Before (26 page)

FIFTEEN

The iron-barred doors are wide open, and beyond them is another set of glass doors and a bouncer with a blue T-shirt saying
Security
who greets Ghost-Man with a thin smile, and a woman beside the bouncer, bleached blond, fortyish, who sits behind a small desk. She puts a cigarette in her mouth and takes Ghost-Man's ten dollars and gives him a ticket and five in change and says, “Thanks,” without meaning it. She takes a drag of her cigarette and blows it out and looks out at the parking lot and Route 38, the whizzing of cars there. Ghost-Man puts his change in his wallet, and the woman waits for him to be gone so that she can resume her discussion with the bouncer. Ghost-Man slides his ticket into the wallet, too, imagining the peroxide blonde at the mirror in the morning, angry at the wrinkles, at gravity robbing her of whatever power she once had—a once pretty, now hard face, pinched in bitterness. Perhaps she was a dancer once, also; it is always the story with certain women who make consistent, dumb decisions about men. They tell their friends this is
it,
they are in love: He is handsome, he drives a beautiful car, he has a solid blue-collar job. Perhaps they get pregnant on purpose when the guy isn't coming around as fast as they want him to, and then are surprised at the first fist blows. Surprised that this man who took their breath from them, who seemed to care for them and almost
willed
them into love, can now be so indifferent to them and to his own children. And all the while there are good men, nearby, waiting; but these kinds of women always want something else, some talk-show version of life. They are doomed, these females, perhaps by their history, certainly by the decisions they make. But still they fill you with hope, when they are young, when their bodies move so gracefully. They make you want to bring them things, to lay gifts of possibility at their feet.

Past the glass doors, after the brightness of the highway and then the entrance, the club is in a darkness from which female forms emerge. Ghost-Man sees a curvaceous naked leg, here to the left, rising above the dark silhouettes of staring men, and there to the right, an undulating female back beneath whirling tracer lights of blue and red. Ghost-Man's timing is good; on the center stage, beneath a high, glinting disco ball, Velvet Queen is moving in a black sheer gown, a dark veil over her face. Ghost-Man takes a seat at the left stage, a circle surrounded by a brass rail, for Velvet Queen will be here next, when her set on the main central stage is done. He orders from the waifish, knock-kneed waitress a rum and Coke, and turns on his stool and watches a dancer a few feet from him, in a circle of twenty-some other men, a delightfully pale woman called Autumn, red-haired, with dark red lips. The waitress comes with his drink, smiling at him, because he always tips well: Ghost-Man gives her his customary six dollars. From here he can look over the whole bar, and as his eyes adjust he sees that there are men everywhere, surrounding the stages so deeply that, across the room, where a dancer is lying on the floorboards of the far right stage, he can see only her legs, a long, tapered show rising above the patrons. The place is a dark circus, a constantly moving vision of shadows and color and haunted faces, the many voices a drone beneath Hootie & the Blowfish singing “Let Her Cry.”

Ghost-Man watches Velvet Queen as she sits back on the center stage, leaning on hands, her gown and veil off now. She wears only tall black vinyl boots, and she spreads her legs very slowly for three college guys who have put a group of dollars on the brass rail. She crooks her finger at them and they lean forward eagerly, their faces transformed; it is as if she has brought them all back to Little League, and they've hit a ball solidly with the sweet spot of a bat, and they are watching that moment of effort and intuition soar into the sky. They laugh at what she tells them, and her mock sensuality is momentarily broken, she's acting
friendly,
they're thinking,
She's
great,
why the fuck can't we
meet
women like this?
And in that moment she sweeps forward, takes their dollars, and rises and throws their money to the end of the stage.

And now, a few minutes later, she has come to this stage, the small platform before Ghost-Man, dressed again in the sheer gown, dark underwear beneath but no veil, and as she steps up she lays a hand on Ghost-Man's shoulder and whispers into his ear, “Hi, Simon. Hi, baby.” He murmurs his hello, and something about whether she is having a good night, and she nods and grazes his ear with her fingers and steps onto the circular, polished wood with her dancer's grace; she takes command, so tall in the boots, the light coming through the gown from above, outlining her wonderful form. She starts moving to Linda Ronstadt,
“Feeling better, now that we're through / Feeling better 'cause I'm over you…”
and the song gives Ghost-Man an image from his first year in the army; on leave in Georgia, a college girl taking him back to her dorm, moving above him in bed quietly and with intensity, the roommate asleep on the other bunk. He remembers the heavy smell of alcohol in the room, the taste of Aquafresh toothpaste in the girl's mouth. Some sort of river winding through the campus, a dark S outside the window.

There is a man close to Ghost-Man who has gained the weight of the American male in his thirties, and on his left hand is a wedding ring. He has put a five-dollar bill on the rail, and he looks up expectantly and Ghost-Man, watching him, sipping the rum and Coke, believes he can feel the rise in the chest, the catch in the throat, that the married man does, with Velvet Queen now focused on him.
She knows. Knows the dark center of us. A man cannot hide when she watches you
. She looks down at the married man, the long breadth of her so stunning that for a moment Ghost-Man feels as if he is suspended, somehow, in space; she tilts her head a little at the man, as if to say,
What can we do for
you
?
Velvet Queen lies down before him with her legs very wide, pulls the gown away from her body, and some of the men surrounding Ghost-Man groan. She has one hand supporting her head, and her eyes do not leave those of the married man. She moves her other hand between her legs, runs a long finger over the fabric of her underwear; her fingers deftly move her underwear to the side, and she lightly touches that pink fold of flesh. She lets the panties snap back into place and pulls down the sheer bra and brings a breast up to her mouth, touching a tongue to nipple, watching the married man all the time, and then she smiles to break the spell she has created, and takes the five, turns, and, watching the man over her shoulder, tosses the bill toward the short flight of stairs. The man settles back into his seat, swigging his beer, staring up as Velvet Queen turns to another patron. There is the opening of the man's spirit, the moment of hope the man lives in now that will collide with reality somewhere on the ride home. But the small fire that Velvet Queen has set in him will take a day, maybe two, to die out, and then the man will be back to replenish it.

Ghost-Man drinks. The rum and Coke makes him feel a little better about Alison Tiner, her manic yelling in that close kitchen. He let the fucking rice spook him, that was it, but his reaction—to just walk out the back fucking door once he had taken the plunge, to expose himself to danger—was unacceptable. So the girls here, Velvet Queen, must fortify him, ease him,
she
and
she
and
she
and
she
. He pulls the five-dollar bill from his wallet and lays it on the rail as Velvet Queen dances on the opposite side of the circle; in his wallet are a fifty-dollar bill, and a ten and a few ones, and he will need to break up the fifty for more change, for a twenty, so that after one more meth Velvet Queen can take him by the hand into the VIP room and dance over him, straddle him on the couch, brush his chest with her breasts, and whisper words to him as he smiles with embarrassment or retreats within himself, his eyes with her but also far away, and
anything is all right with her, even (especially) when she holds his arms tightly at the shoulders or wrists, pinning him to the couch, and he whimpers and groans.
Now she turns to him with these extraordinary violet eyes, now she lies naked but for the panties, and she dips a leg over the railing, a vinyl boot, and lets it graze Ghost-Man's shoulder. This earns him respectful glances from the other men, for Velvet Queen has not touched
them
(
“I'm gonna say it again / You're no good / You're no good / You're no good / Baby, you're no good…”
), and Velvet Queen has her legs on either side of Ghost-Man, her body undulating, teasing, and his face, his mouth and eyes, his limbs, seem foolish. The lights move over her and Ghost-Man can hardly swallow. Oh
if
.
If
she could do this each day for him, each evening, he could be harmless. Could tend to this fire and no others. He could live in this shock of black hair, these playful, cruel eyes that consider what the grazing of her leg against his shoulder, his cheek, can do; she watches his chest, his eyes, as if they are parts of some great experiment she is conducting. Ghost-Man's throat is dry. He knows what a fool he looks like—a man approaching the heart of middle age, not yet thick or thin, nothing a woman this age would ever be interested in. Yet he cannot help letting himself go; in these moments with her, he hardly knows who he is. She wets her lips of bloodred. Is it his imagination, or does she always spend a little more time with him than the other customers? She spreads her legs for him, her back arched, the nipples pointing up, her black hair brushing floorboards. This vulva encased in sheer black, teasing. Then she flips up on her knees and comes close to his face as she takes the bill, watching his eyes, saying, “
Thank
you, baby. See you a little later, Simon?” and he recovers enough dignity to say, “A little later,” and leans back again.

Velvet Queen lies back on the floorboards. Behind her, directly across from Ghost-Man, two men have arrived, pushing into the crowd. One is slightly heavy, the other more solidly built, more drunk, with a mustache. She leans back in the circle and holds out her hands to the men, waggling her fingers playfully for money, and the drunk one, the one with the mustache, holds a ten-dollar bill above her, baiting her, and then leans down and whispers something into her ear.

Ghost-Man looks down at Velvet Queen's stomach muscles, the light playing over her belly, and realizes suddenly that those muscles are not moving erotically, but functionally, rippling with the effort: She is raising herself. Her face is furious and she is beginning to weep, and some men behind Ghost-Man are saying,
“What the fuck?”
And the drunk man's grin has gone from knowing to a feigned confusion, the boy after high school caught smoking a joint,
What did I do?
And then three bouncers are on him and he is saying, “Just a money-grabbing bitch, what the fuck did I do?” And Velvet Queen is screaming,
“Motherfucker!”
standing now, pointing at the man, her ass and thighs above Ghost-Man shaking, then holding her arms to her body as if cold, in tears, and Ghost-Man is standing, looking at Velvet Queen being led offstage by a bouncer and another dancer, and the other bouncers are pushing the drunk out the door, “Okay, okay, what the fuck? I didn't even fucking
touch
her!” And Ghost-Man looks at Velvet Queen who, going up to the bar now, is being comforted by the other dancer, Autumn, who hugs her and strokes her hair. More dancers are coming over, and he catches Velvet Queen saying, “He said it so close to me, right into my fucking ear, so fucking vulgar, I just couldn't fucking listen to it—” Another dancer quickly takes Velvet Queen's place in the ring, but Ghost-Man is not paying attention. There is a rushing whisper in his head. He tightens his jaw and moves directly through the glass doors into the parking lot.

Beneath Kascha's eyes, leaning in the darkness against the scaffolding, the drunk man and his heavier friend are lighting cigarettes, laughing, giving each other the high-five. The clapping of the hands makes something in Ghost-Man's heart snap, and he is walking for them. He sees the drunk turning, lighting the cigarette, black eyes of amusement as they turn to him, the friend staring hard, in a blue baseball cap, and Ghost-Man slaps the cigarette from the drunk's lips and hits him with an elbow to the teeth, and the drunk goes down, writhing, and the heavy friend has Ghost-Man by the neck, and, in a fury, Ghost-Man takes one fleshy forearm and judo flips the man hard onto the tar; he turns and the drunk is up and holding a switchblade, looking frightened but coming forward, and Ghost-Man takes the thrusting arm and breaks it at the wrist, then snaps it at the elbow, and the drunk is screaming and Ghost-Man twists him until he is on the ground, the knife beside his head. Ghost-Man picks it up, points it into the man's ear.

“Whoa—” his friend says, rasping there, up on his knees. He holds up his hands. “Just fucking take it easy, man. He's an idiot fucking drunk. You win.”

Ghost-Man hears the man beneath him breathing hard, groaning at his broken arm. He thinks of Velvet Queen, shaking, her sorry arms holding her body tight, the streak of tear down the side of her face when she fell onto the shoulder of the other stripper. He pushes the knife, hard and quickly, through the head, and the mouth of the drunk opens and screams, screaming jaw, and the metal tip of the knife strikes the pavement.

*   *   *

Then Ghost-Man is driving down 38 again, under the streetlights, blood smearing his steering wheel. The friend in the baseball cap had retched when Ghost-Man passed the knife through the head, retched and then run, still puking, and Ghost-Man pulled out the knife and stood up from that bloody head and checked around to see if anyone was looking—nobody was—and stepped over the body and walked calmly to his car.