FUCK THE UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND
.

Pollution is everywhere, Rose said. Right now did you know that there are a hundred tons of New York garbage circling the island on a barge nobody wants to take?

We are so busy filling up the void, Rose said, We are filling our world with the garbage it takes to fill the void.

I took the broom handle away from Rose. He did not resist.

Come on, Rose, I said, Let's go smoke some Sho-ko-lat.

Tea, Rose said, Herbal tea.

I've got peppermint, I said.

I took Rose's arm, and we were one step, two. On the third step, Rose stopped.

In Rose's eyes, no coiled-up black serpent.

I unlocked the front door, pushed the door open. The unrelenting light on Rose's purple bumps.

You did a great job on the garbage, I said. I've never seen the place look so clean.

We live in our throwaway, Rose said. When there's no place to shit you can't walk for shit.

ANOTHER NIGHT, I
found Rose up on the roof. He was standing where the roof slopes up, on the cornice, on the edge, his toes dangling over East Fifth Street. He was wearing his gold lamé pajamas and holding a martini-up cocktail glass in his right hand, a Gauloise in his left.

My open palm on the beaded blue, the beaded red. My open palm on Charlie.

Rose?

A gust of wind found Rose and fluttered his pajamas. Rose leaned forward a little against the wind, then leaned back, spilling some of his martini. Rose leaning back and forth, back and forth, side to side; I thought for sure he was going over, thought for sure Rose's blood was on East Fifth Street, all over the garbage cans, so red on the sidewalk in the fluorescent Videoland light.

I started singing:

Rose didn't turn around. He started singing too:

Then we were singing together, and when Rose turned around he almost fell over into chaos, into unrelenting light, but he steadied himself and walked down the slope of cornice, walked up to me, and we started dancing, me the girl, me Elizabeth Taylor, and we sang “Up on the Roof,” all the choruses, and when we finished that song, we sang Peggy Lee's “Is That All There Is,” and when we finished that song we sang Nina Simone's “Wild Is the Wind,” and after that Rose was tired.

I helped Rose down the stairs, Rose not so extra-lovely anymore, not even lovely.

When I unlocked his door, Mary, Mona, and Jack Flash were barking barking and running around our feet and jumping up on us.

I got Rose to put on his Moroccan caftan, got him to sit in his purple-velvet overstuffed chair. I made tea.

Rose didn't drink the tea, just sat and stared, so I went down to Fifth Street Videoland, into the unrelenting bright and Top Hits tape loop, and rented Sunset
Boulevard
.

Rose knew every one of Gloria Swanson's lines and said each line right along with her.

When I rewound the video, the TV came on, and it was an old Barbara Walters interview with Ronald and Nancy Reagan before the Oscars.

When Barbara Walters said to President Reagan that he was the most popular president since John F. Kennedy, Rose stood up, walked into the kitchen, came back with his silver revolver, and shot the television.

It's the truth.

The dogs ran yelping under the bed, and there was smoke that smelled of electric wiring and a gassy smell. I was sitting on the blonde-fainting couch holding onto my teacup for dear life. Shards of glass on everything. My hands, my shirt, my black waiter pants, my legs, tiny pieces of glass like sequins stuck to me.

Rose yelled at the black hole where the television used to be, Barbara Walters, you are such a
dumb
bitch.

Bracelets clack-clack.

Don't you know Ronald Reagan wasn't the most popular president since John Kennedy until
you
fucking said it? You have completely overstepped the bounds of accountability, Rose yelled, And have forgotten that the medium is the message!

So Noam Chomsky.

By that time, the dogs were all sitting on the blonde-fainting couch next to me. Rose was pointing the gun at us, like Sister Barbara Ann's pointer stick.

Don't let anybody tell you different, Rose yelled. The media are fully aware of their power.

Across the room, on top of everything in the room, exploded opaque glass. Under the light of Rose's Italian chandelabra, the room was glitter, tiny illuminations.

My open palm on the beaded blue, the beaded red. My open palm on Charlie.

Rose, I said, I think you should lie down.

* * *

IN DOG SHIT
Park, I sat down on the green bench by Ruby's Home Sweet Home. I was drinking my morning coffee and eating a com muffin. It was already a hot day. Dog shit stinking real bad. I was telling Ruby again about the medicine bundle and the Museum of Unnatural History. In all the world, there I was, just another crazy New Yorker sitting on a park bench talking to himself.

That same morning, a figure walked past me on the sidewalk. I say
figure
because I don't know what else to call it. It was a walking umbrella with a red plastic shower curtain hanging down all around off the spokes of the umbrella. The bare feet were coated with tar. There was also a humming. The person inside the red shower curtain was humming a song. The tune was familiar but I couldn't place it.

A week later, I saw Umbrella Red Shower Curtain in the meatpacking district. I'd gone over there just walking walking, maybe to see if I could find Crystal again, but there was no Crystal and not one dragon on the street.

No Charlie 2Moons to look for anymore. Charlie was a buckskin bag, the blue and the red, against my throat.

I was standing on the corner of 14th in front of the pink triangular building whose basement door had been the entrance to Hell. It was maybe seven, twilight,
entre chien et loup
, when all of a sudden, just like that—abracadabra!—Umbrella Red Shower Curtain walked by. It made a sound when it walked that was the same as the first time I saw it in Dog Shit Park. It was the sound of plastic sliding along the sidewalk, and the sound of the knees of the person inside against the plastic as it walked. Plus the humming. From inside came the humming of the song I knew but couldn't place.

THE THIRD TIME
I saw Umbrella Red Shower Curtain was in Tribeca. I'd walked down to a greenhouse and nursery down there to check out their cherry trees. I was looking at a Kwanzan cherry, looking at its beautiful peeling purple-red bark, when I heard the plastic against the sidewalk and looked up to see Umbrella Red Shower Curtain and the tarred feet. Humming the same song.

Then, a couple of weeks later, in Dog Shit Park again, on the green bench, morning coffee and com muffin again, talking to Ruby again, just like that, Umbrella Red Shower Curtain came walking and plastic-sliding and humming by. I stopped mid-slurp of morning coffee and listened hard. Then I said it. “Famous Blue Raincoat!” I said.

Umbrella Red Shower Curtain said, William of Heaven! So nice to see you again.

Susan Strong? I said.

Fiona, Fiona said. Ruby Prestigiacomo gave me my name, remember? My whole name is Fiona Yet. When you knew me I wasn't quite Fiona Yet.

Fiona's laugh just like her mother's.

Fiona opened the shower curtain and said, the way you'd say come into my apartment, she said, Come in! Come in!

My open palm against the red; I stepped inside under the umbrella.

Bad breath. Sweat. Fiona put her arms around me, her big red leather purse in one of her hands. I thought she was embracing me, but she was just closing the curtain.

Mustn't let them see! Fiona said.

See what? I said. Fiona, what are you doing?

What was two inches from my face was a face I barely recognized. No red lips, no eye makeup. Her blue eyes were bloodshot and puffy, the scar above her lip a blue-scarred bruise. I didn't recognize the body either.

Shit happens. Fiona was pregnant.

Fiona smiled. One of her front teeth was missing.

What happened to your tooth? I said.

Tooth? Fiona said.

You've lost a tooth, I said.

Tooth fairy! Fiona said.

Then: I've seen you all over the place, I said, The past month or so. When did you get back from Connecticut? How's your father? Where are you living? Why are you dressed like this?

Fiona was wearing a wife-beater and men's boxer shorts with
I
NEW YORK
on them.

I touched her hair, all matted together, and said, What? Are you going Rasta on me?

Fiona reached up to my neck, the buckskin bag in the palm of her hand. I like your medicine bag, Fiona said. Cool!

Then: You're going to need all the medicine you can get your hands on! Fiona said. There's going to be a war!

Fiona's arms were so thin, her legs.

War? I said.

Here! Fiona said.

In America? I said.

Here! Fiona said, and pointed her finger down to the sidewalk.

You mean in New York? I said.

In Dog Shit Park, Fiona said. Here! Soon!

When the horse shit hits the fan, Fiona said, You'll know where to find me. I'll be right fucking here.

Fiona stamped her bare foot on cement.

Fiona's face was dirty, her eyes not on the premises; her breath stunk, and her hands and arms and legs and feet were almost black with dirt and grease.

There was no stepping away.

Where are you staying? I said.

In here, Fiona said. In the Famous Blue Raincoat. You know in the song when Leonard sings,
Did you ever go clear
? Well, one night, I'd bought a bottle of Everclear. I was in Connecticut then. I'd just got out of Silver Lake. How long ago was that? God, what a dreary place that is! Makes Betty Ford look like Betty Crocker! I was on the ramp for the train heading back to the city, Fiona said, And I had my Walkman on, and I was drinking my Everclear and just as I took a swig, Leonard Cohen sang
Did you ever go clear
?

And I went clear, Fiona said. Completely clear. It isn't
present so
much that you want to be completely in. It's
clear
where you want to be completely in, Fiona said.